Class 6: Parties

responses and counter-strategies

Dr. Michael C. Zeller

Opening notes

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Presentation groups

Topics to me as soon as possible

Date Presenters Method
5 June: Rasmus B., Andre D., Josefine E., Ioanna L., Santiago C. surveys
12 June: Omar B., Lela E., Niclas W. network analysis
19 June: NO CLASS MEETING
26 June: Colombe I., Konstantin S., Jakob W., Veronika L. TBD
26 June: Maksim K., Felix S., Jon L.D., Damir S., Korbinian M. case study
Date Presenters Method
3 July: Alexander V., Luis G., Oscar O., Mia C. descriptive inference
10 July: Lina S., Stephen W., Philomena B., Aarón Z. ethnography
17 July: Corinna Z., Eva M., and Rostislav N. TBD
24 July: Sebastian K., Thomas R., Emilia Z., Florian P. TBD
24 July: Lorenz F., Daniel B., Fiona W., Medina H. quant. text analysis
Presentations line-up
Date Presenters Method
15 May: Idil M., Zeynep P., Liesl W., Selin K., Chiara W. logistic regression
22 May: Gabriel W., Lina M., Florian S., Julian B. discourse analysis
29 May: NO CLASS MEETING

Overview of responses to far-right parties

  • which actors can respond to far-right parties
  • what types of responses
  • possible effects
I Cast Counter Counterspell Wizard GIFfrom I Cast Counter Counterspell GIFs

Actors

icons created by Flaticon

parties

Actors

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media

parties

Actors

icons created by Flaticon

movements

media

parties

Actors

icons created by Flaticon

business

movements

media

parties

Actors

icons created by Flaticon

state

business

movements

media

parties

Actors → Actions

icons created by Flaticon

state

business

movements

media

parties

Actions, broadly (cf. Meguid 2005):

accommodate

Actors → Actions

icons created by Flaticon

state

business

movements

media

parties

Actions, broadly (cf. Meguid 2005):

dismiss

accommodate

Actors → Actions

icons created by Flaticon

state

business

movements

media

parties

Actions, broadly (cf. Meguid 2005):

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Actors → Actions

state

accommodate

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

state

accommodate

  • government, state institutions adapt policy or activity in line with far-right party

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

state

accommodate

  • government, state institutions adapt policy or activity in line with far-right party

dismiss

  • ignore, treat as any other political player

oppose

Actors → Actions

state

accommodate

  • government, state institutions adapt policy or activity in line with far-right party

dismiss

  • ignore, treat as any other political player

oppose

  • deny registration, sanction/penalise, restrict or even proscribe

Actors → Actions

state

business

movements

media

parties

Actions, broadly (cf. Meguid 2005):

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Actors → Actions

business

accommodate

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

business

accommodate

  • engage with, amplify, finance far-right party

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

business

accommodate

  • engage with, amplify, finance far-right party

dismiss

  • ignore

oppose

Actors → Actions

business

accommodate

  • engage with, amplify, finance far-right party

dismiss

  • ignore

oppose

  • publicise general (policy) opposition, specific opposition to far-right party, fund others, restrict resources/access to services

Actors → Actions

state

business

movements

media

parties

Actions, broadly (cf. Meguid 2005):

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Actors → Actions

movements

accommodate

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

movements

accommodate

  • support, mobilise for street politics

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

movements

accommodate

  • support, mobilise for street politics

dismiss

  • ignore

oppose

Actors → Actions

movements

accommodate

  • support, mobilise for street politics

dismiss

  • ignore

oppose

  • protest against, blockade/disrupt, lobby state and other actors

Actors → Actions

state

business

movements

media

parties

Actions, broadly (cf. Meguid 2005):

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Actors → Actions

media

accommodate

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

media

accommodate

  • set agenda of far-right issues and framings, open ‘platform’ to far-right actors

