Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper is part of a larger research project which seeks to generate and explore the mechanisms through which the political impacts of the populist radical right may travel. After defining the parties that are the subject of inquiry of the study and discussing some ways in which the impacts of these parties have been talked about, I attempt to establish a potential mechanism that will be explored. I argue that when populist radical right parties focus primarily on issues of identity, and view other issues through a similar lens, they can (re)politicize the issues that are most central to their core ideology. This can in turn (re)shape the political agenda and alter the party system.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: It has been suggested that open-endedness is essential to democratization. In this paper, I consider what this means in terms both in general (through an account of the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe) and of feminist politics specifically (through consideration of the ideas of Judith Butler). In particular in respect of the latter I suggest that for her feminist radical democratic politics is tied to what in classic democratic parlance may be termed 'free speech'.

If democracy is open-ended, this also raises questions about the activities and practices constitutive of the democratic subject per se. Here I look at the relation between the state and democractic practice. The state in radical democratic theory is often presented as having an almost entirely negative and anti-democratic function, operating a purely regulatory role. But is such a characterization adequate? If one of the aspects of radical democracy is to expose the limits of universality, and the state is a site through which universality is articulated, then resistance to and engagement with the state is profoundly democratic.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Over the past two decades an abundant number of studies that seek to explain the electoral success of radical right-wing populist parties have been published. In recent years the focus in these studies has shifted from demand-side explanations to supply-side explanations. Many supply-side explanations point at policy variables as crucial factors in the success of radical right-wing populist parties. Usually these explanations are tested on the basis of quantitative analyses. The measurement of policy variables then occurs on the basis of one of the many methods available to estimate parties’ policy positions. Although most methods have been subject to methodological scrutiny, few scholars have been concerned with the way in which the choice for a particular estimation method affects the outcomes of empirical analyses. This paper shows that, although there is substantial correspondence between the policy estimates generated by various methods, differences between manifesto-based methods, on the one, and perception-based methods, on the other hand, are striking. Voters and experts largely agree about the placement of radical right-wing populist parties on the left-right axis. Their judgements differ substantially, however, from estimates generated through the content analysis of party manifestos. These methods create policy estimates for radical right-wing populist parties that generally have low face validity and should therefore be treated with suspicion. The paper explores these differences, their causes, and consequences and argues that the way in which manifestos are analyzed in content analysis procedures fails to tap into the substantive content of radical right-wing populist parties’ manifestos.