Leiden University Student Repository

Nagtzaam, M.A.M. (2014)

The radical right vote and the role of fear

Research master thesis | Political Science and Public Administration (research) (MSc)

The main hypothesis which is tested in this paper is that voters who experience more fear are more likely to vote for radical right parties. The underlying idea of this hypothesis is that important explanations mentioned in the literature about the radical right vote are based on the experience of some sort of economic or symbolic threat. Research has shown that fear can influence people's decision-making and electoral behavior. Different analyses conducted in the paper support the claim that fear as a personal characteristic plays a role on its own when it comes to voting for radical right parties. While the measurement of fear was not optimal, the results show that further research should take the role of fear into account. These studies also have the task to find better ways to measure fear to look at the relationship in more detail.

Radical right

Fear

Voting behavior

Author

Nagtzaam, M.A.M.

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Political Science / Public Administration

Supervisors

Meffert, M.F.
Holsteijn, J.J.M. van

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en