‘We Want Our Country Back’: Exploring Links between Economic Populism and National Sovereignty Claims in Populist Radical Right Mobilisation in France and Switzerland

While there is a consensus that European populist radical right parties typically mobilize on cultural issues and political grievances, in particular as regards opposition to immigration and to European integration, the socio-economic dimension of radical right-wing politics has been somewhat overlooked until recently. In contrast, this paper suggests that the socio-economic dimension is an important facet of electoral mobilization by right-wing populist actors and therefore should be given further consideration. The paper argues that radical right-wing populist parties mobilize on a mix of economic populism and sovereigntism –that is essentially a fight for the economic well-being and sovereignty of the national community, primarily addressing the needs and interests of the nation’s producers as ‘true’ beneficiaries of national welfare–, and that their claims strongly resonate with voters across West-European countries. To test the heuristic interest of this perspective, we conduct a demand and supply-side comparative analysis of two established populist radical right parties, the French Rassemblement National (RN, formerly Front National, FN) and the Swiss People’s Party (SVP). We first examine how economic populist sovereigntist claims are constructed by our two parties of interest, looking at their election manifestos and leaders’ speeches. We then turn to the analysis of voter attitudes and preferences, asking to which extent the supply of economic populist sovereigntism by the RN and SVP matches electoral demands and preferences among national electorates.