Book contents
- Riding the Populist Wave
- Riding the Populist Wave
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Figures and Tables
- Preface
- 1 The Mainstream Right in Western Europe: Caught between the Silent Revolution and Silent Counter-Revolution
- 2 The Demand Side: Profiling the Electorate of the Mainstream Right in Western Europe since the 2000s
- 3 The Supply Side: Mainstream Right Party Policy Positions in a Changing Political Space in Western Europe
- 4 Austria: Tracing the Christian Democrats’ Adaptation to the Silent Counter-Revolution
- 5 France: Party System Change and the Demise of the Post-Gaullist Right
- 6 Germany: How the Christian Democrats Manage to Adapt to the Silent Counter-Revolution
- 7 Italy: The Mainstream Right and its Allies, 1994–2018
- 8 The Netherlands: How the Mainstream Right Normalized the Silent Counter-Revolution
- 9 Spain: The Development and Decline of the Popular Party
- 10 Sweden: The Difficult Adaptation of the Moderates to the Silent Counter-Revolution
- 11 The United Kingdom: The Conservatives and their Competitors in the post-Thatcher Era
- 12 The Mainstream Right in Western Europe in the Twenty-First Century
- References
- Index
3 - The Supply Side: Mainstream Right Party Policy Positions in a Changing Political Space in Western Europe
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2021
- Riding the Populist Wave
- Riding the Populist Wave
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Figures and Tables
- Preface
- 1 The Mainstream Right in Western Europe: Caught between the Silent Revolution and Silent Counter-Revolution
- 2 The Demand Side: Profiling the Electorate of the Mainstream Right in Western Europe since the 2000s
- 3 The Supply Side: Mainstream Right Party Policy Positions in a Changing Political Space in Western Europe
- 4 Austria: Tracing the Christian Democrats’ Adaptation to the Silent Counter-Revolution
- 5 France: Party System Change and the Demise of the Post-Gaullist Right
- 6 Germany: How the Christian Democrats Manage to Adapt to the Silent Counter-Revolution
- 7 Italy: The Mainstream Right and its Allies, 1994–2018
- 8 The Netherlands: How the Mainstream Right Normalized the Silent Counter-Revolution
- 9 Spain: The Development and Decline of the Popular Party
- 10 Sweden: The Difficult Adaptation of the Moderates to the Silent Counter-Revolution
- 11 The United Kingdom: The Conservatives and their Competitors in the post-Thatcher Era
- 12 The Mainstream Right in Western Europe in the Twenty-First Century
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter investigates how mainstream right parties have shifted their policy positions since the 1980s. Facing a changing political space and the double pressure of the silent revolution and counter-revolution, mainstream right parties need to strategically reposition themselves in order to stay electorally relevant. We argue that mainstream right parties have increasingly shifted their position in order to appeal to more culturally conservative working-class voters. We analyse mainstream right party strategies beyond the two super dimensions (left–right and liberal–authoritarian) and describe their movements on four issue dimensions: investment versus consumption; traditional morality; immigration; and European integration. We additionally show how mainstream right parties react to the success of populist radical right parties and demonstrate that a significant reaction to radical right success is only present in the case of immigration issues.
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- Riding the Populist WaveEurope's Mainstream Right in Crisis, pp. 67 - 90Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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