Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T05:46:39.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Many Ways to be Right: Cross-Pressured Voters in Western Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2020

Noam Gidron Open the ORCID record for Noam Gidron [Opens in a new window]
Noam Gidron*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Mainstream parties in Western Europe are increasingly struggling to hold together their base of support. As a lens for exploring this changing electoral landscape, this article focuses on the growing share of the electorate that is cross-pressured between conservative and progressive attitudes on economic and cultural issues. It argues that a stable asymmetry characterizes Western European mass attitudes: while support for the left is common among voters with progressive attitudes on both issues, it is enough to be conservative on one issue to turn right. Analyzing survey data collected from 1990 to 2017, the study shows that cross-pressures are resolved in favor of the right and examines the trade-offs this poses to center-right parties. These findings contribute to debates on electoral dealignment and realignment and shed light on the electoral choices of the center-right.

Keywords

public opinioncross pressuresideologyvotingcomparative politics
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 146 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ansolabehere, S, Rodden, J and Snyder, J (2006) Purple America. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 20(2), 97–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansolabehere, S, Rodden, J and Snyder, JM (2008) The strength of issues: using multiple measures to gauge preference stability, ideological constraint, and issue voting. American Political Science Review 102(02), 215–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldassarri, D and Goldberg, A (2014) Neither ideologues nor agnostics: alternative voters’ belief system in an age of partisan politics. American Journal of Sociology 120(1), 45–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bale, T (2003) Cinderella and her ugly sisters: the mainstream and extreme right in Europe's bipolarising party systems. West European Politics 26(3), 67–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bale, T (2018) Who leads and who follows? The symbiotic relationship between UKIP and the Conservatives–and populism and Euroscepticism. Politics 38(3), 263–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bale, T and Krouwel, A (2013) Down but not out: a comparison of Germany's CDU/CSU with Christian Democratic parties in Austria, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. German Politics 22(1–2), 16–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, L (2006) What's the matter with Kansas? Quarterly Journal of Political Science 1(2), 201–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, L (2013) Party systems and political change in Europe. Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Beer, SH (1965) Modern British Politics. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Best, RE and McDonald, MD (2010) The role of party policy positions in the operation of democracy. In Dalton, RJ and Anderson, CJ (eds), Citizens, Context, and Choice: How Context Shapes Citizens’ Electoral Choices. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 79–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borg, SG and Castles, FG (1981) The influence of the political right on public income maintenance expenditure and equality. Political Studies 29(4), 604–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castles, F (1978) The Social Democratic Image of Society. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Claassen, C, Tucker, P and Smith, SS (2015) Ideological labels in America. Political Behavior 37(2), 253–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cochrance, C (2015) Left and Right: The Small World of Political Ideas. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cusack, T, Iversen, T and Rehm, P (2006) Risks at work: the demand and supply sides of government redistribution. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 22(3), 365–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, RJ (2010) Left-right orientations, context, and voting choices. In Dalton, RJ and Anderson, CJ (eds), Citizens, Context, and Choice: How Context Shapes Citizens’ Electoral Choices. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 103–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, RJ and Wattenberg, M (2000) Parties Without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
De La O, AL and Rodden, JA (2008) Does religion distract the poor? Comparative Political Studies 41(4/5), 437–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vries, CE and Hobolt, SB (2012) When dimensions collide: the electoral success of issue entrepreneurs. European Union Politics 13(2), 246–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vries, CE, Hakhverdian, A and Lancee, B (2013) The dynamics of voters’ left/right identification: the role of economic and cultural attitudes. Political Science Research and Methods 1(02), 223–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, C and Stimson, JA (2012) Ideology in America. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, G and Mellon, J (2016) Working class votes and conservative losses: solving the UKIP puzzle. Parliamentary Affairs 69(2), 464–479.Google Scholar
EVS (2015) European Values Study 1981–2008, Study No. ZA4804.Google Scholar
EVS (2019) European Values Study 2017, Study No. ZA7500.Google Scholar
Federico, CM, Fisher, EL and Deason, G (2017) The authoritarian left withdraws from politics: ideological asymmetry in the relationship between authoritarianism and political engagement. Journal of Politics 79(3), 1010–1023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, N (2017) The end of progressive neoliberalism. Dissent, 2 January.Google Scholar
Gidron, N and Hall, PA (2017) The politics of social status: economic and cultural roots of the populist right. British Journal of Sociology 68, 57–84.Google ScholarPubMed
Gidron, N and Hall, PA (2020) Populism as a problem of social integration. Comparative Political Studies 53(7), 1027–1059.Google Scholar
