Migration, nativism, and party system change in Western Europe

This project explains the growth of the West European Radical Right in the late-1980s and early-1990s, using that explanation to model the growth of small, programmatically-focused ("niche") parties in previously stable party systems. I find that a key mechanism of niche party growth is the re-weighting of issue priorities or social identities generated by unanticipated, high impact events, such as a severe economic downturn, terror attack or ethnic riot. These "shocks" represent a perceived threat to the economic security, physical safety or group position of some individuals, increasing the attention (salience) they pay to a related issue or identity dimension, such as the economy, domestic security, or one's feelings of national or religious belonging. Niche parties grow when 1) the salience of the dimension they emphasizes increases and 2) the distribution of voter preferences gives them a comparative advantage if the relevant dimension is salient (the niche party is an "issue owner" on the relevant dimension). My analysis focuses on the growth of West European anti-immigrant ("nativist") parties, the major subset of the Radical Right, in the late-1980s and early- 1990s. Many countries in Western Europe were faced with unprecedented, unsolicited migration during this period, and immigration in these countries became a highly salient political issue. Nativist parties, with a popular stance on immigration, leveraged increased salience into significant electoral gains.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Wendt, Christopher (Christopher Kenneth)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Suzanne Berger.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/53081

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/53081