Behind left and right: disentangling the voting behaviour of radical parties in Europe

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing trend in voting for parties that are typically described as populist or radical, on both the right and left sides of the political spectrum. While previous research on populism typically tends to focus on developments of socioeconomic conditions and value-change as the main explanation of voting preferences, we explore spatial variations of voting patterns in Europe and consider subjective wellbeing as an additional factor affecting political attitudes. Hereby, we particularly focus on parties typically described as populist and extremist. In particular, we use a multilevel modelling framework to analyse how regional variations in levels of subjective wellbeing (SWB) across European democracies are linked to different likelihoods of voting for radical right and left parties. Our empirical investigation exploits the multilevel nature (at the individual and regional levels) of the European Social Survey (ESS) data, collected between 2010 and 2018. In addition, we examine the link between subjective measures of wellbeing and political preferences across Europe, along with other conventional factors (i.e. economic insecurity and cultural variables). Drawing from the results, we can confirm that a ‘geography of discontent’ exists across EU regions. Additionally, our findings also highlight that one of the driving forces could be due to strong regional community, cultural and emotional ties, which is likely to impact the decline of individual subjective wellbeing alongside long-term area-level decline.