Populism and new radical-right parties: The case of VOX
| Published date | 01 August 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/02633957211019587 |
| Author | Hugo Marcos-Marne,Carolina Plaza-Colodro,Ciaran O’Flynn |
| Date | 01 August 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/02633957211019587
Politics
2024, Vol. 44(3) 337 –351
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/02633957211019587
journals.sagepub.com/home/pol
Populism and new radical-right
parties: The case of VOX
Hugo Marcos-Marne
Carolina Plaza-Colodro
University of Salamanca, Spain
Ciaran O’Flynn
University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Abstract
The populist radical-right label brings together parties characterised by their adherence to populism,
nativism, and authoritarianism. While the relevance of the label to the family is unquestioned, its
popularity, combined with the theoretical affinity between the three core elements, may cause
radical-right parties to be systematically considered populist without further examination. This
article posits that whether a radical-right party is populist is an open empirical question, and to
demonstrate this, we test the importance of populism in the discourse and electoral success of
a new radical-right party, Spain’s VOX. Our empirical strategy is based on the holistic grading of
core political discourses, and the analysis of innovative survey data that includes populist attitudes
and voting intention. Our results indicate that, despite the existence of certain populist elements
in both the supply and demand sides of the electoral competition, these should be considered
supplemental and subordinate to nationalist and traditionalist elements, which are central to
explaining both the discourse and electoral success of VOX. We believe that our findings are
a cautionary note against assuming that all radical-right parties are populist, and an invitation to
improve empirical techniques able to separate populism, nativism, and authoritarianism in political
discourses.
Keywords
authoritarianism, nativism, populism, radical-right, Spain
Received: 11th October 2020; Revised version received: 29th April 2021; Accepted: 1st May 2021
Introduction
Even a cursory glance at media worldwide reveals that the term ‘populism’ is used to
describe vastly different political messages, a trend that, to a lesser extent, can be also
seen in political science research. This can be partially explained because of the
Corresponding author:
Hugo Marcos-Marne, Democracy Research Unit, Department of Political Science, School of Law, University
of Salamanca, Paseo Francisco Tomás y Valiente S/N, 37007 Salamanca, Spain.
Email: marcosmarne@usal.es
1019587POL0010.1177/02633957211019587PoliticsMarcos-Marne et al.
research-article2021
Article
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