Subverting “The End of History”: Exploring the relationship between ideological illiberalism and Far-Right Parties

Recent years have been characterized by multiple internal and external challenges to liberal democracy. One such challenge comes from far-right parties, who, when in government, have contributed to democratic backsliding. However, in the literature the focus has been predominantly either on the illiberal regimes established by the far right or on populism and nativism, and far less on these parties’ embrace of democratic illiberalism as an ideology. This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the extent to which far-right parties embrace such an ideology, irrespective of whether they are in power. To pursue this objective, we focus on parliamentary speeches by far-right actors in the European Parliament between 1999 and 2019. Methodologically, we employ a dictionary-based content analysis which will allow us to identify how strongly far right parties propagate illiberal ideas and investigate changes over time as well as differences between actors. Our study makes several contributions to the existing literature. First, we propose a novel approach to operationalizing the concept of illiberalism, that has only recently gained attention in the academic discourse and has yet to be empirically researched. Second, we seek to enhance the understanding of the threat that far-right parties pose to liberal democracy.