‘Sexually modern nativist voters’: do they exist and do they vote for the populist radical right?

Abstract

Populist radical right (PRR) parties have attracted anti-migration voters by claiming to serve the interests of nationally defined ingroups. Recently, several European PRR parties have shifted focus from protecting traditional values to protecting so-called modern Western values, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. Here, we study whether PRR parties managed to attract voters who hold these modern values. In contrast with previous research, we do not position these voters with 'modern values' as necessary opponents of nativist voters. European Social Survey data linked to 29 elections demonstrate that the likelihood to vote for PRR parties is somewhat lower among lesbian and gay rights people, but not for those who have strong anti-migration attitudes. However, this effect differs across countries and in some cases, the 'sexually modern nativists' have the highest PRR voting likelihoods. This is not directly related to the parties' position on modern family values, but to the party system and alternative right-wing parties present. ARTICLE HISTORY

Measuring Populism in Political Parties: Appraisal of a New Approach

“…This view is broadly in line with qualitative assessments of populist parties' ideologies (Mudde, 2007;van Kessel, 2015). The small positive effect of liberal lifestyle positions is, in fact, not surprising given the moral politics of left populist parties as well as of "libertarian" populist radical right parties such as the Danish The New Right (D) or the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) (see also Lancaster, 2019;Spierings et al, 2017).…”

What kind of nationalism sets the radical right and its electorate apart from the rest? Pride in the nation's history as part of nationalist nostalgia

“…The radical right in the Netherlands more and more positions immigrants with a Muslim background as ‘non‐Dutch’, inasmuch as they adhere to religious norms long gone in the Netherlands. Thus, immigrants with traditional gender role attitudes and with intolerant perceptions of gays are contrasted with the progressive and tolerant Dutch (society) (Spierings et al ). Just as one cannot imagine today that radical right parties would claim that the Surinamese cannot become train drivers, in the early 1980s, one would not have predicted that the radical right parties in 2012 would include in their program statements such as ‘we protect our gays against advancing Islam’.…”

Gender and Anti-immigrant Attitudes in Europe

“…What is clear is that the politics of gender and immigration in Europe has made for new and strange bedfellows. Now extreme right-wing politicians who typically defend the traditional family are using women's and gay rights as a rallying cry to strengthen nativist movements against Islam (Farris 2017;Fekete 2006;Spierings, Lubbers, and Zaslove 2017).…”