The Incumbency Effect on Far-Right Parties’ Electoral Result and Policy Positions in Western Europe

Zihao Wang

POL-UA9500-001

Professor Nicolò Conti

11/27/2017

The Incumbency Effect on Far-right Parties’ Electoral Result and Policy Positions in Western Europe

I. Introduction

      Since the 1980s, a number radical parties have emerged across Europe and established their root on the far-right end of the political spectrum. In western Europe, parties like Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) in Austria, Lega Nord(LN) in Italy and Front National (FN) in France have succeeded in securing a stable parliamentary representation for many years.^[1] Despite their consistent performances at polls, these far-right parties were effectively excluded from the office for the most part during the last three decades. Before late 1990s, a de facto “cordon sanitair”’ was constantly placed on the far-right by mainstream parties almost in every country due to the radicalism and extremism embodied by the formers, which denied them access to national governance. However, since the beginning of new millennium, especially in recent years, far-right parties in Europe have seen a new wave of advancement from their perceived “pariah” role in the old political arena. As the fastest growing party family in Europe, the far-rights in a number of party systems across the continent have gained increasing popularity and support from the public with their populist and nativist appeals in the face of wide-spread financial and migration crisis.^[2] Consequently, in various countries, their electoral breakthrough brought about the growing participation from these far-right parties in national governance.^[3] According to the definition of far-right parties adopted by Tjitske Akkerman and Sarah L. de Lange, in western Europe, seven parties classified as far-right have managed to reach the highest echelons in five different national polities, either as coalition partners or supporter of minority governments. This group includes Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) and Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (BZÖ) in Austria, Lega Nord (LN) in Italy, Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) and Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) in Netherland, Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) in Switzerland, and finally, Dansk Folkeparti (DF) in Denmark.^[4] 

As for today, extensive scholarly research has been done on the multi-aspect of the far-right parties in Europe, which already made them arguably the most studied of all party families.^[5] In the light of the rich existing literature, this paper studies the following question: What impact does incumbency experience have on the far-right parties? Specifically, this discussion is structured into two sections: 1) Empirically, how these parties were affected by their incumbency record electorally and 2) how being in office changed and shaped far-right parties’ policy positions. Additionally, drawing perspectives from different scholars, this paper explores explanations for patterns identified while answering above questions, focusing on examples found in aforementioned parties and countries.

II. Electoral consequences: boost or cost?

      From 2000 to 2012, five far-right parties in western European countries respectively experienced the electoral consequences after participating in coalition government. In Austria, Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) was in office from 2000 to 2006 and was later joined by the new party formed after the schism of the original FPÖ, Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (BZÖ) in 2003. In Italy, Lega Nord (LD) took part in the second Berlusconi cabinet from 2001 to 2006, which in fact was their second time since their first participation in 1994. In Netherland, Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) was part of the short-lived right-wing coalition from 2002 to 2003. In Switzerland, Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) assumed office in 2003 after been in the background for decades and remained incumbent until 2007. In addition, in Denmark, Dansk Folkeparti (DF) served as the supporter of two consecutive minority governments from 2001 to 2007.^[6]

      According to a research conducted by Tjitske Akkerman and Sarah L. de Lange, as for 2012, the electoral consequences following the far-right parties’ participation in government is mixed.^[7] Though a slightly negative average can be observed, this result is largely contributed by the three parties that suffered landslide failure in the following election after incumbency. In the elections following their term of office, FPÖ, LPF and BZÖ respectively lost 62%, 67% and 59% of their vote share compare to the previous election while DF, LN and SVP were all able to achieve small gains in four different cases.^[8] As argued by Akkerman, the electoral performance of these far-right parties does not deviate notably from that of other party families and is especially comparable to the performance of the green parties that participate in government. ^[9]

      To explain the considerable variation in electoral consequences observed in different countries, two potential factors can be explored, the external, in particular the state of economy during a certain party’s term, and the internal, which is the role played by the party in its coalition. As for the former, scholars studying the green parties have already pointed out that the state of economy could be a crucial predictor for the incumbency effect in the following election.^[10] Voters tend to reward parties in the incumbent government when economy has been improved during their term, and punish those that failed to deliver desired economic outcome or address financial crisis. However, after examining the economic context in relation to the incumbency effect of far-right parties, it can hardly be concluded that the aforementioned correlation also applies to them. While the economic struggle that took hold in 2002, including the plummeting growth and climbing unemployment rate, did coincide with the disastrous electoral result for both FPÖ and LPF in 2002, the electoral loss of the two was widely understood as resulted from the internal power struggles and disunity occurred during the term of two parties.^[11] [12] Additionally, the external theory also fails to explain the collapse of BZÖ in the 2006 while the far-right counterparts of the party did relatively well in three national elections held between 2005 and 2007 under similar economic patterns shared by most of the European countries.^[13]