Supplying the Insatiable Demand: Europe's Populist Radical Right

A West European Style Populist Radical Right Movement in America? The Case of the Tea Party

The Tea Party (TP), whose candidates made significant gains in the 2010-midterm elections, lacks a place in the comparative party literature and also defies ready classification. Is it solely a movement to reduce the size of government and cut taxes as its name – some refer to it as the Taxed Enough Already party – implies? Or do its supporters share a broader set of conservative positions on s...

The dynamics of social change in Radical Right-wing Populist party support

Since the initial rise of Radical Right-wing Populist parties (RRPs) in the mid-1980s, comparative analyses have tried to identify the core social and attitudinal elements to these parties’ electorates and changes therein. To date, none of these has been accepted as providing a satisfactory typology of RRPs. Regional differences between these parties, in particular between the Scandinavian Radi...

Liberal Illiberalism? The Reshaping of the Contemporary Populist Radical Right in Northern Europe

Populism, particularly in its radical right-wing variants, is often posited as antithetical to the principles of liberalism. Yet a number of contemporary cases of populist radical right parties from Northern Europe complicate this characterisation of populism: rather than being directly opposed to liberalism, these parties selectively reconfigure traditionally liberal defences of discriminated-...

Causes and consequences of the rise of populist radical right parties and movements in Europe

This article reviews three strands in the scholarship on the populist radical right (PRR). It covers both political parties and extra-parliamentary mobilization in contemporary European democracies. After definitional issues and case selection, the authors first discuss demand-side approaches to the fortunes of the PRR. Subsequently, supply-side approaches are assessed, namely political opportu...

The Czech Republicans 1990-1998: A populist radical right outsider in a consolidating democracy