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The Wrong and the Right: A Comparative Analysis of ‘Anti-Immigration’ and ‘Far Right’ Parties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

Joost van Spanje
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Abstract

Across Western Europe, parties have emerged that are both right wing and in favour of restrictions on immigration. These parties are commonly referred to in terms of either ideology (e.g. ‘far right’) or policy (‘anti-immigration’). This article compares far right parties, selected on the basis of their ideologies, and anti-immigration parties, selected based on their immigration policies. I argue and empirically demonstrate that, contrary to what the extant literature suggests, these sets of parties are not identical. I point out similarities and differences, showing why it is useful to distinguish between these two types of party. The article concludes by discussing the relevance of these differences to the relevant literature.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , 2011 , pp. 293 - 320
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Copyright © The Author(s) 2011.

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References

1 e.g. Gallagher, Michael, Laver, Michael and Mair, Peter, Representative Government in Modern Europe, 4th edn, Boston, McGraw-Hill, 2006 Google Scholar.

2 e.g. Cas Mudde, The Ideology of the Extreme Right, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000; Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007; Ignazi, Piero, ‘The Silent Counter-Revolution: Hypotheses on the Emergence of Extreme Right-Wing Parties in Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, 22: 3 (1992), pp. 3–34 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Piero Ignazi, Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003; Herbert Kitschelt and Anthony McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 1995; von Beyme, Klaus, ‘Right-Wing Extremism in Post-War Europe’, West European Politics, 11: 2 (1988), pp. 1–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 e.g. Tor Bjørklund and Jørgen Goul Andersen, ‘Anti-Immigration Parties in Denmark and Norway’, in M. Schain, A. Zolberg and P. Hossay (eds), Shadows Over Europe: The Development and Impact of the Extreme Right in Western Europe, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002; Fennema, Meindert, ‘Some Conceptual Issues and Problems in the Comparison of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe’, Party Politics, 3 (1997), pp. 473–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rachel Gibson, The Growth of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe, Lewiston, NY, Edwin Mellen Press, 2002; Van der Brug, Wouter, Fennema, Meindert and Tillie, Jean, ‘Why Some Anti-Immigrant Parties Fail and Others Succeed: A Two-Step Model of Aggregate Electoral Support’, Comparative Political Studies, 38: 5 (2005), pp. 537–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 These parties have also been classified on the basis of other characteristics, such as populism (Hans-Georg Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe, London, Macmillan, 1994; Hans-Georg Betz, ‘Conditions Favouring the Success and Failure of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Contemporary Democracies’, in Y. Mény and Y. Surel (eds), Democracies and the Populist Challenge, London, Palgrave, 2002; Heinisch, Reinhard, ‘Success in Opposition: Failure in Government: Explaining the Performance of Right-Wing Populist Parties in Public Office’, West European Politics, 26: 3 (2003), pp. 91–130 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ivarsflaten, Elisabeth, ‘The Vulnerable Populist Right Parties: No Economic Realignment Fuelling Their Electoral Success’, European Journal of Political Research, 44: 3 (2005), pp. 465–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ivarsflaten, Elisabeth, ‘What Unites Right-Wing Populists in Western Europe? Re-Examining Grievance Mobilization Models in Seven Successful Cases’, Comparative Political Studies, 41: 1 (2008), pp. 3–23 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Taggart, Paul, ‘New Populist Parties in Western Europe’, West European Politics, 18: 1 (1995), pp. 34–51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar), nationalism (cf. Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties), or the ethnic basis of their mobilisation (C. Wendt, ‘Toward a Majoritarian Mobilization Model for Western Europe: Explaining Changes in Far Right Vote Support’, paper presented at APSA Annual Meeting, 2003). The question of to what extent parties can be classified on the basis of these traits falls beyond the scope of this paper, however.

5 Notable exceptions to the rule of absence of conceptual clarity include the most recent contribution from Cas Mudde (Populist Radical Right Parties).

6 e.g. Gallagher et al., Representative Government.

7 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, p. 12.

