Radical Right Parties: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market and Voting Radical Right in Western Europe

Extract

Radical Right Parties: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market, Pippa Norris, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 349.

Voting Radical Right in Western Europe, Terri E. Givens, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 178

The growing importance of immigration politics in Western Europe during the past two decades and the connected rise of radical right parties have justifiably received much scholarly attention. While a first generation of scholars treating this phenomenon were mostly concerned with the social bases for the growing political influence of such parties, recent studies have begun to emphasize the importance of purely political factors, such as institutional frameworks and strategic party competition. The books on this topic by Norris and Givens are two of the most prominent accounts in this second generation of studies.