Strategies of mainstream parties towards their right-wing populist challengers. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland in comparison

In recent years, right-wing populist parties (RRP) have established in most European countries. There is also a growing consensus in the scientific discourse that these parties will unlikely disappear, especially not on their own. Nevertheless, the discourse is only slowly beginning to ask "how"-questions (How did mainstream parties react to RRP? How effective are these strategies?), as research since the 1980s was mainly concerned with "why"-questions (Why have RRP been successful in a particular context?). Although there have been first attempts to classify specific strategies and assess their potential since the 2000s, there are still no systematic cross-country comparative studies on them. In my paper, I examine the strategies of mainstream parties towards their right-wing populist challengers in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Thereby, I confine myself to parties who have been involved in the formation of government since the electoral breakthrough of their RRP. As these countries are very similar in their political, historical, social and economic context (e.g. strong welfare states, consensus democracies) and, however, their mainstream parties have chosen different strategies, this is a most similar case design. There are no comparative studies on this strategic variance and their causes, wherefore my research questions are: How did the mainstream parties in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland react to the parliamentary representation of their RRP? Why did they choose these strategies? Methodically, the work is based on the qualitative content analysis of country-specific secondary literature in the field of party and populism research. There are already several single as well as comparative case studies on the RRP in the selected countries (e.g. Harmel/Svåsand 1997; Bjørklund 2011; Klein 2013; Raunio 2013; Jungar 2015). In the context of the comparative design, these studies will be submitted to cause analysis for the first time. On the one hand, the work theoretically links to the discourse on the conceptual definition of right-wing populism and the characteristics and conditions for success of RRP. On the other hand, the framework is formed by previous classifications of various strategies against RRP, their potentials and risks as well as decision-making factors for choosing a strategy. On the basis of two basic strategies, disengage and engage, mainstream parties can choose between eight strategic reactions: ignore, legal restrictions, blocking coalitions, co-opt policies, defusing, principle, collaborate and engagement. In the case analysis, I first examine the electoral and ideological development of the RRP for each country, afterwards, I analyse the strategies of the mainstream parties and finally, I verify theoretical explanations on the basis of four independent variables (election results, strategies of the other parties, public importance of the immigration issue, ideology and rhetoric of the RRP). Eventually, the similarities and differences of the strategies in the countries will be compared and the most significant variables for the choice of different strategies emphasized.