8 Von Beyme, ‘Right-Wing Extremism in Post-War Europe’, p. 3.

9 For arguments pro and contra the inclusion of the AN in research on far right/anti-immigration parties, see, e.g. Elizabeth Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005; Marcel Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates: Extreme Right-Wing Voting in Western Europe, Nijmegen, ICS Dissertations, 2001; and Van der Brug, Wouter, Fennema, Meindert and Tillie, Jean, ‘Anti-Immigrant Parties in Europe: Ideological or Protest Vote?’, European Journal of Political Research, 37: 1 (2000), pp. 77–102 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 e.g. King, Gary, Keohane, Robert O. and Verba, Sidney, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. 91–4Google Scholar.

11 The literature meant here are studies that revolve around the research question of why a new class of party has emerged in Western democracies.

12 e.g. Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe, p. 9.

13 e.g. King et al., Designing Social Inquiry, p. 8.

14 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, p. 33.

15 e.g. Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe, pp. 8–9.

16 Kitschelt and McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe, p. 44.

17 De Lange, Sarah, ‘A New Winning Formula? The Programmatic Appeal of the Radical Right’, Party Politics, 13: 4 (2007), pp. 411–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 e.g. Kitschelt and McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe; Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties.

19 e.g. Wouter Van der Brug, ‘Where's the Party? Voters' Perceptions of Party Positions’, unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1997.

20 e.g. Van der Eijk, Cees and Franklin, Mark N., Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1996 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Van der Brug et al., ‘Anti-Immigrant Parties in Europe’.

21 Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates; Pippa Norris, The Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market, New York and Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005. The case selection employed by both Lubbers and Norris implies a dynamic (as opposed to time-invariant) classification of these parties. Parties can meet the criteria at some point in time, while failing to meet them at another point in time. Interestingly, neither of the authors explicitly mentions this. The possibility of a dynamic description has been suggested before, for example by Gunther and Diamond, who almost casually hint at it ( Gunther, Richard and Diamond, Larry, ‘Species of Political Parties: A New Typology’, Party Politics, 9: 2 (2003), pp. 167–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar). This is remarkable, as a dynamic definition constitutes a major breakaway from the traditional view of the ‘party family’ (e.g. Mair, Peter and Mudde, Cas, ‘The Party Family and its Study’, Annual Review of Political Science, 1 (1998), pp. 211–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar). It could be argued that, when it comes to these parties, the idea of the party family has become obsolete. After all, the concept of the party family is based on the notion that parties that start off in a specific tradition, such as social democratic parties, have remained loyal to their past and have not undergone marked changes. As soon as there are parties that do change – for instance, because they reposition themselves on a particular issue in response to changes in preferences among voters – the notion of the ‘party family’ loses part of its value. In the case of the parties under study, this is especially problematic, as Van der Brug and Fennema ( Van der Brug, Wouter and Fennema, Meindert, ‘Protest or Mainstream? How the European Anti-Immigrant Parties Developed into Two Separate Groups by 1999’, European Journal of Political Research, 42: 1 (2003), pp. 55–76 Google Scholar) point out, because these parties are more ‘modern’ than many other parties in terms of how they attract voters. The traditional socio-structural factors do not play any dominant role in the vote for anti-immigration parties (ibid.), which renders the value of the notion of the ‘party family’ concerning these parties even more questionable than regarding other parties. This is because the idea of the party family typically presupposes that specific socio-economic groups tend to support particular parties. Scholars who developed the metaphor of the party family ( Seiler, Daniel-Louis, ‘De la classification des partis politiques’, Res Publica, 27: 1 (1985), pp. 59–86 Google Scholar; Klaus von Beyme, Political Parties in Western European Democracies, Aldershot, Gower, 1985) based their categorization on Lipset and Rokkan's cleavage model (Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan, Party Systems and Voter Alignments, New York, Free Press, 1967), which builds, above all, on socio-economic divides (see Mair and Mudde, ‘The Party Family and its Study’).

22 Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates, p. 226.

23 In this regular mail survey (N = 288, response rate = 52% after one reminder), a scale was presented to the experts, above which the question read: ‘Would you please place the following parties on the left–right dimension below. The scale has a minimum value of zero (very left) and a maximum of 10 (very right), with a mean of 5. Could you please mark with a narrow line and the letter of the concerning party…its position on the scale below. You may place the party anywhere on the continuum’ (Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates, p. 34).

24 Again, the experts were to indicate each party on a scale: ‘Please, consider the same parties, and place them now on the following scale. This scale concerns the programmes of the parties towards the immigration issue, which runs from not very restrictive concerning immigration (0) to very restrictive (10)’ (Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates, p. 34).

