Mainstream parties have often shifted from initially portraying new competitors as undemocratic pariahs (i.e., a delegitimizing strategy) to portraying the same parties later as democratic (i.e., a legitimizing strategy). I argue that voters follow mainstream parties’ legitimizing strategies in their legitimacy evaluations of these parties. I investigate this argument with two independent survey experiments and a quantitative media content analysis in two countries that differ sharply in the nature of party competition—from mainstream parties delegitimizing a far-right party (i.e., Germany) to mainstream parties legitimizing it (i.e., Sweden). I find strong evidence that (a) mainstream parties can effectively legitimize pariah parties in the eyes of voters, (b) turning back to delegitimization has little effect, (c) legitimization is no less effective in the face of a third party’s delegitimizing strategy, and (d) legitimization resonates beyond co-partisans. The results suggest that mainstream party legitimization of pariah parties has far-reaching consequences.
Undermining a Rival Party’s Issue Competence through Negative Campaigning: Experimental Evidence from the USA, Denmark, and Australia
Much party communication encourages voters to lower issue-related evaluations of rival parties. Yet, studies of such influence are rare. Drawing on research on political parties’ negative campaigning, this article starts to fill this gap. We triangulate evidence from four survey experiments across six issues in Denmark, the US, and Australia, and show that a party’s negative campaigning decreases voters’ evaluations of the target party’s issue-handling competence (i.e. issue ownership), but does not backlash on voters’ evaluations of the sponsor. Such attack on the target party does not have to be tied to a negative policy development like the crime rate to undermine the target party’s competence evaluations. At the same time, a negative policy development only undermines a party’s evaluations when it is accompanied by a rival party’s negative campaigning attack. The implications for party competition and the mass-elite linkage are important.
Left-Wing Governments and Far-Right Success
In recent decades, support for the far right has surged in many countries. One common explanation for this is that far-right support is a backlash against left-wing governments and their policies. We investigate the causal effect of the partisan make-up of governments on the electoral results of far-right parties. Evidence from over-time comparative data and a quasi-experimental analysis based on a regression discontinuity design in Spain indicates that far-right parties benefit electorally when the current government is on the left. In further analyses, we employ a novel regression discontinuity design (RDD)-based sampling strategy to examine original individual-level survey data from Spanish municipalities close to the discontinuity cutoff. These data show that the likely mechanism underlying the backlash effect is an ideological shift to the right among the electorate when left-wing parties govern. Overall, the far right benefits more when the mainstream left governs than when the mainstream right does.
Public support for the <i>cordon sanitaire</i> : Descriptive evidence from Spain
Reactions to the rise of far-right parties that advocate democratic backsliding, and the dilution of socially liberal democratic norms present a dilemma for existing political parties. How should existing political parties respond to this challenge? A commonly adopted strategy is to apply a cordon sanitaire which excludes radical right-wing challengers from the government-forming process. Do voters support this policy? Leveraging data from Spain – where the mainstream right has accommodated the radical right-wing party, VOX, via numerous governing coalitions – I rely on individual citizens’ views on how parties should respond to rise of the far-right party, to answer this question. Empirically, the results show very low-level support for the cordon sanitaire in Spain. Indeed, the modal position of the electorate, regardless of their ideological position, is to treat the party just like any other. These results are not conditioned by the propensity of individuals to identify VOX as indeed being a “radical right” party. These descriptive findings suggest that whilst radical right-wing parties may present an inimical threat to democratic norms, citizens do not necessarily view the means of squashing this threat to be one of strategic exclusion. This likely explains why the mainstream right has been able to institutionalise VOX as a political ally: where strategic exclusion is not expected, the mainstream right need not fear violating an expectation that does not exist.
Public support for the <i>cordon sanitaire</i> : Descriptive evidence from Spain
Reactions to the rise of far-right parties that advocate democratic backsliding, and the dilution of socially liberal democratic norms present a dilemma for existing political parties. How should existing political parties respond to this challenge? A commonly adopted strategy is to apply a cordon sanitaire which excludes radical right-wing challengers from the government-forming process. Do voters support this policy? Leveraging data from Spain – where the mainstream right has accommodated the radical right-wing party, VOX, via numerous governing coalitions – I rely on individual citizens’ views on how parties should respond to rise of the far-right party, to answer this question. Empirically, the results show very low-level support for the cordon sanitaire in Spain. Indeed, the modal position of the electorate, regardless of their ideological position, is to treat the party just like any other. These results are not conditioned by the propensity of individuals to identify VOX as indeed being a “radical right” party. These descriptive findings suggest that whilst radical right-wing parties may present an inimical threat to democratic norms, citizens do not necessarily view the means of squashing this threat to be one of strategic exclusion. This likely explains why the mainstream right has been able to institutionalise VOX as a political ally: where strategic exclusion is not expected, the mainstream right need not fear violating an expectation that does not exist.
Media Cues and Citizen Support for Right-Wing Populist Parties
Abstract. Right-wing populist parties are thriving across Europe. Their success is usually attributed to demand-side voter factors and supply-side factors
How to break populist parties’ appeal? An experimental evaluation of communication counter-strategies
Right-wing populist parties have become a major challenge to liberal democracies worldwide. How can mainstream parties effectively counter their appeal? While prior research has focused on the drivers of populist support, much less is known about how to counter right-wing populist rhetoric. We test four communication counter-strategies that target core elements of right-wing populist appeals: (i) undermining populists’ claims to democratic credibility, (ii) promoting inclusive in-group identity to counter exclusionary narratives, (iii) highlighting their performance legitimacy, and (iv) emphasizing the procedural legitimacy of mainstream parties. Drawing on real-world party communications from social media, manifestos, and press releases, we created 170 experimental treatments (posters and social media posts varying in format and complexity) to simulate how voters encounter political messages in everyday life. In a large-scale survey experiment with over 24,000 respondents in Germany, messages undermining right-wing populists’ democratic credibility prove most effective, particularly among citizens with high initial support for such parties.
When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical-Right Populism Across 26 Countries - Petter Törnberg, Juliana Chueri, 2026
The spread of misinformation has emerged as a global concern. Academic attention has recently shifted to emphasize the role of political elites as drivers of mi...
Partidismo negativo, derecha radical y voto: un análisis de su relación en el contexto de las elecciones generales españolas de 2023
Although the concept of partisan identification included a positive and a negative dimension as postulated by the Michigan model, the truth is that the latter dimension has received practically no attention. The present research aims to evaluate to what extent negative partisanship currently represents an explanatory factor of electoral behavior in Spain. Specifically, we study how, in the context of the Spanish general elections of July 2023, negative partisanship towards the radical right increased the probability of voting for the PSOE and whether, in turn, the rejection generated by the PSOE also promoted support for Vox. To test these hypotheses, we use data from the III National Survey of Political Polarization in Spain, elaborated by the Murcian Centre for Public Opinion Studies (CEMOP) in the middle of the election campaign. The results of the binary logistic regression models implemented show that negative partisanship towards the radical right represents a (novel) explanatory factor of the vote for the PSOE, but that Vox did not feed significantly on the rejection of the socialists —nor even of Sumar—.We also note the exceptional capacity of the radical right to arouse processes of negative identification, especially among women.
When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical-Right Populism Across 26 Countries
The spread of misinformation has emerged as a global concern. Academic attention has recently shifted to emphasize the role of political elites as drivers of misinformation. Yet, little is known of the relationship between party politics and the spread of misinformation—in part due to a dearth of cross-national empirical data needed for comparative study. This article examines which parties are more likely to spread misinformation, by drawing on a comprehensive database of 32M tweets from parliamentarians in 26 countries, spanning 6 years and several election periods. The dataset is combined with external databases such as Parlgov and V-Dem, linking the spread of misinformation to detailed information about political parties and cabinets, thus enabling a comparative politics approach to misinformation. Using multilevel analysis with random country intercepts, we find that radical-right populism is the strongest determinant for the propensity to spread misinformation. Populism, left-wing populism, and right-wing politics are not linked to the spread of misinformation. These results suggest that political misinformation should be understood as part and parcel of the current wave of radical right populism, and its opposition to liberal democratic institution.
Democratic voters want the party to be more moderate — and more socialist?
The trouble with polling about ideological labels
It’s Not Polarization; It’s the Radicalization of the Political Right
Polarization has become the master concept for diagnosing contemporary democratic crises. The notion denotes three features: symmetry between parties, politics as an opinion space where positions diverge, and mutual repulsion between opposing camps. Yet none of these capture current realities. Across democracies, the central dynamic is not two poles drifting apart but the transformation of the political right into authoritarianism, norm breaking, and openness to political violence. Social democratic and center-right parties tend to respond in the opposite way from what “polarization” implies: by accommodating rightward. Attempts to salvage the polarization frame with modifiers (“asymmetric,” “affective,” “sectarian,” “pernicious”) concede these realities but risk hollowing out the concept’s definitional core. These limitations reveal a deeper misdiagnosis: when one party turns antidemocratic and illiberal, incivility and conflict are inevitable—but they are symptoms, not the root problem. Misdiagnosing them as the central issue leads to viewing civility and compromise as remedies, thereby risking the legitimation of authoritarian actors. This article proposes an alternative lens: the radicalization of the political right. Developed in the study of extremism, the radicalization framework better captures asymmetric change, identity-driven politics, and the mainstreaming of illiberalism. It foregrounds identity fusion, threat narratives, elite entrepreneurship, and escalation. Concepts are never politically innocent and persisting with “polarization” risks both misdiagnosing and normalizing authoritarian threats.
It’s Not Polarization; It’s the Radicalization of the Political Right
Polarization has become the master concept for diagnosing contemporary democratic crises. The notion denotes three features: symmetry between parties, politics as an opinion space where positions diverge, and mutual repulsion between opposing camps. Yet none of these capture current realities. Across democracies, the central dynamic is not two poles drifting apart but the transformation of the political right into authoritarianism, norm breaking, and openness to political violence. Social democratic and center-right parties tend to respond in the opposite way from what “polarization” implies: by accommodating rightward. Attempts to salvage the polarization frame with modifiers (“asymmetric,” “affective,” “sectarian,” “pernicious”) concede these realities but risk hollowing out the concept’s definitional core. These limitations reveal a deeper misdiagnosis: when one party turns antidemocratic and illiberal, incivility and conflict are inevitable—but they are symptoms, not the root problem. Misdiagnosing them as the central issue leads to viewing civility and compromise as remedies, thereby risking the legitimation of authoritarian actors. This article proposes an alternative lens: the radicalization of the political right. Developed in the study of extremism, the radicalization framework better captures asymmetric change, identity-driven politics, and the mainstreaming of illiberalism. It foregrounds identity fusion, threat narratives, elite entrepreneurship, and escalation. Concepts are never politically innocent and persisting with “polarization” risks both misdiagnosing and normalizing authoritarian threats.
The social media discourse of engaged partisans is toxic even when politics are irrelevant
Abstract. Prevailing theories of partisan incivility on social media suggest that it derives from disagreement about political issues or from status compet
The social media discourse of engaged partisans is toxic even when politics are irrelevant
Abstract. Prevailing theories of partisan incivility on social media suggest that it derives from disagreement about political issues or from status compet
The Geometry of Alliances: Vote Transfer Modelling in French Two-Round Elections
Two-round legislative elections are decided not only by first-round vote shares, but by how voters whose preferred party did not advance redistribute their votes among the surviving candidates. We develop a principled model of this transfer process, grounded in multi-dimensional ideological embeddings derived from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, and apply it to French legislative elections. Calibrated on the 2017 and 2022 elections, the model is evaluated on the unusually complex 2024 contest, in which three ideologically distinct blocs reached the second round simultaneously, achieving 90.34 percent constituency-level accuracy. We show that ideological proximity alone explains the large majority of vote transfers, that a simple left-right axis is insufficient to capture the relevant distances, and that the structural configuration of the 2024 electorate was far less favorable to the far right than pre-election forecasts suggested.
The social media discourse of engaged partisans is toxic even when politics are irrelevant
Abstract Prevailing theories of partisan incivility on social media suggest that it derives from disagreement about political issues or from status competition between groups. This study—which analyzes the commenting behavior of Reddit users across diverse cultural contexts (subreddits)—tests the alternative hypothesis that such incivility derives in large part from a selection effect: Toxic people are especially likely to opt into discourse in partisan contexts. First, we examined commenting behavior across over 9,000 unique cultural contexts (subreddits) and confirmed that discourse is indeed more toxic in partisan (e.g. r/progressive, r/conservatives) than in nonpartisan contexts (e.g. r/movies, r/programming). Next, we analyzed hundreds of millions of comments from over 6.3 million users and found robust evidence that: (i) the discourse of people whose behavior is especially toxic in partisan contexts is also especially toxic in nonpartisan contexts (i.e. people are not politics-only toxicity specialists); and (ii) when considering only nonpartisan contexts, the discourse of people who also comment in partisan contexts is more toxic than the discourse of people who do not. These effects were not driven by socialization processes whereby people overgeneralized toxic behavioral norms they had learned in partisan contexts. In contrast to speculation about the need for partisans to engage beyond their echo chambers, toxicity in nonpartisan contexts was higher among people who also comment in both left-wing and right-wing contexts (bilaterally engaged users) than among people who also comment in only left-wing or right-wing contexts (unilaterally engaged users). The discussion considers implications for democratic functioning and theories of polarization.