Law-and-order Populism? Assessing the Impact of Right-wing Populist Parties on Law-and-order Policies in Europe

According to the criminological literature, law-and-order policies in Western industrialized countries have seen a turn toward the more repressive pole in the last two decades (Garland 2001; Wacquant 2009). Hitherto, while most explanations of this change focus on structural trends, some studies suggest that the partisan ideology of the government affects law-and-order policies (Newburn 2007; Roché 2007; Sutton 2004; Wenzelburger 2015a; b; Wenzelburger and Staff 2016). What is missing, however, is an investigation of the forces that drive parties to adopt harsher positions in the first place and whether these positions result in tougher policies when in government. Here, right-wing populist parties come into play because party competition research shows that parties adjust their ideological positions not only to voter preferences but also to competition dynamics (e.g. Adams et al. 2004; Fagerholm 2015). On immigration policy, it has been posited that right-wing (populist) challengers affect mainstream parties’ policies (Schain 2006) – although the evidence for a direct influence is mixed (pro: Abou-Chadi 2016; Pettigrew 1998; van Spanje 2010; contra: Akkerman 2015; Green-Pedersen/Krogstrup 2008). With respect to law-and-order, Biard’s (2016) analysis of the SVP’s influence on policy-making also suggests indirect effects (and depend, in this ´particular case, on direct democracy). Building on these discussions, the proposed paper investigates whether and under what conditions right-wing populist parties with a clear law-and-order profile push established parties to adjust their policies in order to challenge their right-wing populist competitors. Building on a theoretical model of partisan competition, we investigate whether and how the strength of right-wing populist parties translates into the adoption of harsher law-and-order policies by the government. We test this assumption quantitatively using data on partisan positions, relevant indicators from the party competition literature and aggregate indicators of law-and-order policies, as well as via three case studies on Germany, France and UK.