Over the past two decades, the rise of the far right has dramatically altered party landscapes across Western Europe. Right-wing populist parties have captured double-digit vote shares in national parliamentary elections in eight different Western European states.1 In Italy, Austria, the Nether- lands, and Sweden, far-right parties have entered national coalition gov- ernments. In both Norway and Denmark, the national government cur- rently depends upon the toleration of the right-wing populist parties. On the subnational level, far-right parties have become the largest parties in many regions and cities in Western Europe.
For all the attention lavished upon them, it is often overlooked that the electoral success of right-wing parties in Western Europe has not been uni- form. In some states, no right-wing populist party has emerged.2In both Sweden and the Netherlands, such parties imploded after brief successes.
In Germany, the subject of this chapter, the REP failed to consolidate itself in the party system despite persistently high unemployment, a large foreign-born population, and a host of shocks associated with absorbing
1These include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland; I use the terms “right-wing populist” and “far right” interchangeably in this study. Other scholars have described these parties as right-wing extremist or part of the extreme-right party family. I avoid the term “extreme” because I draw a conceptual distinction between parties that seek to overturn the existing political order (right-wing extremists) and those that accept parliamentary democracy (right-wing populist and far- right parties).
2These include Finland, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Malta, and Spain. In the United Kingdom, there are two neofascist parties (the National Front and the British National Party) but no right-wing populist party.
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a former Communist state. Other right-wing political and intellectual movements in Germany have fared little better.
Why has the far right succeeded in some states and failed in oth- ers? Existing explanations focus on immigration, unemployment, elec- toral institutions, and the political program of right-wing populist par- ties. Using Germany as a case to evaluate these arguments, this chapter shows that none of them provide a compelling account for the failure of the REPs. I then use the German case to develop a new theory about the divergent success of right-wing populist parties.3Rather than looking at the ecological correlates, electoral institutions, or political coalitions that influence electoral support, I focus on the response to the far right from established political parties, the national media, and civil society.
These political and social actors have adopted different strategies to deal with the rise of right-wing populist parties. In some countries, established political parties have sought to tame the far right by giving it govern- mental responsibility. In others, some parties have attempted to stimulate right-wing populist parties to damage their political rivals.4In Germany, however, political parties sought to coopt, discredit, and marginalize the far right as soon as it emerged. The national media denounced the REPs after their initial electoral breakthrough in the 1989 West Berlin state elections and warned the German public of the dangers of right-wing populism. German civil society protested against the REP wherever the party appeared and stigmatized its members. The combined reactions of political parties, the media, and civil society produced a host of organi- zational and recruitment problems for the REPs. Germany’s culture of contrition proved too powerful for a small party trying to gain a perma- nent foothold in German politics.
The Rise and Demise of the REP
In1983, Franz Handlos, Ekkehard Voigt, and Franz Sch ¨onhuber founded the REP in the state of Bavaria.5 Handlos and Voigt were prominent
3On using case studies to create theories, see Stephen Van Evera,Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science(Ithaca: Cornell University Press,1997),67–73.
4In France, for example, Franc¸ois Mitterrand changed the electoral system in1986from majoritarianism to PR to help the National Front and divide the French right. I explore the French case in more detail in Chapter7.
5For more on the REPs, see Hans-Gerd Jaschke,Die Republikaner(Bonn: Verlag J. H.
Dietz Nachf.,1993); Richard St ¨oss,Die Extreme Rechte in der Bundesrepublik(Opladen:
Westdeutscher Verlag,1989); Hans-Georg Betz, “The Politics of Resentment: Right-Wing
CSU politicians who left the party after Franz Josef Strauss agreed to a major bank loan for the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which they denounced as a stabilization of the Communist regime. Sch ¨onhuber had been a CSU member, journalist, and popular host of the radio pro- gram “Jetzt red I” (“Now I Talk”), in which he traveled around Bavaria and encouraged people to air their political grievances. Sch ¨onhuber lost his job, however, after he published an autobiography titled Ich War Dabei(I Was There) that glorified his wartime service in the Waffen-SS.
After internal power struggles, Sch ¨onhuber emerged as leader of the REPs in1985.
Unlike other right-wing parties in Germany, the REPs were not founded by right-wing extremists with ties to neo-Nazi groups, and the party con- sistently distanced itself from such elements. The REPs initially sought to attract German conservatives who were disappointed by Helmut Kohl’s promise of a political-moral turnaround. As the liberal faction of the CDU/CSU gained power in the mid-1980s, many voters looked for an alternative to the right of the Union. The REPs developed a more pop- ulist, xenophobic program in the middle to late1980when they began calling for an end to political asylum and immigration. Blaming immi- grants for unemployment, the housing crunch, and rising crime, they decried Germany’s “ethnic overalienation” (Uberfremdung). In addition,¨ the REPs charged that foreigners were straining the welfare state and demanded that benefits be reserved for native Germans.