Gidron, N (2020) “Replication Data for: Many Ways to be Right: Cross-pressured Voters in Western Europe”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/4HSUXH, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:ehuEZ+0z26oCG1RRkNlgxQ== [fileUNF]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gidron, N and Ziblatt, D (2019) Center-right political parties in advanced democracies. Annual Review of Political Science 22(1), 17–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giger, N and Nelson, M (2011) The electoral consequences of welfare state retrenchment: blame avoidance or credit claiming in the era of permanent austerity? European Journal of Political Research 50(1), 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goren, P and Chapp, C (2017) Moral power: how public opinion on culture war issues shapes partisan predispositions and religious orientations. American Political Science Review 111(1), 110–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossmann, M and Hopkins, DA (2016) Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, KJ (2016) Income inequality and voting for radical right-wing parties. Electoral Studies 42(c), 54–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harteveld, E (2016) Winning the ‘losers’ but losing the ‘winners’? The electoral consequences of the radical right moving to the economic left. Electoral Studies 44, 225–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Häusermann, S and Kriesi, H (2015) What do voters want? Dimensions and configurations in individual-level preferences and party choice. In Beramendi, P, Häusermann, S, Kitschelt, H and Kriesi, H (eds), The Politics of Advanced Capitalism. New York, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 202–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hellwig, T (2008) Explaining the salience of left–right ideology in postindustrial democracies: the role of structural economic change. European Journal of Political Research 47(6), 687–709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillen, S and Steiner, ND (2019) The consequences of supply gaps in two-dimensional policy spaces for voter turnout and political support: the case of economically left-wing and culturally right-wing citizens in Western Europe. European Journal of Political Research 59(2), 331–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobolt, SB and Tilley, J (2016) Fleeing the centre: the rise of challenger parties in the aftermath of the euro crisis. West European Politics 39(5), 971–991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivarsflaten, E (2005) The vulnerable populist right parties: no economic realignment fuelling their electoral success. European Journal of Political Research 44(3), 465–492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalyvas, SN and van Kersbergen, K (2010) Christian democracy. Annual Review of Political Science 13(1), 183–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitschelt, H (2004) Diversification and Reconfiguration of Party Systems in Postindustrial Democracies. Berontesting Democracylin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, H and Rehm, P (2014) Occupations as a site of political preference formation. Comparative Political Studies 47(12), 1670–1706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kriesi, H et al. (2008) West European Politics in the Age of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurella, A-S and Rosset, J (2017) Blind spots in the party system: spatial voting and issue salience if voters face scarce choices. Electoral Studies 49, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lefkofridi, Z, Wagner, M and Willmann, JE (2014) Left-authoritarians and policy representation in Western Europe: electoral choice across ideological dimensions. West European Politics 37(1), 65–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lelkes, Y and Sniderman, PM (2016) The ideological asymmetry of the American party system. British Journal of Political Science 46(4), 825–844.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipset, SM (1959) Democracy and working-class authoritarianism. American Sociological Review 24(4), 482–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malka, A, Lelkes, Y and Soto, CJ (2019) Are cultural and economic conservatism positively correlated? A large-scale cross-national test. British Journal of Political Science 49(3), 1045–1069.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarty, N, Poole, KT and Rosenthal, H (2006) Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mutz, DC (2002) The consequences of cross-cutting networks for political participation. American Journal of Political Science 46(4), 838–855.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Odmalm, P and Bale, T (2016) Immigration into the mainstream: conflicting ideological streams, strategic reasoning and party competition. Acta Politica 50(4), 365–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oesch, D and Rennwald, L (2018) Electoral competition in Europe's new tripolar political space: class voting for the left, centre-right and radical right. European Journal of Political Research 7(2), 271–225.Google Scholar
Pardos-Prado, S (2015) How can mainstream parties prevent niche party success? Center-right parties and the immigration issue. The Journal of Politics 77(2), 352–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rydgren, J (ed) (2012) Class Politics and the Radical Right. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumacher, G and van Kersbergen, K (2016) Do mainstream parties adapt to the welfare chauvinism of populist parties? Party Politics 22(3), 300–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shayo, M (2009) A model of social identity with an application to political economy: nation, class, and redistribution. American Political Science Review 103(2), 147–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Somer-Topcu, Z (2015) Everything to everyone: the electoral consequences of the broad-appeal strategy in Europe. American Journal of Political Science 59(4), 841–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stenner, K (2005) The Authoritarian Dynamic. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, W (2017) Trump and the Trumpists. Inference 3(1).Google Scholar
Surridge, P (2018) Brexit, British politics, and the left-right divide. Political Insight 9(4), 4–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tavits, M (2007) Principle vs. pragmatism: policy shifts and political competition. American Journal of Political Science 51(1), 151–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomassen, J (2012) The blind corner of political representation. Representation 48(1), 13–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treier, S and Sunshine Hillygus, D (2009) The nature of political ideology in the contemporary electorate. Public Opinion Quarterly 73(4), 679–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Brug, W and van Spanje, J (2009) Immigration, Europe and the ‘new’ cultural dimension. European Journal of Political Research 48(3), 309–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Kersbergen, K and Krouwel, A (2008) A double-edged sword! The Dutch centre-right and the ‘Foreigners Issue’. Journal of European Public Policy 15(3), 398–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, P and Bale, T (2014) Why do Tories defect to UKIP? Conservative Party members and the temptations of the populist radical right. Political Studies 62(4), 961–970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Gidron Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/4HSUXH
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Gidron supplementary material

Gidron supplementary material

Download Gidron supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 273.8 KB