"Capitalism, consensus, and the electoral successes of the far right"

Fieschi, Catherine and Jones, Erik. (2003) "Capitalism, consensus, and the electoral successes of the far right". In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 2003 (8th), March 27-29, 2003, pages 30, Nashville, TN.

Abstract

The electoral success of Jean-Marie Le Pen in France and (the late) Pim Formyn in the Netherlands has sparked immediate speculation that ‘the right' is coming back into vogue in Europe. Such speculation assumes that the right-left dichotomy is important to understanding the success of groups like the Front National or the List Pim Fortuyn. We disagree. Using examples from across Europe, we argue that these groups are more characteristically populist than right-wing; that their stance on the structure of political participation is more important to their success than the position they take on distributive concerns; and that programmatic inconsistency is less critical than performance contradiction to their survival in power. Our argument is only slightly at odds with the existing literature, but even this slight change of emphasis- from policy or distributive outcomes to political or participatory process- can offer substantial analytic rewards. By focusing attention on the process elements in populist political programs we can not only anticipate the fare of those movements, but also shed light on the larger political systems within which they operate.