25 Norris, The Radical Right.

26 Castles, Francis and Mair, Peter, ‘Left–Right Political Scales: Some “Expert” Judgments’, European Journal of Political Research, 12 (1984), pp. 73–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Michael Laver and W. Ben Hunt, Policy and Party Competition, New York, Routledge, 1992; Huber, John and Inglehart, Ronald, ‘Expert Interpretations of Party Space and Party Locations in 42 Societies’, Party Politics, 1 (1995), pp. 73–111 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ray, Leonard and Narud, Hanne Marthe, ‘Mapping the Norwegian Political Space: Results from an Expert Survey’, Party Politics, 6: 2 (1999), pp. 225–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates; Kenneth Benoit and Michael Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies, London, Routledge, 2006; Laver, Michael and Mair, Peter, ‘Party Policy and Cabinet Portfolios in the Netherlands, 1998: Results from an Expert Survey’, Acta Politica, 34: 1 (1999), pp. 49–66 Google Scholar; Joost Van Spanje, Peter Mair, Cees Van der Eijk and Wouter Van der Brug, ‘Expert Survey Concerning Political Parties in Western Democracies’, unpublished manuscript, European University Institute, 2006.

27 Mair, Peter, ‘Searching for the Positions of Political Actors: A Review of Approaches and a Critical Evaluation of Expert Surveys’, in Laver, M. (ed.), Estimating the Policy Positions of Political Actors, London and New York, Routledge, 2001 Google Scholar.

28 Mair, ‘Searching for the Positions of Political Actors’.

29 Ibid.

30 I am indebted to Wouter van der Brug for pointing this out.

31 Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies, pp. 71–7.

32 The exception to this rule is the FPÖ, which was founded in 1956. However, the takeover by Mr Haider 30 years later so radically changed the party's ideological position as well as its stance on immigration issues that it is safe to say that at the time of measurement the party was completely different from the one founded in 1956 (cf. Max Riedlsperger, ‘The Freedom Party of Austria: From Protest to Radical Right Populism’, in H.-G. Betz and S. Immerfall (eds), The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, New York, S. Martin's Press, 1998).

33 Castles and Mair, ‘Left–Right Political Scales’; Laver and Hunt, Policy and Party Competition; Huber and Inglehart, ‘Expert Interpretations of Party Space and Party Locations’; Ray and Narud, ‘Mapping the Norwegian Political Space’; Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates; Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies; Laver, ‘Party Policy and Cabinet Portfolios in the Netherlands’; Laver, Michael J., ‘Party Policy in Britain 1997: Results from an Expert Survey’, Political Studies, 46: 2 (1998), pp. 336–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laver and Mair, ‘Party Policy and Cabinet Portfolios in the Netherlands’.

34 Note that, of the 30 selected parties, the majority (18) have been judged only once. Thus, the stability of their ideological position is open to question. Only a dozen parties have consistently been judged ‘far right’ multiple times. For 10 of these 12 parties, it is clear whether or not they were anti-immigration throughout the period under study. Seven were anti-immigration, whereas three (30%) were not. The figure of 30% is close to the figure found for all 30 parties (36%). Thus, restricting the case selection to those parties that were judged multiple times does not substantially change my conclusions.

35 See e.g. Colin Seymour-Ure, The Political Impact of Mass Media, London, Constable, 1974, pp. 99–136.

36 Fennema, ‘Some Conceptual Issues and Problems’.

37 Meindert Fennema and Wouter Van der Brug, ‘The Rise of Pim Fortuyn in European and Historical Perspective’, paper presented at ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, at Nicosia, 2006.

38 e.g. Mitra, S., ‘The National Front in France: A Single-Issue Movement?’, West European Politics, 11: 2 (1988), pp. 47–64 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mudde, Cas, ‘The Single-Issue Party Thesis: Extreme Right Parties and the Immigration Issue’, West European Politics, 22: 3 (1999), pp. 182–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 e.g. Kitschelt and McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe; Van der Brug and Fennema, ‘Protest or Mainstream?’.

