Economic Populist Sovereignism and Electoral Support for Radical Right-Wing Populism
| Author | Gilles Ivaldi,Oscar Mazzoleni |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321720958567 |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720958567
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(2) 304 –326
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720958567
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Economic Populist
Sovereignism and Electoral
Support for Radical
Right-Wing Populism
Oscar Mazzoleni1 and Gilles Ivaldi2
Abstract
Sovereignism is at the crux of the current wave of radical right-wing populism. Populist parties
advocate ‘taking back control’ and generally do so in the name of the ‘people’, pledging to restore
economic well-being. This article argues that populism and sovereignism are inherently connected
in radical right-wing populism politics through a set of values that emphasize popular and national
sovereignty. To test the empirical validity of our proposition, we focus on two established
European radical right-wing populist parties, namely the Rassemblement National in France and
the Swiss People’s Party and use data from an original survey. We find that while Rassemblement
National and Swiss People’s Party voters diverge in general economic orientations, they share
similar economic populist sovereignist values that significantly shape electoral support for those
parties. These findings suggest that economic populist sovereignism may represent an important
driver of support for the radical right-wing populism, alongside other correlates of radical right-
wing populism voting, such as perceived immigration threat.
Keywords
radical right-wing parties, populism, sovereignism, economy, values, voting preferences
Accepted: 23 August 2020
Introduction
Claims to regain popular and national sovereignty are at the crux of the current wave of
radical right-wing populism (RRP) in Europe (Kallis, 2018). Populist parties such as
the French Rassemblement National (RN), the Austrian Freedom Party of Austria
(FPÖ), the Lega in Italy, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in UK advocate ‘taking
back control’ within their countries, while claiming to represent the ‘true’ people against
1Institute of Political Studies, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
2CEVIPOF, Sciences-Po Paris, France
Corresponding author:
Oscar Mazzoleni, Institute of Political Sciences, University of Lausanne, Géopolis Building, Mouline, 1015
Lausanne, Switzerland.
Email: oscar.mazzoleni@unil.ch
958567PSX0010.1177/0032321720958567Political StudiesMazzoleni and Ivaldi
research-article2020
Article
Mazzoleni and Ivaldi 305
the political establishment and supranational institutions (Verzichelli, 2020). Such
claims to regain national sovereignty are increasingly associated with socioeconomic
grievances and issues. While radical right-wing populist parties (RRPPs) are generally
considered to mobilize on cultural issues like immigration, socioeconomic issues such
as welfare, redistribution and international trade have become another important facet
of RRP politics (Otjes et al., 2018; Rodrik, 2018) and should therefore be given further
consideration.
This article aims to make a twofold contribution to current debates on RRP politics.
First, we propose to explore more closely the connection between populism and ‘sover-
eignism’. In spite of the growing electoral success of political entrepreneurs commonly
labelled as ‘populist’, the cross-national diffusion of ‘sovereignist’ themes and ideas and
their relationship with populism remain relatively under-researched topics. We need a
better understanding of how populism interacts with sovereignism to shape RRP mobili-
zation in the context of globalization and the rise of transnational rules and institutions
(Sassen, 2015). Here, we specifically focus on the ‘sovereignist’ features of the broader
concept of nationalism (Bonikowski et al., 2019) and argue that populism and sovereign-
ism are inherently connected with one another in RRP politics through concurrent simul-
taneous claims of popular and national sovereignty. Typically, populist sovereignism
emphasizes the need to re-empower the state as a means of restoring sovereignty and
defending the true interests of the ‘people’.
Second, we aim to move beyond the traditional linkage between immigration issues
and right-wing populism to explore the economic values underlying RRP sovereignism.
The importance of values has been widely discussed in the literature, notably in terms of
the classic opposition between materialist and post-materialist orientations (Ignazi, 2006;
Inglehart, 2018; Norris and Inglehart, 2019). Our attempt here is to develop an alternative
demand-side perspective based specifically on economic values. Our approach is directly
inspired by recent research suggesting that ‘economic populism and sovereignism’ form
a common base for RRPPs’ strategies in Western Europe (Ivaldi and Mazzoleni, 2020).
To highlight the relevance of economic populist sovereignism (EPS), we look at the eco-
nomic populist sovereignist ‘values-attitudes axis’ and test its impact on voting prefer-
ences. Populist ideas resonate with large swathes of voters in Western societies and
anxieties about popular and national sovereignty are widespread. It is therefore crucial
that we investigate whether economic populist sovereignist values are expressed as a
consistent set of attitudes among citizens and to which extent such attitudes may shape
electoral support for RRPPs.
Trying to highlight our aims, we test the empirical validity of our concept of EPS
across different contexts. In particular, we will focus on two Western democracies,
France and Switzerland, where two RRPPs – that is, the RN and the Swiss People’s Party
(SVP) – have achieved electoral success in the recent decades.
The article is organized as follows. The first section of the article briefly lays down
the basis for our framework, discussing the concept of EPS as a specific set of values.
We then explain the rationale for our selection of cases and survey methodology. Our
findings are presented in the next section. We find that the economic values that underlie
EPS may be empirically assessed by attitudinal attributes that can be measured among
citizens across our two countries and which significantly shape support for RRPPs.
Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for our understanding of the role of
populist economic sovereignist values and themes in contemporary RRP politics.
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