Socio-Economic Aspects of Radical Right-Wing Party Programme(s): The Case of the Swiss People’s Party

The aim of this paper is to analyse the evolution of the socio-economic programme of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), trying to explain the reasons of persistance and change over the 1990s and the 2000s. As one of the most successful right-wing “populist” parties in Western Europe, the SVP tends to confirm the Kitschelt’s thesis that the winning formula matches authoritarian solutions to social problems with market-based solutions to economic problems. We will show how this formula is a by-product of the party radicalisation in the 1990s, which is not purely neo-liberal in economic field, as it is strongly depending of the party legacy, traits and strategy of the new leadership, the electorate configuration, and, more generally, of the contextual opportunities and constraints provided by the Swiss socio-economic and political environment (which included the competition with the traditional right-wing parties).