Book Review: Pontus Odmalm and Eve Hepburn, The European Mainstream and the Populist Radical Right
| Author | Gianna Maria Eick |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929918819182 |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Reviews |
Political Studies Review
2019, Vol. 17(4) NP12 –NP13
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
819182PSW0010.1177/1478929918819182Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2019
Commissioned Book Review
The European Mainstream and the Populist
Radical Right by Pontus Odmalm and Eve
Hepburn (eds). Abingdon: Routledge, 2017. 181
pp., £105.00 (h/b), ISBN 9781857438314
Populist radical right parties are becoming
increasingly influential in Western European
democracies as their electoral support, and
their impact on policymaking is growing. The
literature on parties and elections addresses
this development by suggesting an intersection
of policy positions and even the disappearance
of any significant distinction between populist
radical right parties and mainstream parties.
The fundamental theme around which the
whole debate revolves is the question: Is a
mainstream choice available for voters seeking
policy positions similar to populist radical
right parties, such as restrictive outcomes on
immigration? With The European Mainstream
and the Populist Radical Right, Pontus
Odmalm and Eve Hepburn attempt to answer
this question. This edited volume is a welcome
addition to the growing literature on European
politics and the populist radical right.
Through a series of comparative case stud-
ies, The European Mainstream and the Populist
Radical Right skilfully reveals that the differ-
ence between mainstream and populist radical
right parties is far more obscure than is often
assumed. Over eight chapters, the edited vol-
ume contains in-depth analysis by leading
experts and specialists on politics and interna-
tional relations. The contributors analyse six
different cases in Britain (UKIP), Denmark
(DF), Finland (PS), France (FN), the
Netherlands (PVV) and Sweden (SD). The
findings of the individual chapters are quickly
summarised in the Introduction, and later fur-
ther discussed and drawn together into a coher-
ent argument. Thus, contributing authors offer
insights into a range of patterns in the sensitive
relationship between mainstream parties, the
populist radical right and the electorate.
More specifically, the authors analyse posi-
tional differences between mainstream and
populist radical right parties over three key
elections between 2002 and 2015 in Western
Europe. Therefore, the contributors systemati-
cally code manifestos for 17 mainstream and 6
populist radical right parties. The manifestos
were coded via positional differences on four
different immigration issues: labour migration,
family reunification, asylum and refugees as
well as integration. Hereby, the book unfolds
the strategic interactions between mainstream
and populist radical right parties.
By investigating additional arguments, the
edited volume offers a number of explanations
for the rise of populist radical right parties
across Western Europe. For example, the
authors demonstrate that the responses to mul-
ticulturalism of mainstream parties across dif-
ferent countries in Western Europe have greatly
varied. Consequently, these responses have
facilitated or blocked the growth of populist
radical right parties across Western Europe.
Meanwhile, the positions of the populist radi-
cal right have continuously moved towards the
more extreme end. This development indicates
that the distance between mainstream and pop-
ulist radical right parties has actually increased
over time. The authors also initiate important
debates for further research around questions
such as: Are the commonly made distinctions
between mainstream and populist radical right
parties still appropriate? Are migration cuts the
new norm? Is there a need to create new indica-
tors for the definition and classification of
populist radical right parties?
Despite its interest to the discipline, two
potential areas for improvement can be identi-
fied. First, the analysis only includes cases
where anti-immigration positions have become
most evident in the populist radical right’s
agenda, and only positions on immigration
issues were analysed in the party manifestos.
That presents a limitation because while the
literature shows that opposing immigration is
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