Dissimilar Brothers: Competition Between the Mainstream Right and the Far Right Along the Universalism-Particularism Cleavage

Due to social change since the 1960s and the transition to a knowledge economy, advanced democracies have seen the emergence of a new cleavage between universalism and particularism. The resulting polarization in political space has directed attention to the parties and voters situated at the poles of the new cleavage, namely, the New Left and the Far Right. Yet the antagonism between the two driving forces of realignment along the new cleavage is highly segmented, whereas the fiercest competition for voters occurs between established parties of the Mainstream Right and the Far Right. Building on our prior work that approaches party competition from the perspective of group identities to understand why specific party appeals resonate with certain groups, we investigate what divides the electorates of Mainstream Right and the Far Right and in which respects they are similar. In particular, we are interested in differences across age groups, studying specifically whether the group identities among young mainstream and far right-wing voters become more similar – which would point to the emergence of an increasingly cohesive "right bloc", whereas distinctive identities would stabilize a tripolar partisan space. Closely linked to this question, we study how current group identities relate to the traditional economic state-market cleavage, which remains vibrant in Western Europe and of particular relevance for the Mainstream Right. We contend that especially among younger voters, "state-market identities" increasingly relate to occupations and education, as opposed to traditional criteria of wealth and income. Based on original survey data from France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, we study the group identities that are most important in aligning voters with the two types of right-wing parties, how they are anchored in social structure, and how contextual determinants and party strategies affect competition between the Mainstream Right and the Far Right.