Working Class Voters and the Populist Radical Right

• In Event: Explaining Voters' Support for Populism

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between class politics and support for the populist radical right. Without the strong support of working-class voters, the political influence of populist radical right-wing parties would have been rather marginal, as about half of their electorate is found among workers. This is an important societal change that has significant consequences for governance and policy making. Since populist radical right parties tend to side with center-right parties in parliament, working-class voters’ increased support for the populist radical right have contributed to shifting policies toward the right in issues related to taxation, welfare arrangements, and immigration. While explaining the shift in class voting, we distinguish between push and pull factors. The former explains why working-class voters are pushed away from left or center-left parties, thus making them available for new parties, and the latter explains why they turn to the populist radical right. More specifically, our paper contributes by analyzing the role of local union representation at the workplace for the support of the populist radical right. We empirically test the theoretical argument that a strong presence of trade unions will work as a shield against the populist radical right’s attempts to mobilize working-class support. We build our empirical analyses on an original dataset including survey responses on electoral behaviour and workplace characteristics from individuals with and without working class background in Sweden (N=3000). In line with our expectations, the results show that a strong union presence decreases the likelihood of shifting votes from centre-left parties to the populist radical right among working-class voters in Sweden. The paper hereby contributes by increasing our understanding of the theoretical puzzle of realignment processes in which working-class voters has moved from center-left to the populist radical right.

Authors

• Maria Tyrberg, University of Gothenburg

• Jen Rydgren, Stockholm University