This thesis explores how the populist radical right seeks to control non-majoritarian liberal institutions through democratic means. Specifically, I test this theory within presidential systems,...Show moreThis thesis explores how the populist radical right seeks to control non-majoritarian liberal institutions through democratic means. Specifically, I test this theory within presidential systems, examining whether a radical right government leads to an increase in legislative proposals that target the disempowerment of constitutional courts. Therefore, my hypothesis is that the number of legislative bills aiming to overcome the autonomy of constitutional courts is higher under populist radical right governments than under non-radical ones. I employ a mixed-method approach, starting with four longitudinal quantitative research and then applying in-depth analyses conducted in Brazil, El Salvador, the Philippines, and the United States to compare instances of radical right governance with those of previous non-radical coalitions in each country. The results generally support the hypothesis, except for a notable deviant case observed in the United States.Show less
Deploying a novel conception framework offering new understandings of familialism and the policy logic of PRR party family, this study will argue that the Republican Party’s family welfare policy...Show moreDeploying a novel conception framework offering new understandings of familialism and the policy logic of PRR party family, this study will argue that the Republican Party’s family welfare policy overlaps with that of European PRRPs to a currently limited and inconsistent, but significantly growing extent. Evidence from South Carolina and Wyoming—two of the four states selected for investigation to provide a cross-section of the party—indicates concerted familialisation, while data from Florida and Indiana implies GOP support fortification of the care role of the traditional family is conditional on exclusion of the Other, socially, ethnically, and nationally defined. Both policy offerings are understood as features of PRRP welfare logics concerning the family, but the substantial cross-state variation and continuance of long-standing neoliberal policy choices are too significant to decisively assert a Republican Party re-alignment with a radical right logic on the family. Nonetheless, intensified support for the ‘natural’ family since the early-mid 2010s can be discerned across all cases, leaving open the prospect of a truer policy overlap in the future. From this, the contributions of this study are two-fold: a clearer picture of an oft-posited but ill-understood transatlantic transmission of radical right logics, and an original, conceptually rigorous means to investigate it.Show less
How the radical right’s favourite themes have dominated some of the main news coverage without necessarily being challenged is worrying. This thesis is focused on the normalization of radical right...Show moreHow the radical right’s favourite themes have dominated some of the main news coverage without necessarily being challenged is worrying. This thesis is focused on the normalization of radical right discourses in the public debate. Based on the content analysis of three major French newspapers articles and of the programmes of the main candidates to the Presidential elections, this work aims to show the extent to which there has been a normalization of radical right discourses in France between 2002 and 2022. I found that while this normalization is mostly present within the right-wing of the political spectrum, liberal and left-wing newspapers also participate in this process. Mainstream politicians too, play a significant role in the normalization of these discourses, and their previous failures in government have opened the door to the radical right.Show less