40 e.g. Ivarsflaten, ‘What Unites Right-Wing Populists in Western Europe?’; Tillie, Jean and Fennema, Meindert, ‘A Rational Choice for the Extreme Right’, Acta Politica, 33: 3 (1998), pp. 223–49.Google Scholar

41 Frank Elbers and Meindert Fennema, Racistische partijen in West-Europa. Tussen nationale traditie en Europese samenwerking, Leiden, Stichting Burgerschapskunde/Nederlands Centrum voor Politieke Vorming, 1993, p. 80, my translation.

42 Pascal Delwit, Jean-Michel De Waele and Andrea Rea, ‘Les étapes de l'extrême droite en Belgique’, in P. Delwit, J.-M. De Waele and A. Rea (eds), L'Extrême droite en France et en Belgique, Brussels, Éditions complexe, 1998; Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe, p. 32.

43 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, p. 14.

44 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, pp. 13–14.

45 Fennema, ‘Some Conceptual Issues and Problems’.

46 e.g. Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies.

47 Robertson, David, A Theory of Party Competition, London, Wiley, 1976 Google Scholar.

48 That is, if it is a ‘position issue’, such as immigration restriction, and not a ‘valence issue’ (Donald Stokes, ‘Spatial Models of Party Competition’, in A. Campbell, P. E. Converse, W. E. Miller and D. Stokes (eds), Elections and the Political Order, New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1966). For valence issues, what counts is to what extent a party stresses the issue.

49 The fact that Lubbers asked experts in 2000 about the situation 10 years earlier is a reason to be very cautious in interpreting these data. I use these in view of the absence of other data.

50 Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates; Van Spanje et al., ‘Expert Survey Concerning Political Parties in Western Democracies’. In this email survey (N = 557, response rate = 39% after one reminder), the immigration restriction position question asked by Lubbers was replicated.

51 Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies. Unlike Lubbers and Van Spanje et al., Benoit and Laver equate immigrants with asylum seekers, and ask about immigration and immigrant integration in one question. These slight differences with the question asked by Lubbers and replicated by Van Spanje et al., do not seem to make any substantial difference to the party placements (see Table 2).

52 Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies.

53 Other parties that have contested national-level elections, such as the National Movement (NB) in Luxembourg, and the Sjöbo Party (SjP) and Skane Party (SkaP) in Sweden, may be anti-immigration as well. However, no adequate data were available on the basis of which these parties could be classified as immigration or not. More research should be carried out on these parties in order to assess if they were (NB) or are (SjP, SkaP) anti-immigration.

54 Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies.

55 See Mair and Mudde, ‘The Party Family and its Study’.

56 e.g. Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe, p. 9; Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates; Van der Brug and Fennema, ‘Protest or Mainstream?’.

57 Golder, Matthew, ‘Explaining Variation in the Success of Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe’, Comparative Political Studies, 36: 4 (2003), pp. 432–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates, p. 30; Ignazi, Piero, ‘From Neo-Fascists to Post-Fascists? The Transformation of the MSI into the AN’, West European Politics, 19: 4 (1996), pp. 693–714 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 e.g. Newell, James L., ‘Italy: The Extreme Right Comes in from the Cold’, Parliamentary Affairs, 53: 3 (2000), pp. 469–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 Ignazi, ‘From Neo-Fascists to Post-Fascists?’.

61 Huber and Inglehart, ‘Expert Interpretations of Party Space and Party Locations’; Lubbers, Exclusionistic Electorates; and Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies.

62 e.g. Luther, Kurt Richard, ‘Austria: A Democracy under Threat from the Freedom Party’, Parliamentary Affairs, 53: 3 (2000), pp. 426–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 e.g. Rydgren, Jens, ‘Explaining the Emergence of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties: The Case of Denmark’, West European Politics, 27: 3 (2004), pp. 474–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 e.g. Newell, ‘Italy’.

65 Another way to avoid contamination of findings by the categorisation of parties is to check the robustness of results to alternative classifications. Sensitivity analyses do not necessarily solve all the problems associated with a lack of precise definitions, however – unless the findings are checked for the entire universe of possible party categorisations, which is unlikely.

66 Van Spanje, Joost H. P., ‘Contagious Parties: Anti-Immigrant Parties and their Impact on Other Parties' Immigration Stances in Contemporary Western Europe’, Party Politics, 16: 5 (2010), pp. 563–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar