General Information

Author/Creator

Kitschelt, Herbert, 1955-

Language

English.

Published

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c1995.

Physical Description

xiii, 332 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Contributors

Contributor

McGann, Anthony J. 1967-

Contents/Summary

Summary

The rise of new political competitors on the radical right is a central feature of many contemporary European party systems. The first study of its kind based on a wide array of comparative survey data, The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis provides a unifying framework to explain why rightist parties are electorally powerful in some countries but not in others. The book argues that changes in social structure and the economy do not by themselves adequately explain the success of extremist parties. Instead we must look to the competitive struggles among parties, their internal organizational patterns, and their long-term ideological traditions to understand the principles governing their success. Radical right authoritarian parties tend to emerge when moderate parties converge toward the median voter. But the success of these parties depends on the strategy employed by the right-wing political actors. Herbert Kitschelt's in-depth analysis, based on the experiences of rightist parties in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Britain, reveals that the broadest appeal is enjoyed by parties that couple a fierce commitment to free markets with authoritarian, ethnocentric--or even racist--messages. The author also shows how a country's particular political constituency or its intellectual and organizational legacies may allow right-wing parties to diverge from these norms and still find electoral success. The book concludes by exploring the interaction between the development of the welfare state, cultural pluralization through immigrants, and the growth of the extreme right.

Subjects

Subject

Socialist parties > Europe, Western.

Right and left (Political science)

Europe, Western > Politics and government.

Bibliographic Information

Responsibility

Herbert Kitschelt ; in collaboration with Anthony J. McGann.

Library Special Collection

The Roger Griffin ComFas Collection

ISBN

0472106635

Holdings

Item Type	Current Location	Collection	Call Number	Volume Info	Shelving Location	Public Note
Book	OSA Archivum Library	General collection	324.24/038/09049 KIT		General Stacks	-

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