Bypassing the cordon sanitaire in the European Parliament? Understanding the voting influence of the radical right

For a long time, scholars assumed that the influence of radical right parties in the EP is at best indirect, because of their heterogeneity, their lack of involvement and the cordon sanitaire. But the consolidation of Eurosceptic radical right parties, combined with the increased polarization and fragmentation of the EP, has raised concerns regarding the impact of these parties on the EU decision-making. Indeed, with the Identity and Democracy party group becoming the 4th largest group in the EP in 2019 and the radical right demonstrating an increased level of involvement in parliamentary activities, the EP now faces a new situation where "we can likely expect more attempts [from Eurosceptics] to influence policy outcomes" (Elomäki et al., 2022: 270). And yet, our understanding of the policy influence of these party groups in the EP remains limited. This paper examines the influence of radical right parties in the EP. Specifically, we seek to understand the extent and conditions under which radical right parties can influence policymaking. To do so, we propose a novel approach for assessing the potential influence of radical right actors in the parliament that focuses on the last stage of the decision-making process: plenary voting. We introduce a measure of voting influence and define it as the ability of party group to sway the outcome of vote. To explore this, we rely on roll-call votes, which, despite some limitations, offer valuable insights into the influence patterns of radical right parties.