Don’t blame voters for a far right surge in Europe. Blame the far right’s mainstream copycats

This week, citizens of all 27 EU member states will begin to vote in the European parliament elections. One outcome seems inevitable: the far right will make significant gains. Polls suggest that the two groups in the European parliament that harbour far-right parties could secure about 20% of the seats, a fourfold increase since the early 1990s. In four of the six founding EU states, these parties lead in the polls.

Where does this far-right success come from? One explanation is that far-right parties have become more moderate over the years, while voters have become more radicalised. Yet research indicates that this explanation does not make sense. On their core issues, such as immigration and anti-establishment politics, far-right parties are as radical as ever, and according to research, voters are no less trusting of their politicians and parliaments than they were three decades ago, no less satisfied with the workings of democracy, and their attitudes to immigration have remained relatively unchanged. What has changed is not their ideologies, but that parties and voters have been driven into each other’s arms.

Imagine a small snowball being pushed down a snow-covered hillside. As it rolls, the ball picks up more snow and becomes bigger and faster. No push in isolation creates this giant, fast-moving ball of snow. It is the combined effort that does the trick. Once the snowball gains momentum, it is difficult to stop.

The snowball effect is a useful metaphor for understanding the far right’s increasing success. It is the result of a multitude of political, social, economic and cultural developments that together have created its momentum.

The first push came from the weakening of social ties. Take the Netherlands as an example. In the 1950s, a typical person raised in a Catholic family attended Catholic schools, consumed Catholic media and, eventually, voted for a Catholic party. Today, such predictable voting patterns are rare. Higher levels of education have empowered individuals to make independent political choices, breaking free from traditional party loyalties. Starting in the 1960s and gathering steam since the turn of the millennium, electoral volatility has enabled far-right parties to attract voters who are no longer bound by old allegiances.

Where individualisation led to “dealignment” (voters breaking free of existing political alignments), globalisation contributed to “realignment” (new alignments between voters and parties). Those who benefited from Europe’s open borders – the highly educated “winners of globalisation” – contrasted sharply with those who felt threatened economically and culturally by these changes. Immigration became a key topic in election campaigns and public debates, drawing more attention to far-right parties.

But to get a better understanding of how the snowball really gained momentum, we need to examine the strategic behaviour of far-right parties themselves.

In the decades after the second world war, far-right parties were still heavily associated with fascism and nazism. To become acceptable, these parties had to gain democratic legitimacy. They did so by embracing populism as a key part of their discourse. Populism claims that the will of the people should guide democratic decisions and that elites corrupt this process. Focusing on populism rather than fascism provided far-right parties with a democratic reputation and helped them gain legitimacy.

Far-right parties also tried to modernise their image by breaking ties with more extreme elements. For instance, in 2011, Marine Le Pen embarked on a strategy of de-demonisation (dédiabolisation) to detoxify her party’s extremist reputation. She expelled extremist politicians, denounced fascism and antisemitism and even ousted her more extreme father from the party. In 2018, the Front National party was renamed Rassemblement National (National Rally). The goal was to appeal to more voters by emphasising that the party had become a more moderate version of itself.

Did these far-right parties really become more moderate? No. When it comes to their core policy positions, almost all of them are as radical and far-right as ever. Only their image has changed. For example, the rising star of the far right in France, Jordan Bardella, is the son of Italian and Algerian immigrants, and grew up poor on a housing estate in the suburbs of Paris. He hasn’t diluted Le Pen’s anti-immigration message; he has just sought to make it respectable.

The changing media environment has further helped far-right parties spread their message. Social media has allowed them to communicate directly with their supporters, bypassing traditional outlets. This development has helped all parties, but it has been particularly useful for far-right parties, which claim that ordinary citizens are ignored by the political and media elite. Social media provides a direct communication channel, and this has increased far-right parties’ visibility and influence.

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Ironically, the next big push of the snowball has come from far-right parties’ main adversaries: the established mainstream parties themselves. As far-right parties became more successful, rightwing mainstream parties grew nervous. The electoral gains of the far right often came at the expense of mainstream parties’ vote shares. What should they do about it? Many mainstream governing parties adopted an “accommodative” strategy, incorporating far-right ideas into their own policies to win back votes. From Austria’s Sebastian Kurz to Theresa May’s “hostile environment” in the UK and the Mark Rutte’s policies in the Netherlands, many moved their parties closer to the far right.

Did it work? No. Studies indicate that, if anything, this strategy has resulted in more votes for the far right. Why? Because by copying some of their ideas, mainstream parties have legitimised the far right. Once the ideas of far-right parties have been normalised, why would those who agree with them vote for the copycat? As Jean-Marie Le Pen proclaimed almost 50 years ago, “people prefer the original over the copy”.

The final and crucial element is habituation among voters. People get used to things that happen repeatedly. Hearing far-right rhetoric nonstop, seeing mainstream parties move towards the far right and observing the far right’s increasing (social) media presence and vote shares has normalised far-right ideology.

So now the far-right snowball is threatening to become an avalanche. What are the consequences? In most democracies, far-right parties have never dominated governments. But this is about to change. It is far from unthinkable that in a few years, two founding states of liberal democracy – France and the US – will have presidents supported by far-right voters. In many other liberal democracies, far-right parties will dominate coalitions. This means that parties whose core ideas are incompatible with the foundations of liberal democracy will be running the show. Hungary shows that the result will be nothing less than the demolition of liberal democracy itself.

What can be done to stop this? Criticising far-right parties for their illiberalism remains crucial, but it is no longer sufficient. To protect our democracies, we must cultivate a strong collective consciousness of democratic liberalism. This means promoting what we value – think of mutual tolerance, political pluralism, individual rights and checks and balances to hold the powerful to account.

In addition, we must condemn what threatens it. Educators, journalists, academics and artists must work to strengthen citizens’ democratic awareness and resilience. Only through such concerted efforts can we safeguard the increasingly fragile foundations of our liberal democracies.

Matthijs Rooduijn is a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam

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