Fringe Parties

There is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes a “fringe party”. “Fringe party” is mostly used by journalists, politicians and political scientists as a pejorative term to demarcate the boundary between “reasonable politics” and the “lunatic fringe”, a label famously applied by Theodore Roosevelt in his Autobiography to describe “the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a [reform] movement and always discrediting it” (Roosevelt 1922, 206). Consequently, some political scientists have argued that the term should best be replaced by more neutral expressions, such as “marginal parties”, “non-established parties” or “non-mainstream parties”.

It is, however, possible to derive a set of common and interrelated characteristics of fringe parties from the way the phrase is used in political language: Fringe parties do usually attract only minor segments of the electorate, they are small in terms of party membership, their leadership does not (longer) belong to the established elite groups of their respective political system, and their party ideology does either violate the political consensus or is simply considered irrelevant by most voters.

Put differently, fringe parties are not part of their countries political mainstream, and they are not normally electorally relevant parties. This statement does, however, require two qualifications: First, most new parties (e.g. the Green parties) started out as fringe groups but became both electorally relevant and accepted by the more established parties and the majority of the citizenry over time. Second, some parties remain isolated and outside the political mainstream although they attract relatively large segments of the electorate (e.g. some Communist parties and some members of the Extreme Right party family).

Moreover, the ideological marginality of a party is not only conditional on time, but also more generally conditional on political context. Within the boundaries of a liberal-democratic regime, parties that promote a dictatorship of the proletariat or biological racism are clearly beyond the pale because their ideology contravenes the system’s most basic norms and values. Left- and right-wing extremist groups which aim to abolish or radically transform liberal democracy are therefore amongst the most prominent fringe parties in Western democracies. Within the context of a stable authoritarian system, however, a nascent grouping of democrats would well be considered a fringe party while the dominant non-democratic parties define the political mainstream.

Most fringe parties are, however, marginal not because they harbour extremist views but rather because they tend to campaign for a single issue which is not – at least not in itself – important enough to secure them sufficient levels of political support. Examples from Western Democracies include, but are not limited to:

Religious parties. Historically, religious conflicts have had an impact on the formation of European party systems during the 19^th century. In post-war Western Europe, the Christian-Democratic party family has been rather successful electorally, and Christian values have had an impact on the party ideologies of many other Western parties. Today there is, however, a number of tiny Christian parties that represent fundamentalist and/or evangelical views and try to distance themselves from both mainstream churches and Christian-Democratic parties. Moreover, an even smaller number of non-Christian (mostly Islamic), spiritual and New Age parties exists in Western countries. So far, they have had no electoral success whatsoever. In other countries where religious cleavages are more prominent (e.g. India or Israel), religious parties can be much more relevant and would not automatically be considered as part of the “fringe”.

Regional and ethnic parties. In many countries, ethnic and regional cleavages are simply not salient enough to sustain a single-issue party, rendering attempts to mobilize political support on the basis of some long-forgotten territorial unit futile. However, where they exist, ethnic parties are sometimes well-integrated into the political system like the Swedish People’s Party in Finland. They might even enjoy special privileges like the parties of the Danish and Sorbian minorities in Germany, which are exempted from the five percent electoral threshold. Therefore, it would be difficult to portray these parties and their constituencies as being “on the fringe” in any meaningful way.

In other countries, regionalist or separatist movements may have started out as fringe parties. But during the revival of regionalism after the Second World War, they became relevant political players that cannot be ignored by mainstream parties. This would include many of the regional parties in Spain, the Scottish National Party or the various regionalist movements and Italy that merged to form the Lega Nord. Similarly, many regional and ethnic parties in India are too relevant to be considered as genuine fringe parties.

Social groups, specific interests and frivolous parties. There is a host of rather colourful parties that claim to speak for large segments of society like women, the elderly, or families with children. Normally, the interests of these groups are fairly well represented by mainstream parties of the left and of the right who cannot afford to ignore these groups. Consequently, women’s/feminist parties, family leagues and “grey” parties usually fail to attract relevant numbers of voters.

For more specific and concentrated interests like hunting, farming or even car driving, the incentive structure is slightly different because demands from these groups are more easily ignored by the existing major parties. In most countries, however, agrarian and similar parties were either absorbed into mainstream parties or linger at (or beyond) the border of political irrelevance. The French Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Tradition Party is a case in point.

