Does economic redistribution affect voting for populist radical right parties in Europe?

Abstract

This thesis adds to our understanding of what contributes to populist radical right voting by looking at the role of redistribution in relation to populist radical right voting. Additionally, the empirical testing in this thesis utilized European regional level data to examination a closer connection between redistribution and voting data. To investigate this relationship, first the threat posed to liberal democracy by the populist radical right is examined and suggested as a reason to lower populist radical right voting. Classifications of the populist radical right are then considered, particularly clarifying how this party family differs from fascism. Arguments regarding the growth of the populist radical right are presented. These are categorized into cultural and economic arguments. The former considering identity and racism, as well as a clash of values between generations; while the latter considers economic insecurity, precarity of work, inequality, and social mobility as reasons for populist racial right growth. Ultimately though the section concludes that these reasons often do not need to be mutually exclusive.

The methodology to examine the relationship between populist radical right voting and redistribution is provided. OLS regressions were used with voting as the dependent variable and redistribution as the prime independent variable. Redistribution is measured by subtracting the post-tax and transfers Gini coefficient of a region from the pre-taxes and transfers coefficient from that region. The main finding of this testing is that redistribution appears to have no effect on populist radical right voting, but poverty has a positive, statistically significant relationship with it. Accordingly, a discussion of the connection between poverty and populist radical right voting is offered, as well as a consideration of whether inequality should be considered unimpactful on populist radical right voting since redistribution is. This latter discussion is left as an open question with a call for more research into the psychological impacts of redistribution.