For a long time, Spain was thought of as an outlier because it did not have a significant radical right movement. However, the sudden popularity of VOX among voters in Andalusia has put an end to so-called “Spanish exceptionalism”. The rise of this radical right party is important for two reasons: its potential direct impact on the political system, and the way in which it will affect other political players. The purpose of this research is to explore the factors that have led voters to cast ballots for VOX during the 2018 regional elections in Andalusia. Regression analysis has been carried out in order to test some of the most widely accepted theories in the literature about the radical right vote. The results show that VOX’s vote is fundamentally dictated by broader socio-political factors related to territorial model, ideological self-identification and perception of political leaders. In this sense, two of the most accepted set of explanations—those which consider that the vote for the radical right is conditioned by economic or identity-related vulnerability—are refuted.

In recent years, Spain’s political landscape has been dramatically transformed from a two-party system, to a new polarized multi-party system. In this sense, two new radical parties are playing a crucial role: Unidas Podemos (UP) and VOX. Despite their ideological differences, both have been defined as populists. In the case of UP this nature has been pointed out, but for VOX it is less clear due to its recent institutionalization. Our purpose is to examine populism regarding these two parties. We conducted a qualitative analysis of manifestos and speeches using so-called Discourse-Theoretical Analysis (DTA) to examine their ideological discursive elements. The results show that the relation between radicalism and populism is not mechanical or self-evident and that there is a need to develop a research agenda that treats populism systematically, not as an empty rhetoric concept.

The aim of this research is to examine to what extent the electoral support for radical right parties (RRPs) is driven by ‘policy voting’ and to compare this support with that of centre-right parties. Using the European Election Study 2019, we focus on six party systems: Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom. Our analyses reveal that party preferences for RRPs are better explained by policy considerations than by other alternative explanations (e.g. by ‘globalization losers’ or ‘protest voting’). Additionally, the results show that although preferences for both party families are mainly rooted in ‘policy voting’, notable differences emerge when looking at the role of specific policy dimensions. Overall, these findings suggest that the support for RRPs cannot be understood fundamentally as a mere reaction against economic pauperization or political dissatisfaction but instead as an ideological decision based on rational choice models.

Si bien los partidos de derecha radical han sido examinados en profundidad desde su irrupción en la arena política europea a finales de los años 80, no se ha prestado suficiente atención a las razones que hay detrás de su desigual desempeño electoral (es decir, a la variación de su éxito inter e intrapaíses). El objetivo de esta investigación es identificar los diferentes escenarios de éxito electoral de los partidos de derecha radical en diez países europeos entre 2008 y 2019. A través del Análisis Cualitativo Comparado en su modalidad difusa (fsQCA) -una técnica orientada a los casos que permite una examinación comparativa basada en los conceptos de equifinalidad y heterogeneidad causal- se testan varias condiciones causales relacionadas con explicaciones de la demanda y de la oferta. Los resultados revelan cuatro pautas causales suficientes que explican el éxito de estos partidos, lo que confirma que estos son capaces de adquirir relevancia en contextos diversos. Las cuatro pautas combinan tanto condiciones de demanda como de oferta, si bien el rol de estas últimas es cualitativa y cuantitativamente más importante. En particular, se observa cómo la derecha radical es capace de aprovechar dinámicas políticas favorables incluso en ausencia de contextos socio-económicos favorables a priori. En definitiva, estos hallazgos contradicen algunas de las explicaciones mecanicistas existentes en la literatura y van en la dirección de entender la derecha radical como un fenómeno complejo y multiforme que requiere de innovaciones teóricas y metodológicas.

In recent decades, the growing prominence of the radical right party family of parties in Europe has received considerable academic attention, with one of the main objectives being to study their electoral performance. In this sense, the literature has given a preeminent role to the demand-side factors. The supply factors - which are those that refer to the characteristics of the parties themselves - have received much less attention. Nonetheless, there are reasons to think that, given the limitations of demand-centered explanations, the research agenda on the radical right needs a kind of 'internalist turn'. Or what is the same: a more rigorous and systematized look at the supply-side factors (and especially, on those related to the party organization). The aim of this research is to examine the impact of the organizational dimension on the electoral performance of VOX in November 2019 national elections. In particular, the impact of two organizational factors -socioeconomic status of the candidates and territorial implantation- is tested, through multivariate analysis. The results show the importance of the organizational sphere in the electoral performance of the radical right in Spain and point in the direction of continuing to deepen the study of the supply-side factors.