The party’s core ideology is German nationalism, and the defense of German history has always been an important theme. During speeches at the REP’s first party congress, the party founders called for an end to mastering the past and for Germans to develop a healthy national identity.6 This was an especially important issue for Sch ¨onhuber, who repeatedly raised the issue of German masochism in election rallies and public statements. It struck a chord with many other Germans, who joined the party specifically because of the REPs’ defense of German history.
The former head of the REPs in Berlin, for example, joined the party to
“defend the reputation of the German Wehrmacht.”7The leader of the REPs in Baden-W ¨urttemberg, who had previously been a swing voter,
Radicalism in West Germany,”Comparative Politics23, no.1(October1990):45–60;
J ¨urgen R. Winkler and Siegfried Schumann, “Radical Right-Wing Parties in Contemporary Germany,” in Hans-Georg Betz and Stefan Immerfall, eds.,The New Politics of the Right (New York: St. Martin’s,1998),96–110.
6Katharina Behrends,NPD–REP(Regensburg, Germany: Roderer Verlag,1996),117–118.
7Interview with Dr. Konrad Voigt, Berlin,24January2002.
heard Sch ¨onhuber denounce coming to terms with the past at a rally in Bavaria and joined the party soon after.8
Revisionist ideas occupied a prominent place in the party’s official doc- uments. The very first page of the REP’s1987 party program laments that “the war propaganda of the victorious powers has entered our his- tory books, and our youth must believe their exaggerations and falsifi- cations to a large degree because an objective history is still not possi- ble.”9 The REP’s 1990program repeats these basic points, adding that German political parties have exaggerated the importance of the twelve years of Nazi rule.10An “objective history,” according to the REPs, would
“decriminalize” the Nazi past by showing that the Allies committed atroc- ities as well, that German soldiers behaved honorably in combat, and that Germans suffered enormously as a result of both Allied occupation and retribution in Europe.
The REPs were unsuccesful outside the state of Bavaria, where they captured only3percent of the vote in the1986state elections, until their dramatic breakthrough in West Berlin in1989. The REPs had captured the public’s attention during the election campaign by airing a television ad that linked German immigrants with the death of German culture. They shocked the political establishment by scoring7.5percent in the Berlin election and entering a state parliament for the first time. The party gained momentum in the summer of1989in the elections for the European Par- liament, winning7.1percent of the vote nationwide and14.6percent in Bavaria. After a brief hiatus following unification, the REPs won10.9per- cent in the1992state elections in Baden-W ¨urttemberg. Many commen- tators predicted that the REPs would clear the 5 percent hurdle in the 1994national elections and thereby transform Germany into a five-party political system.11
Yet1992marked the REPs’ high point. Although the party won9.1per- cent of the vote in the1996Baden-W ¨urttemberg election, it never again came close to winning 5 percent in other state elections and won a mere2.6percent in the1994national elections. The party is now polit- ically irrelevant. As one politician lamented in 2001, “our significance
8Interview with head of REPs in Baden-W ¨urttemberg, Stuttgart,16April2002.
9Die Republikaner,Parteiprogram(1987).
10Die Republikaner,Parteiprogram(1990).
11See, for example, Dieter Roth, “Sind die Republikaner die f ¨unfte Partei?”Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B41–42/89(October1989):10–20; F. U. Pappi, “Die Republikaner im Parteisystem der Bundesrepublik,”Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B21/90(May1989):
37–44.
is now so minimal that we ask ourselves if we should even continue at all.”12
As the REPs collapsed during the1990s, right-wing populist parties across Western Europe made extraordinary gains. Only in Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands did existing right-wing parties fail to tally a double-digit electoral return in a national parliamentary election between 1986and2001. On the local and regional levels, the differences are even more pronounced. In Austria, the FP ¨O captured42percent in the1999 state elections in the state of Carinthia. In Belgium, the Vlaams Blok won nearly30percent in municipal elections in the city of Antwerp. The National Front won enough votes in municipal elections to win the major’s office in four major French cities. The Northern League became the largest political party in several northern Italian cities and even entered the gov- ernment in Milan. The REPs never approached these results.
Explaining the Success and Failure of the Far Right
How can we account for the divergent success of right-wing populist parties across Western Europe? Given the xenophobic rhetoric of most far- right parties, immigration is an obvious factor to consider. Many scholars have hypothesized that rising immigration is positively correlated with the electoral success of the far right. Using vote intention as her dependent variable, Pia Knigge finds that rising immigration increases latent electoral support for right-wing populist parties.13But as Matt Golder notes, this result is open to question since only six countries, all of which possessed right-wing populist parties, were included in the sample.14The problem of selection bias undermines the validity of this and other studies in which countries without a right-wing populist party are either not included or coded as0.15Using a new data set including all nineteen Western European
12Interview with G ¨unther Reich, Berlin,8April2002.
13Pia Knigge, “The Ecological Correlates of Right-Wing Extremism in Western Europe,”
European Journal of Political Research34, no.2(October1998):249–279.
