How do radical right populist parties influence resurging debates over the stripping of citizenship?

Abstract

Debates over the stripping of citizenship have been rekindled in many countries in recent years. Radical right populist parties (RRPPs) are often perceived to have played a significant role in these resurging debates, even when they do not possess executive power and are often marginalised by mainstream parties. Thus, RRPPs’ real influence on policy-making remains unclear and the way RRPPs intervene in the policy-making process to influence it has not yet been satisfactorily determined. By focusing on policy-making, this study asks the question: how do RRPPs influence resurging debates over the stripping of citizenship? Using process-tracing and evidence from archives, memoirs and 67 interviews with policy-makers and party leaders, this research aims to determine if and how RRPPs intervene in the process in France and Belgium. The results indicate that RRPPs matter but that their influence is strongly curtailed. Their influence is not exercised directly and through institutional arenas, but indirectly: based on a provocative style, in a specific context, and through public opinion and the media.

Depleting democracy? The radical right’s impact on minority politics in Eastern Europe

“…Studying the impact of the radical right requires a closer look at the interaction patterns between the radical right and other actors and the mechanisms through which the radical right influences other parties' positions (see also Biard, 2020). This interaction process is schematically summarized in Figure 1.…”

Populism, citizenship and migration

“…As such, they have more in common with nativist conceptions of belonging (see e.g. Biard. 2019), or, at the very least, with a very strict definition of jus sanguinis.…”