Recapturing the Reluctant Radical: how to win back Europe’s populist vote by Catherine Fieschi Marley Morris and Lila Caballero
Counterpoint
Recapturing the Reluctant Radical:
how to win back Europe's populist vote
Catherine Fieschi
Marley Morris
Lila Caballero
Published by Counterpoint 2012
www.counterpoint.uk.com
ISBN 978-0-9568225-2-9
Copy edited by Julie Pickard
Series design by modernactivity
Typeset by modernactivity
Counterpoint is a research and advisory group that uses social science methods to examine social, political and cultural dynamics. With a focus on how civil society operates in different contexts, Counterpoint helps organisations to develop solutions for more resilient and prosperous societies.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Executive summary
1. Why the reluctant radicals?
2. An initial sketch
3. France: the disconnected radical
4. The Netherlands: the nostalgic radical
5. Finland: the alienated radical
6. Warnings and recommendations
Annexe: Methodology
Notes
References
Data references
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the generous support of the Open Society Foundations for our project ‘Recapturing Europe’s Reluctant Radicals’. In particular, we are extremely grateful for the enthusiastic support of Heather Grabbe, Debora Guidetti, Ellen Riotte and Nadja Groot. We are also grateful for all the datasets kindly provided to us, including the ESS, the BES 2010, ITANES 2008, PEF 2012, NKO 2010 and the 2011 Finnish National Election Study. Special thanks go to Pascal Perrineau, Steven Van Hauwaert and Flora Chanvril-Ligneel at CEVIPOF for their cooperation regarding the use of the PEF 2012 dataset.
We would also like to thank all the participants in the workshops we held in France, the Netherlands and Finland, in particular Paul Lagneau-Ymonet at the University of Paris-Dauphine, Sara De Lange at the University of Amsterdam and Erkka Railo at the University of Turku for kindly organising the workshops. In France, special thanks go to Joel Gombin for his advice and suggestions.
In the UK, we would like to thank Jocelyn Evans, Gilles Ivaldi, Nick Vivyan and Jack Cattell for their invaluable advice on the technical side of the report.
At Counterpoint, we would like to thank Jeff Howard, Nick Wadham-Smith, Reuben Message, Victoria Zeeb, Pietro Guastamacchia and Nicole Redfern for their help and support in the project so far.
All errors and omissions remain our own.
Catherine Fieschi
Marley Morris
Lila Caballero
Executive summary
Why the reluctant radicals?
The recent past has seen comment and analysis lavished on the dangers of right-wing populism in Europe. Most of this attention, however, has been focused on the core supporters of right-wing populist parties (RPPs, see page 16) – the members and the street activists – at the expense of what we call the ‘reluctant radicals’. These are the soft, uncommitted ‘supporters of RPPs’. Policy must focus on the reluctant radicals, for two straightforward reasons: the reluctant radicals represent the bulk of support for RPPs and they are the voters mainstream parties are most likely to win back. Similarly, little attention has been paid to ‘potential radicals’ – those people who do not yet vote for RPPs but are the most likely to do so in the future.
In this pamphlet, we explore the characteristics of the reluctant and potential radicals in ten European countries, with a particular focus on France, the Netherlands and Finland. We aim to critically test some common assumptions – in particular, that right-wing populism is the preserve of disadvantaged young men. While other research has suggested that the ‘hard core’ of RPPs and movements is in line with this typical profile, we wish to test the theory with respect to the reluctant radicals in particular. We draw on original data analysis as well as other expert research.
The method
We use the European Social Survey and national election studies to develop profiles of the reluctant radicals and the potential radicals. We divide our samples into four categories for each survey we use, broadly employing the following definitions:
Committed radicals: people who vote for an RPP and say they are close to an RPP
Reluctant radicals: people who vote for an RPP but say they are not close to an RPP
Potential radicals: people who have views in line with right-wing populist ideology but who do not vote for an RPP
Mainstream: the remainder of the electorate.
An initial sketch
Using the European Social Survey, we compare the reluctant and potential radicals in Germany, Denmark, France, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. We find that reluctant radicals make up a large proportion of right-wing populist voters – often at least half of right-wing populist voters are reluctant radicals. Potential radicals tend to extend far beyond RPP voters, suggesting that RPPs have a large amount of scope for broadening their electorate.
Using regression analysis, we find that men are more likely to be reluctant radicals than women in Germany and Finland, even when controlling for other factors. But in other countries – the Netherlands and Norway, in particular – the gender gap is small. In Germany, younger people are more likely than older people to be reluctant radicals, while in Denmark the opposite is true. Evidence for a relationship with unemployment is apparent only in Germany. Being a blue-collar worker increases the chance of being a reluctant radical in Denmark, France, Norway and Sweden.
Yet, across all countries, education rather than gender, age, or unemployment is the most consistent predictor of ‘reluctant radicalism’. Education appears to be the feature that distinguishes the reluctant radicals most reliably. We find only partial evidence that the typical profile of ‘young, male and disadvantaged’ applies to the reluctant radicals.
On the other hand, it is older, less educated people who tend to be potential radicals. And in France, women are in fact more likely to be potential radicals than men.
Turning to attitudes, we find that in nearly all the countries in our study, anti-immigration views increase the likelihood of being a reluctant radical. Distrust in parliament is also an important factor in Germany, Denmark, Finland France, the Netherlands and Norway. On the other hand, lacking trust in parliament increases the chance of being a potential radical in Germany and Norway. The alternative datasets that we use for the UK and Italy also support our findings.
France: the disconnected radical
What characterises the French reluctant radicals is their disconnection from almost every aspect of French life. They are geographically, educationally and politically removed from the mainstream and thus feel a permanent sense of insecurity, in combination with low levels of interest in politics. We find that there is a small gender gap: compared to the whole electorate, reluctant radicals tend to be male while potential radicals t
end to be female. Education is an important cleavage: we find that 53 per cent of reluctant radicals have lower level qualifications, compared to the average of 39 per cent. Lower levels of education, combined with low levels of trust, a feeling of insecurity, and a relative concentration in rural areas suggest that reluctant radicals are a marginalised group.
The reluctant radicals are also politically disconnected, tending to have low levels of interest in politics. But their disengagement and uncertainty means they are more persuadable: 62 per cent decide who to vote for a long time in advance, in comparison to 92 per cent of the committed radicals – which suggests that it is worth investing in persuading the reluctant radicals throughout an election campaign.
Finally, CEVIPOF’s electoral survey data from 2012 show that the Front National (FN) is a highly stigmatised party: 79 per cent of the FN voters hesitated to vote because they felt the candidate they voted for was stigmatised, compared to an average of 49 per cent for the whole electorate.
