Abstract
What is the impact of unemployment on far-right party support? This article develops a framework that links unemployment to far-right party support, while taking into account both the heterogeneity of the workforce and the role of labour market policies. More specifically, we focus on unemployment as a driver of economic insecurity and examine its effect on outsider and insider labour market groups. We identify the extent to which two labour market policies—unemployment benefits and Employment Protection Legislation (EPL)—mediate the effect of unemployment on economic insecurity, thus limiting the impact of unemployment on far-right party support. We carry out a large N analysis on a sample of 14 Western and 10 Eastern European countries between 1991 and 2013. We find that unemployment only leads to higher far-right support when unemployment benefits replacement rates are low. The results with regard to the mediating effect of EPL are more complex as EPL only mediates the impact of unemployment when we take into account the share of foreign-born population in the country.
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Notes
We do not include Croatia due to the lack of data for EPL and countries that are not members of the European Union are not included in our analysis.
We follow the database classification except for the UK where we include UKIP as a far-right party in accordance with Immerzeel et al. 2015 and Halikiopoulou and Vlandas 2016 who include this borderline case in their respective classifications. For more details on how Armingeon et al. (2013) classify parties, see page 43 of their codebook.
We would like to thank Sabina Avdagic for sharing her data with us.
Including country fixed effects or country and time effects does not change the results for columns 1 and 2 in Table 1 (except for voter turnout which becomes insignificant with time effects). Note that whenever we include fixed effects Stata automatically drops our post-communist dummy variable as it becomes collinear (and similarly for time effects and our crisis dummy variable). For column 3 of Table 1, union density becomes significant when fixed effects are included (but loses significance again when time effects are added), while trade openness and voter turnout are robust to the inclusion of country effects but not of time effects. The unemployment benefit replacement rate retains significance throughout. Reproducing the results for Fig. 3 while including fixed effects results in non-significant results consistent with the notion that the effect we are picking up is cross-national, but running the regression with fixed effects in Fig. 4 does not change the results (we cannot re-estimate Fig. 4 with time effects as the latter are collinear with our crisis dummy variable). However, running the regression with fixed effects in Fig. 5 results in non-significant results again consistent with the notion that it is the cross-national variation in EPL, not the within country over time variation, that matters.
Excluding countries with very high (e.g. Sweden, Netherlands, France) or very low (e.g. UK, Greece, Poland) values of unemployment benefit does not change key result for unemployment benefit in column 1 of Table 1. Similarly, excluding countries with very high (e.g. Austria, Slovakia, Greece) or very low (e.g. Spain, Germany) votes for far right does not change key result for unemployment benefit in column 1 of Table 1.
The communist past is captured by dummy variable with value 1 for post-communist countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia).
The nonlinearity refers to EPL, i.e. in this case the interaction term takes the following form in Stata: c.EPL##c.EPL## c.Unemployment rate## c.Crisis dummy. (Thus, the nonlinearity is introduced only for EPL.)
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Tim Vlandas and Daphne Halikiopoulou have contributed to this article equally. The order of names reflects the principle of rotation.
Appendix: List of far-right parties in 14 West European and 10 East European countries, per country
Appendix: List of far-right parties in 14 West European and 10 East European countries, per country
Country | Far-right party |
|---|---|
Austria | Freedom Party (FPÖ) |
Austria | Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) |
Belgium | Democratic Union for the Respect of Labour (UDRT/RAD) |
Belgium | National Front (FN-NF) |
Belgium | Flemish Block |
Bulgaria | George Day-International Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO- Gergiovden) |
Bulgaria | Party Ataka (Nacionalno Obedinenie Ataka) |
Bulgaria | National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria (DSB) |
Czech Republic | Rally for the Republic—Republican Party of Czechoslovakia (Sdruzení Pro Re- publiku—Republikánská Strana Československa, SPR-RSC) |
Czech Republic | Sovereignty/Jana Bobošíková Bloc (Suverenita/blok Jany Bobošíková, SUV) |
Czech Republic | Dawn of Direct Democracy of Tomio Okamura (Úsvit Přímé Demokracie Tomia Okamury, Usvit) |
Czech Republic | Party of Free Citizens (Strana svobodných občanů, SSO) |
Denmark | Danish People’s Party (DF) |
Estonia | Estonian Citizens (Eesti Kodanik) |
Estonia | Estonian National Independence Party (Eesti Rahvusliku Sõltumatuse Partei, ERSP) |
Estonia | Estonian Future Party (Tulevikupartei, TP) |
Estonia | Better Estonia + Estonian Citizens (Parem Eesti ja Eesti Kodanik, PE and EK) |
Finland | True Finns (PS) |
France | Front National (FN) |
Germany | National Democratic Party (NDP) |
Germany | Republicans |
Germany | Alternative for Germany (AfD) |
Greece | National Alignment, National Front (EM) |
Greece | Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) |
Greece | Independent Greeks (ANEL) |
Greece | Golden Dawn (GD) |
Hungary | Hungarian Justice and Life Party (Magyar Igazsag es Élet Partya, MIÉP) |
Hungary | For the Right Hungary (Jobbik) |
Ireland | N/A |
Italy | National Alliance (AN) |
Italy | Northern League (Lega Nord) |
Latvia | For Homeland (Fatherland) and Freedom TB |
Latvia | Latvian National Independence Movement (Latvijas Nacionālas Neatkarības Kustība, LNNK) |
Latvia | People’s (National) Movement for Latvia—Siegerist Party (Tautas Kustība Latvijai—Zīgerista Partija, TKL-ZP) |
Latvia | Alliance for Homeland and Freedom/Latvian National Independence Movement (TB/LNNK) |
Latvia | Everything for Latvia/For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK (Visu Latvijai/TB/LNNK) (competed in 2011 under the name National Union [Nacionālā apvienība „Visu Latvijai!”—„Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK], NA) |
Lithuania | Lithuanian National Party ‘Young Lithuania’ (Lietuviu Nacionaline Partija ‘JaunojiLietuva’, LNP-JL) |
Lithuania | Lithuanian National Union List [comprised of Lithuanian National Union and Independent Party] |
Lithuania | Lithuanian National Union and Lithuanian Democratic Party |
Netherlands | Centre Democrats (CD) |
Netherlands | List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) |
Netherlands | Freedom Party (PVV) |
Norway | Progress Party |
Poland | Confederation for Independent Poland (Konfederacja Polski Niepodległej, KPN) |
Poland | Party X (Partia X) |
Poland | Movement for Rebuilding Poland (Ruch Odbudowy Polski, ROP) |
Portugal | N/A |
Romania | Greater Romania Party (Partidul România Mare) |
Romania | Party of National Unity of Romanians (Partidul Unităţii Naţionale Române PUNR), |
Slovakia | Slovak National Party (Slovenská národná strana, SNS) |
Slovakia | Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko, HZDS, since 2006: L’S-HZDS) |
Slovakia | The Real Slovak National Party (Pravá Slovenská národná strana, PSNS) |
Slovakia | Movement for Democracy (Hnutie za demokraciu, HZD) |
Slovenia | Slovenian National Party (Slovenska Nacionalna Stranka, SNS) |
Spain | National Union (also included Falange Espanola, the Alianza Nacional and other neo-fascist groups) |
Sweden | New Democracy (NYD) |
Sweden | Sweden Democrats (SD) |
UK | United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) |
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Vlandas, T., Halikiopoulou, D. Does unemployment matter? Economic insecurity, labour market policies and the far-right vote in Europe. Eur Polit Sci 18, 421–438 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-018-0161-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-018-0161-z