The gender gap in populist radical-right voting: examining the demand side in Western and Eastern Europe

Abstract

In most countries, men are more likely to vote for parties of the populist radical right (PRR) than women. The authors argue here that there are two mechanisms that might potentially explain this gender gap: mediation (women's attitudes and characteristics differ from men's in ways that explain the PRR vote) and moderation (women vote for different reasons than men). They apply these two mechanisms to general theories of support for PRR parties-the socio-structural model, the discontent model, and the policy vote model-and test these on a large sample of voters in seventeen Western and Eastern European countries. The study shows that the gender gap is produced by a combination of moderation and mediation. Socio-structural differences between men and women exist, but the extent to which they explain the gender gap is limited, and primarily restricted to post-Communist countries. Furthermore, women generally do not differ from men in their level of nativism, authoritarianism or discontent with democracy. Among women, however, these attitudes are less strongly related to a radical-right vote. This suggests that men consider the issues of the radical right to be more salient, but also that these parties deter women for reasons other than the content of their political programme. While the existing research has focused almost exclusively on mediation, we show that moderation and mediation contribute almost equally to the gender gap.

Gender, populist attitudes, and voting: explaining the gender gap in voting for populist radical right and populist radical left parties

“…This result suggests that populist attitudes do not mediate the linkage between socio-economic position and voting for the PRR and thus that the structural socio-economic gender gap explanation (e.g. Harteveld et al 2015) is separate from the one we present here. …”

“…We also know more about why more men vote for populist radical right parties than do women. However, also as noted, we are still not able to fully explain the gender gap (Harteveld et al 2015;Immerzeel et al 2015;Spierings and Zaslove 2015b). Spierings and Zaslove (2015b) conclude that perhaps the best manner in which to understand the gender gap is to consider PRR parties as a more radical version of the mainstream right.…”

“…In seeking an answer to this question, we start with the abundant literature on the so-called PRR gender gap (see Spierings and Zaslove 2015b;Spierings et al 2015). This literature suggests two main explanations for the gender gap: first, the difference is due to socio-economic position, and second, it is due to programmatic attitudes, most notably anti-immigration and law and order attitudes (Harteveld et al 2015;Immerzeel et al 2015;Spierings and Zaslove 2015b). However, most notably, neither of these explanations helps us fully understand why more men than women vote for populist (radical right) parties.…”

“…Even if it were true that less competition exists between migrants and women, this does not translate into lower levels of anti-immigrant attitudes among women. It has been shown repeatedly that there is scarcely any difference between men and women regarding anti-immigration attitudes (Harteveld et al 2015;Norris 2005;Spierings and Zaslove 2015b). In sum, these approaches cannot fully account for the gender gap.…”

“…Including this variable also allows us to examine whether populist attitudes are part of the mechanism that links socio-economic position to the gender gap. If the effect found for employment decreases after the inclusion of populist attitudes, then it does (see Harteveld et al 2015;Immerzeel 2015;Ivarsflaten 2008). We distinguish among owners of small businesses, manual labourers, and the unemployed, given that research demonstrates that these groups are prone to vote for the radical right (e.g.…”