IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/bjposi/v50y2020i3p829-847_2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Causal Effect of Radical Right Success on Mainstream Parties’ Policy Positions: A Regression Discontinuity Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Abou-Chadi, Tarik
  • Krause, Werner

Abstract

This article investigates how the success of radical right parties affects the policy positions of mainstream parties. We do this using a regression discontinuity approach that allows us to causally attribute mainstream parties’ positional changes to radical right strength independent of public opinion as a potential confounder. Making use of exogenous variation created through differences in electoral thresholds, we empirically demonstrate that radical right success, indeed, causally affects mainstream parties’ positions. This is true for mainstream left as well as mainstream right parties. These findings make an important contribution to the broader literature on party competition as they indicate that other parties’ behavior and not only public opinion plays a crucial role in explaining parties’ policy shift.

Suggested Citation

  • Abou-Chadi, Tarik & Krause, Werner, 2020. "The Causal Effect of Radical Right Success on Mainstream Parties’ Policy Positions: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 829-847, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:50:y:2020:i:3:p:829-847_2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007123418000029/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giebler, Heiko & Werner, Annika, 2020. "Cure, Poison or Placebo? The Consequences of Populist and Radical Party Success for Representative Democracy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 56(3), pages 293-306.
    2. Hangartner, Dominik & Sarvimäki, Matti & Spirig, Judith, 2021. "Managing Refugee Protection Crises: Policy Lessons from Economics and Political Science," IZA Discussion Papers 14821, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Hagemeister, Felix, 2022. "Populism and propagation of far-right extremism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    4. Shouzhi Xia, 2023. "Female members of parliament, right-wing parties, and the inclusiveness of immigration policy: evidence from 26 European countries," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 56(4), pages 689-707, December.
    5. Helbling, Marc & Meierrieks, Daniel, 2022. "Terrorism and Migration: An Overview," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 977-996, April.
    6. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    7. Massimo Pulejo, 2023. "Pro-Social Backlash: The Effect of Far-Right Success on Voluntary Welfare Provision," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 23214, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    8. Roman Hlatky, 2023. "The politicization of European integration and support for restrictive migration policies," European Union Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 684-707, December.
    9. Christian Johansson & Anders Kärnä & Jaakko Meriläinen, 2023. "Vox Populi, Vox Dei? Tacit collusion in politics," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 752-772, November.
    10. Andrea Junqueira & Ali Kagalwala & Christine S. Lipsmeyer, 2023. "What's your problem? How issue ownership and partisan discourse influence personal concerns," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 104(1), pages 25-37, January.
    11. Bayerlein, Michael, 2021. "Chasing the Other 'Populist Zeitgeist'? Mainstream Parties and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 240403, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    12. Ludvig Norman, 2021. "To Democratize or to Protect? How the Response to Anti‐System Parties Reshapes the EU's Transnational Party System," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 721-737, May.
    13. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03874305, HAL.
    14. Marinho Bertanha & Eunyi Chung, 2023. "Permutation Tests at Nonparametric Rates," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 118(544), pages 2833-2846, October.
    15. Seabright, Paul & Gonnot, Jerome, 2021. "Establishment and Outsiders : Can Political Incorrectness and Social Extremism work as a Signal of Commitment to Populist Poli," CEPR Discussion Papers 15971, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Robert Gold, 2022. "From a better understanding of the drivers of populism to a new political agenda," Working Papers 4, Forum New Economy.
    17. Salomon, Katja, 2020. "Dynamics of immigrant resentment in Europe," Discussion Papers, Presidential Department P 2020-002, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    18. Marie‐Ève Bélanger & Natasha Wunsch, 2022. "From Cohesion to Contagion? Populist Radical Right Contestation of EU Enlargement," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 653-672, May.
    19. Alexandre Chirat & Cyril Hédoin, 2023. "Toward an economic theory of populism: Uncertainty, Information, and Public Interest in Downs’s Political Economy," EconomiX Working Papers 2023-16, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:50:y:2020:i:3:p:829-847_2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.