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Economic Risk within the Household and Voting for the Radical Right

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2021

Tarik Abou-Chadi Open the ORCID record for Tarik Abou-Chadi [Opens in a new window]  and
Thomas Kurer
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Abstract

This article investigates how unemployment risk within households affects voting for the radical right. The authors contribute to recent advances in the literature that have highlighted the role of economic threat for understanding the support of radical-right parties. In contrast to existing work, the authors do not treat voters as atomistic individuals; they instead investigate households as a crucial site of preference formation. Combining largescale labor market data with comparative survey data, they confirm the expectations of their theoretical framework by demonstrating that the effect of occupational unemployment risk on radical-right support is strongly conditioned by household-risk constellations. Voting for the radical right is a function not only of a voter’s own risk, but also of his or her partner’s risk. The article provides additional evidence on the extent to which these effects are gendered and on the mechanisms that link household risk and party choice. The results imply that much of the existing literature on individual risk exposure potentially underestimates its effect on political behavior due to the neglect of multiplier effects within households.

Keywords

economic riskelectoral competitionradical right
Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 482 - 511
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2021

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