Increasing establishment of radical right parties and its implications for political support

A notable amount of research on satisfaction with democracy agrees that citizens are less supportive of the political system, its institutions, and authorities if no political party takes positions that are congruent with their own. This research focus may give rise to the assumption that, where a political party were to form that accommodates these preferences, this disapproval would dissipate. However, this is only true if citizens value representation in itself, i.e., if they judge political supply by its expressive value. While this debate is not yet settled, recent studies suggest that it might not be enough to just have your policy preferences represented in the party system. The argument made here is that citizens primarily regard the instrumental value of choice: only if their preferred parties have a realistic chance of entering government will they be satisfied with politics. Government participation, however, may still leave them discontented if they perceive their party of choice to have changed its position and/or communication style in the process. In this paper, we add to the knowledge about the effect of preference accommodation on satisfaction with politics by focusing on citizens with authoritarian policy preferences and radical right parties. We examine how these citizens’ political support is affected by radical right parties’ parliamentary representation on the one hand and their participation in government on the other. With this design, we contribute to three current debates in research on political representation: first and foremost, we revisit the debate on expressive and instrumental motives in citizens’ evaluation of political choice; second, and more generally, we engage in the debate on political disenchantment and what chances there are to rein it in. Lastly, since many radical right parties can be regarded as populist parties as well, we shed some light on the implications of parties that base their strategy on anti-system appeals starting to partake in conventional political processes such as government formation.