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

media

accommodate

  • set agenda of far-right issues and framings, open ‘platform’ to far-right actors

dismiss

  • cover as other parties, proportionally

oppose

Actors → Actions

media

accommodate

  • set agenda of far-right issues and framings, open ‘platform’ to far-right actors

dismiss

  • cover as other parties, proportionally

oppose

  • restrict access to ‘platform’, set agenda problematising far right

Actors → Actions

state

business

movements

media

parties

Actions, broadly (cf. Meguid 2005):

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Actors → Actions

parties

accommodate

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

parties

accommodate

  • debate or even adopt policy positions, engage in cooperation or even coalition

dismiss

oppose

Actors → Actions

parties

accommodate

  • debate or even adopt policy positions, engage in cooperation or even coalition

dismiss

  • ignore, disregard effect on political competition, treat as any other party

oppose

Actors → Actions

parties

accommodate

  • debate or even adopt policy positions, engage in cooperation or even coalition

dismiss

  • ignore, disregard effect on political competition, treat as any other party

oppose

  • exclude, contest legitimacy, jointly oppose

Actors → Actions

state

business

movements

media

parties

Actions, broadly (cf. Meguid 2005):

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

normalise

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

deradicalise

normalise

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

weaken

deradicalise

normalise

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

constrain

weaken

deradicalise

normalise

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

disband

constrain

weaken

deradicalise

normalise

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

normalise

predominant perspective on party changes, not the party itself

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

disband

constrain

weaken

deradicalise

normalise

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

deradicalise

party becomes less ideologically, programmatically radical/extreme

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

disband

constrain

weaken

deradicalise

normalise

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

weaken

party loses support because others deliver, win back voters

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

disband

constrain

weaken

deradicalise

normalise

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

constrain

party is deprived of policy input opportunities, chance to govern

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

disband

constrain

weaken

deradicalise

normalise

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

disband

party is broken up, assets seized, leading activists penalised

Actors → Actions → Effects

state

business

movements

media

parties

oppose

dismiss

accommodate

Effects

disband

constrain

weaken

deradicalise

normalise

Summing up responses to far-right parties

  • the interaction of all these pieces makes for much greater complexity
    • actors responses frequently change, are rarely consistent, and interact with others’ responses
  • empirical cases demonstrate this complexity in action
    • De Jonge (2023) has a nice, short blog about responding to far-right parties, reviewing
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Studies of responses to FR parties

  • Capoccia (2005) - interwar regimes
  • De Jonge (2021) - media and parties
  • Klüver et al. (2024) - communication counter-strategies
  • Krause, Cohen, and Abou-Chadi (2023) - effect of accommodation
  • protesting against far-right parties
    • Colombo et al. (2021)
    • Lagios, Méon, and Tojerow (2022)
    • Ellinas and Lamprianou (2023)
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Capoccia (2005) - interwar regimes

Struggle between democratic incumbents and antisystem outsiders as primary characteristic of political process

_
Yes No
Democrats prevail Yes Challenged survivors: Czechoslovakia, Finland, Belgium, (France) Non-challenged survivors: The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, United Kingdom
No Takeovers: Germany, Italy 'Suspension' or preemptive coup: Bulgaria, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Greece, Romania

Capoccia (2005) - interwar regimes

  • Czechoslovakia:
    • Sudetendeutsche Heimatsfront (SHF) - ally of NSDAP
    • not banned, but several measures imposed against SHF/SdP
  • Belgium:
    • Parti Réxiste (Leon Degrelle)
    • Catholic youth groups led to oppose Rexists
    • King Leopold III takes public opposition stance
  • Finland:
    • Lapua Movement, then Isänmaallinen Kansanliike threats
    • hard repression: Lapua banned 1932

Capoccia (2005) - interwar regimes

  • bans and hard repression can work, but not sufficient on its own
    • a ‘short-term solution’
  • importance of incumbent political elites
  • importance of unity among political elites

