Workplace Characteristics and Working Class Vote for the New Right

This paper focuses on the structural determinants of working class vote for new right parties. We argue that the size of the company does matter in explaining the support of workers for these parties. In small-sized companies, there is greater proximity with the direction than in larger ones. This makes the development of common economic interests among the workers more difficult, and therefore undermines the support for social democratic parties. On the contrary, the perception of common interests and shared values with the owners of small businesses - one traditional clientele of new right parties - is strengthened. The decline of large industrial plants and the mushrooming of global market-oriented small-sized companies have therefore opened new spaces for a mobilization by new right parties. These arguments are tested through a comparison of determinants of working class vote for new right parties in small – but economically open - European countries (Austria, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, and the Netherlands). Using data from the European Social Survey (2002-2010) and information on the company size at the individual and contextual level, we find that workers in small companies are more likely to vote for new right parties, whereas workers in larger companies are more likely to vote for social democrats indicating a continuation of the traditional working class milieu. This paper points towards new structural explanations of working class support for the new right and its cross-national differences and dynamics. Moreover, it improves our understanding of the competition between the new right and social democracy inside the working class.