Since the early 2010s, right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) have been on the rise across Europe. In much of Western Europe, RWPPs such as the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), the French Rassemblement National (RN), and the Italian Lega have gradually permeated mainstream ground, increasing their support beyond their secure voter base and becoming progressively embedded in the system either as coalition partners or as credible opposition parties. In Southern Europe, RWPPs are increasingly successful in countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Cyprus that had formerly resisted the RWPP tide. In Central and Eastern Europe, previously mainstream parties including Fidesz in Hungary and Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland have radicalised in government, increasingly adopting populist, illiberal, and authoritarian policy positions. Finally, in the Nordic countries, parties such as the Danish People's Party (DF), the Finns Party (PS), and the Sweden Democrats (SD) have also increased their electoral support, exerting substantial policy influence. These developments have in most cases taken place at the expense of the mainstream: while the average electoral score of RWPPs has been steadily increasing over time, support for both the mainstream left and right has declined.
This right-wing populist momentum sweeping Europe has three features. First, the successful electoral performance of parties pledging to restore national sovereignty and implement policies that consistently prioritise natives over immigrants. Many RWPPs have improved their electoral performance over time, although there remain important cross-national variations.
Second, the increasing entrenchment of these parties in their respective political systems through access to office. A substantial number of RWPPs have either recently governed or served as formal cooperation partners in right-wing minority governments. Examples abound: the Italian Lega, the Austrian FPÖ, the Polish PiS, the Hungarian Fidesz and the Danish DF. The so-called cordon sanitaire – the policy of marginalising extreme parties – has been breaking down even in countries where it had traditionally been effective.
What explains this phenomenon? Researchers and pundits alike tend to emphasise the political climate of RWPP normalisation and systemic entrenchment, where issues ‘owned’ by these parties are salient: immigration, nationalism, and cultural grievances. The importance of cultural values in shaping voting behaviour has led to an emerging, but only partly accurate, consensus that the increasing success of RWPPs may be best understood as a cultural backlash.1 Such theories posit that in a post-material world, societies are divided not by ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, but by those who support and those who reject multi-culturalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalisation. This ‘cultural backlash’ against multiple dimensions of globalisation defined by immigration scepticism translates into voting through support for RW