Rallying the Radicals: What do the Radical Left and the Radical Right have in Common?

Abstract

What do the radical right and the radical left have in common? The so-called horseshoe theory, attributed to the French writer Jean-Pierre Faye, argues that the ends of the political spectrum are much more similar than one might expect at first sight. According to this theory, the political continuum from left to right is not a straight line, but takes the shape of a horseshoe. Both the radical left and the radical right have often been associated with nationalism, populism and Euroscepticism. Moreover, voters for these parties have been claimed to be the ‘losers of modernization’ – people with lower socioeconomic positions in terms of education, class and income, that feel threatened by the processes of modernization and globalization. Because parties from both the radical left and the radical right claim to represent their interestes, these voters are expected to be vulnerable to political mobilization in radical directions. This panel welcomes all papers that look into the question what the radical left and the radical right have in common – both in terms of parties and in terms of voters.