Populist Resurgence: The Drivers of Right-Wing Populist Voting in the 21st Century Europe

“During 21st century, right-wing populist parties in Europe have gained an unprecedented momentum and are slowly changing its political realms. World events of 2016 such as the UK’s vote to exit the European Union and United States’ presidential election of Donald Trump further underlined the general turn to the populist right. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to identify and explain the key triggers of voting preferences for such anti-establishment parties in a previously democratic context. The research presents the top five traditional scholarly explanations for increasing support for the populist far-right (immigration, Euroscepticism, new media, globalization, modernization and economic crisis), and further tests them through a comparative analysis of two distinct European states largely affected by the populist resurgence – Hungary and France. The analysis in this paper is based on polling data from the Eurobarometer survey, alongside secondary literature, and...Show more“During 21st century, right-wing populist parties in Europe have gained an unprecedented momentum and are slowly changing its political realms. World events of 2016 such as the UK’s vote to exit the European Union and United States’ presidential election of Donald Trump further underlined the general turn to the populist right. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to identify and explain the key triggers of voting preferences for such anti-establishment parties in a previously democratic context. The research presents the top five traditional scholarly explanations for increasing support for the populist far-right (immigration, Euroscepticism, new media, globalization, modernization and economic crisis), and further tests them through a comparative analysis of two distinct European states largely affected by the populist resurgence – Hungary and France. The analysis in this paper is based on polling data from the Eurobarometer survey, alongside secondary literature, and attempts not only at testing the above-mentioned scholarly explanations, but pinpointing the similarities and differences of voting preferences for the populist far-right between Eastern and Western European voters, which currently remain under researched.”Show less

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Populist Resurgence: The Drivers of Right-Wing Populist Voting in the 21st Century Europe