One feels almost (almost!) sorry for the Social Democratic left: They are squeezed between the more modern Greens/Libertarians on the one hand, and the Extreme Right on the other. The latter has been remarkably successful in poaching working class voters who are worried about immigration and don’t feel particularly attached to the unions or the parties of the left.  In a relatively recent contribution (Bale et al. 2010), Tim Bale and colleagues  take a closer look at this dilemma and identify three Social Democratic  strategies for dealing with it.

While their work is largely qualitative, I’ve crunched the numbers and tried to shed some light on two related questions: Is the Extreme Right really subject to a process of proletarisation, and can the strategies outlined by Bale et al. work to win back working class voters.

The result is still somewhat work in progress – comments are highly appreciated.

Continue reading “Working Class Parties 2.0? Competition between Centre Left and Extreme Right Parties” »

Just back from the ECPR conference at Potsdam, which was great fun for various reasons. Here is my conference presentation on the dynamics of radical right support and mainstream party political change in France (PDF).