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Centrist anti-establishment parties and their protest voters: more than a superficial romance?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2020

Sarah Engler Open the ORCID record for Sarah Engler [Opens in a new window]
Sarah Engler*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and Centre for Democracy Studies, University of Zurich
*
E-mail: sarah.engler@uzh.ch
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Abstract

New centrist anti-establishment parties (CAPs) are successful competitors in Central and Eastern Europe. Due to their emphasis on anti-establishment rhetoric and a moderate ideological platform, their breakthrough is usually explained by voters’ dissatisfaction with existing parties. However, little is known about the ideological component of their support. Expectations on the impact of ideology on vote choice in the protest voting literature range from ‘pure protest voting’, which denies any impact of ideology, to a more moderate approach, which combines protest and ideological considerations. Using survey data, I confirm that CAPs attract voters with lower levels of political trust, but ideology also matters. The degree of ideological sorting, however, varies. While some CAPs mainly attract voters from one side of the political spectrum, others attract voters from the left to the right more equally. The differences in the initial composition of their electorates have implications for the parties’ future.

Keywords

centrist anti-establishment partiesprotest votingideological votingnew partiesCentral and Eastern Europe
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , August 2020 , pp. 307 - 325
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2020

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