Conservative Dilemmas in the Face of Value Change? Exploring the Relationship Between Conservative Values and Right-Wing Populist Voting in Increasingly Progressive Political Landscapes

One of the most significant developments in the previously relatively stable pattern of voting behavior in recent decades is undoubtedly the emergence and strengthening of right-wing populist parties in European democracies. Investigating the reasons for the success of these populist parties, left-right or authoritarian-libertarian divides have been identified as cleavages that can explain voting patterns associated with right-wing populist votes - alongside numerous other predictors. Research has shown that personal values- among other factors, especially socio-economic ones - play a significant role in shaping political orientations such as 'left' and 'right' (Piurko et al., 2011). Regarding the choice of right-wing populist actors, individuals with more conservative, traditional values are more likely to vote for them (Marcos-Marne, 2021; Ozdemir and Jacob, 2022; Baro, 2022). However, theoretical assumptions and empirical results indicate that conservation values, which involve a desire for social order, certainty, and hierarchy, are negatively associated with support for right-wing populism (Hawkins, 2009; Marcos-Marne, 2019). The present study addresses this unclear relationship and focuses on the question of why conservative individuals should vote for right-wing populist parties rather than conservative parties. Concentrating on conservative values, we aim to investigate whether and under which contextual conditions individuals with more conservative values vote for right-wing populist parties instead of conservative ones. We hypothesize that, at the contextual level of the national party landscape, a moderator is in place that makes it unattractive for some of these conservative individuals to vote for conservative parties, leading them to choose a right-wing populist alternative instead. In line with the cultural backlash thesis proposed by Inglehart and Norris (2017, 2019), we theorize that societal value changes in the last decades have led to a predominance of more progressive or 'left' values also at the party political level. We assume that the ideological composition of the respective party landscape exerts a mediating effect on the relationship between conservative values and electoral support for right-wing populist parties. In more progressive party landscapes (on average), conservatives are more likely to vote for right-wing populist actors. We also assume that this mediation effect has become stronger over the past decades, aligning with the growing 'progressiveness' of the party landscape and can therefore explain the rise of right-wing populist forces. To examine these assumptions, we rely on data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for measuring the relationship between personal values and voting behavior on an individual level. Additionally, we use Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) data to estimate the liberal vs. authoritarian orientation of the party landscape at a contextual level. Employing time series analysis for the years 2002-2020 based on multilevel multinomial regression models, our results indicate that (1) the content of party politics has indeed become more progressive (on average) over the analyzed period and (2) the likelihood of right-wing populist voting increases for individuals prioritizing conservative values, particularly in more progressive party landscapes.