Other parties might campaign for a single political issue which is less obviously linked to a social group but nonetheless seen as marginal by most voters. An example would be the host of tiny and ineffectual eurosceptic groups in generally europhile countries like Germany. It is, however, worth pointing out again that both the Green parties and the anti-immigration parties of the Extreme Right parties began their ascendancy as marginal single-issue movements.

Finally, there is a bewildering host of frivolous parties that exist to make fun of “real” fringe or mainstream parties, either to get access to state funding or just for the fun of it. Examples include beer-lovers parties in several post-soviet states, Canada, Germany, Norway and Poland, parties that allude to grand (and often fictional) political and religious ideas (“Imperial British Conservative Party”, “Scottish Jacobite Party”, “Church of Militant Elvis Party”), parties that exist to challenge political correctness and the establishment (the “Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany” and the “PARTY”, which campaigns for rebuilding the Berlin wall), or the many British groups that play with the word party (“Mongolian Barbecue Great Place to Party”).

Kai Arzheimer, University of Mainz

References

Capoccia, Giovanni, “Anti-System Parties. A Conceptual Reassessment.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 14, no. 1 (January 2002): 9-36.

Hainsworth, Paul, The Extreme Right in Western Europe. New York, London: Routledge, 2008.

Jolly, Seth Kincaid, “The europhile fringe? Regionalist party support for European integration.” European Union Politics 8, no.1 (March 2007): 109-130.

Kitschelt, Herbert, “Left-Libertarian Parties: Explaining Innovation in Competitive Party Systems.” World Politics 40, No. 2 (January 1988): 194-234.

Norris, Pippa, “Preaching to the Converted? Pluralism, Participation and Party Websites.” Party Politics 9, no. 1 (January 2004): 21-45.

Pedersen, Mogens N., “Towards a New Typology of Party Lifespans and Minor Parties” Scandinavian Political Studies 5, no. 1 (January 1982): 1-16.

Reiter, Howard L., “Party Decline in the West. A Skeptic’s View.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 1, no. 3 (July 1989): 325-348.

Roosevelt, Theodore, An Autobiography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922.

Therefore, analyses by people who read and speak the relevant languages and even live in the country they are writing about fill me with vicarious pride. While I was going back and forth between Angela’s Own Country and the Disgraced Republic Formerly Known as Hellas, two fine specimen have cropped up on the internet: My old chum Ben Stanley has a journal-length piece on the Polish parliamentary elections at the monkey cage, and Jacob Christensen of trailer park political scientist fame gives an equally detailed account of the situation in Denmark.

If this post’s title does make any sense to you, chances are that you are one of us anoraks who had a brilliant weekend of extreme right spotting. In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen stepped down as leader of the Front National, just under 40 years after he founded the party. He is succeeded by his youngest daughter, who is portrayed as a moderniser (hey, she’s twice divorced) and a moderate (by FN standards). While this story might conjure the image of Prince Charles, Marine’s rise through the Front’s ranks was quick, largely unexpected and a major source of aggravation for Bruno Gollnisch, the controversial academic who became the party’s number two after the old number two, Bruno Mégret, left the party to found the MNR in 1999. If Gollnisch (who was soundly beaten by LePen the younger in the leadership contest) aims to repeat that stunt remains to be seen. I’m sure there is a silly story about men named Bruno who turn out to be the real Princes Charles here (both spent a lot of  time eyeing the leadership and are in their early 60s now ), but more importantly, Marine is going to change le Front, though her father might be tempted to meddle. These right-wingers know a thing or two about family values.

Meanwhile, in Germany the NPD, arguably the most radical amongst the electorally viable right-wing parties in Germany has celebrated its merger with its old rival DVU. The DVU was founded in the early 1970s as a marketing device for right-wing books, journals and paraphernalia and became a party in the 1980s. For nearly 40 years, it was completely dominated by its founder Gerhard Frey, who finally stepped down in 2009, aged 76. While has successor planned for the merger that became effective from January 1, some regional leaders are less than happy and seem willing to either take the issue to the courts over some alleged irregularities, or to set up a new party of their own. Either way, it would seem that the German extreme right remains divided, as it has been since the 1980s.

Kai Arzheimer, 2010, “Replication data for: Dead Men Walking? Party Identity in Germany 1977-2002″, hdl:1902.1/15091 UNF:5:AkxnvIlPgabqb2zsZ39k1A==

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