De Jonge (2021) - media and parties

  • RQ: why is a radical right party successful in Flanders, but not in Wallonia (Belgium)?
  • Wallonia: hostile environment, mainstream parties and media impose cordon sanitaire
    • radical-right party exclusion is ‘air tight’
    • imposed before radical-right party achieves significant success
  • Flanders: gradually more accommodative environment
    • no counter-action before radical-right party achieved significant success
    • initial cordon sanitaire quickly weakened by right-wing People’s Union ejecting it

Klüver et al. (2024) - communication counter-strategies

  • RQ: How can parties counter right-wing populist parties (RPPs)?
  • survey experiment among 24,000+ respondents in Germany
    • treatments in form of social media posts and placards
  • 4 party communication strategies to respond to populist rhetoric: (1) highlight mainstream parties’ role representing citizen interests, (2) emphasise the performance of mainstream parties, (3) reveal the self-interest of populists, and (4) appeal to alternative identities.
  • Finding 1: exposing how far-righ parties’ policies are self-interested decreases support
  • Finding 2: communication ephasising party’s own performance can trigger backlash

Krause, Cohen, and Abou-Chadi (2023) - effect of accommodation

  • RQ: Do accommodative strategies help to weaken RRPs electorally?
  • method: linear regression models
  • data: elections in: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and UK
  • findings:
    • no evidence that accommodation reduces radical right support
    • in some cases, it may increase voter defection to radical right

protesting against far-right parties

  • Colombo et al. (2021) - Italy 2020 election, ‘Sardines’ against Lega
  • Lagios, Méon, and Tojerow (2022) - France, against Front National
  • Ellinas and Lamprianou (2023) - Greece, against Golden Dawn
  • summative findings:
    • protests can dampen support in localities where it occurs
    • may only be by a few percentage points
      • small but seemingly consistent effect

Any questions, concerns, feedback for this class?

Anonymous feedback here: https://forms.gle/pisUmtmWdE13zMD58

Alternatively, send me an email: m.zeller@lmu.de

References

Capoccia, Giovanni. 2005. Defending Democracy: Reactions to Extremism in Interwar Europe. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Colombo, Francesco, Alessandro Ferrara, Foteini-Maria Vassou, Fabrizio Bernardi, and Elias Dinas. 2021. “From the Streets to the Voting Booth: The Electoral Effect of Grassroots Mobilization Against the Far-Right.” Firenze: European University Institute.
De Jonge, Léonie. 2021. “The Curious Case of Belgium: Why Is There No Right-Wing Populism in Wallonia?” Government and Opposition 56 (4): 598–614. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2020.8.
———. 2023. “How to Respond to the Far Right.” Verfassungsblog: On Matters Constitutional, August. https://doi.org/10.17176/20230814-182858-0.
Ellinas, Antonis A., and Iasonas Lamprianou. 2023. “Movement Versus Party: The Electoral Effects of Anti-Far Right Protests in Greece.” American Political Science Review, July, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055423000588.
Klüver, Heike, Ferdinand Geissler, Felix Hartmann, Johannes Giesecke, Lukas Stoetzer, and Petra Schleiter. 2024. “How to Break Populist Parties’ Appeal? An Experimental Evaluation of Communication Counter-Strategies.” https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/h5prv.
Krause, Werner, Denis Cohen, and Tarik Abou-Chadi. 2023. “Does Accommodation Work? Mainstream Party Strategies and the Success of Radical Right Parties.” Political Science Research and Methods 11 (1): 172–79. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2022.8.
Lagios, Nicolas, Pierre-Guillaume Méon, and Ilan Tojerow. 2022. “Does It Pay Off to Demonstrate Against the Far Right?”
Meguid, Bonnie M. 2005. “Competition Between Unequals: The Role of Mainstream Party Strategy in Niche Party Success.” American Political Science Review 99 (3): 347–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055405051701.