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Individual- and party-level determinants of far-right support among women in Western Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2020

Trevor J. Allen Open the ORCID record for Trevor J. Allen [Opens in a new window]  and
Sara Wallace Goodman
Trevor J. Allen*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, USA
Sara Wallace Goodman
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
*
*E-mail: allentj@ccsu.edu
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Abstract

Support for Western Europe’s far-right is majority-male. However, given the sweeping success of the party family, literature on this ‘gender gap’ belies support given to the radical right by millions of women. We examine differences between men and women’s support for far-right parties, focusing on workplace experience, positions on economic and cultural issues, and features of far-right parties themselves. We find that the received scholarship on blue-collar support for far-right populists is a largely male phenomenon, and women in routine nonmanual (i.e. service, sales, and clerical) work are more likely than those in blue-collar work to support the far-right. Moreover, while men who support the far-right tend to be conservative on other moral issues, certain liberal positions predict far-right support among women, at both the voter and party level. Our analysis suggests that gender differences may obscure the socio-structural and attitudinal bases of support for far-right parties and have broader implications for comparative political behavior and gender and politics.

Keywords

far-right populismpartiesgenderWestern Europe
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 135 - 150
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research

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