14Matt Golder, “Explaining Variation in the Success of Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe,”Comparative Political Studies36, no.4(May2003):432–466.
15As Golder argues, studies that include countries without right-wing parties but code elec- toral support for these parties as zero assume that unemployment and immigration have no effect on extreme right support in these countries. To solve this problem, Golder uses a Tobit model with a maximum likelihood estimator to avoid this form of selection bias.
For more on Tobit models, see Gary King,Unifying Political Methodology: The Like- lihood Theory of Statistical Inference(New York: Cambridge University Press,1994), 210.
countries and a Tobit model, Golder finds that immigration does in fact increase support for right-wing populist parties. However, since Golder only uses the percentage of foreign-born population for his immigration variable, his study does not address the question of whether an increase in immigration is correlated with the electoral success of right-wing populist parties.16 Moreover, in a larger cross-national study, Pippa Norris finds no significant relationship between the proportion of nonnationals living in a country and the national vote share of the far right, a finding that dovetails with Herbert Kitschelt’s earlier assessment.17
There is thus a scholarly debate about whether immigration matters for the success of right-wing populist parties, and whether the relevant independent variable should be static (the percentage of foreign-born) or dynamic (the increase in the percentage of foreign-born). Neither of these independent variables, however, helps make sense of the German case.
The proportion of foreigners in the total population in Germany aver- aged around9percent throughout the1990s; Luxembourg and Switzer- land were the only European countries that posted significantly higher numbers. During the late1980s and 1990s, Germany also experienced the largest absolute increase in its foreign-born population in Europe.18 Between1987 and1997, the percentage of the foreign-born population jumped from6.9percent to9percent, an increase of30percent.
Perhaps more important than the number and flow of immigrants was the prevalence of xenophobic attitudes among the German population.
In1992,55 percent of Germans believed there were too many non-EU nationals living in Germany (the EU average was50percent).19In1997, this figure was still at 52percent, while the EU average had fallen to 45percent.20In anotherEurobarometerpoll conducted in1997,79per- cent of Germans agreed with the statement “Our country has reached
16 Christopher Wendt argues that sharp rises in immigration increase electoral support for right-wing populist parties. Wendt, “Toward a Majoritarian Mobilization Model for Western Europe: Explaining Changes in Far Right Vote Support,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, August28–31,2003.
17Pippa Norris, Radical Right: Parties and Electoral Competition (New York: Cam- bridge University Press, forthcoming); Herbert Kitschelt, in collaboration with Andrew J. McGann,The Radical Right in Western Europe:A Comparative Analysis(Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press,1995),610.
18John Salt, “Current Trends in International Migration in Europe,” Council of Europe, November2001.
19Eurobarometer, No.37(June1992).
20Eurobarometer, No.48(Autumn,1997).
its limits; if there were to be more people belonging to these minority groups we would have problems.” The EU average for this response was 65percent and only Greece (85percent) and Belgium (82percent) ranked higher than Germany.21Despite a large foreign-born population, a sig- nificant increase in immigration, and an anti-immigration public opinion environment, Germany failed to develop a successful right-wing populist party. Moreover, in a cross-national study, Terri Givens found that in Germany, the far right does not do better in areas with more foreigners.22 Is Germany an outlier? If one takes the average electoral performance of right-wing populist parties between1986 and2002 (see Table 1.1), rather than individual national elections, as the dependent variable, sev- eral other countries do not fit the immigration explanation. For example, in Italy the extreme right has gained12.4 percent of the vote over this time, while the percentage of the foreign-born population has risen from only0.8percent to2.2percent. Although this represents nearly a threefold increase, the absolute numbers are still extremely low. In Norway, the far right’s vote share averaged12.3 percent between1986 and2002, while the percentage of foreign born increased from2 percent to4 percent – again, a sharp increase in percentage terms but a small increase in absolute terms. In Belgium and France, the only two Western European countries where the percentage of foreign born declined between1981 and1999, the far right averaged7.5percent and11.8percent, respectively, between 1986and2003. When one looks at the long-term success of the far right in different countries, the hypothesis that immigration alone (measured either in static or dynamic terms) translates into far-right success appears dubious.
A second variable that scholars have linked with the electoral success of right-wing populist parties is unemployment. The hypothesis is that unem- ployment increases the political appeal of parties that find easy scapegoats, that is, foreigners, for economic problems. In a cross-national statistical analysis, Jackman and Volpert find that unemployment is positively corre- lated with the vote share of right-wing populist parties.23Knigge, however,
21Eurobarometer, No.47(Spring1997).
22Terri Givens, “The Role of Socioeconomic Variables in the Success of Radical Right Parties,” unpublished paper, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles.
23Robert Jackman and Karin Volpert, “Conditions Favouring Parties of the Extreme Right in Western Europe,”British Journal of Political Science26, no.4(October1996):501–
520.
finds that unemployment actually reduces the vote share of these parties and hypothesizes that voters prefer left-wing parties when the national economy sours.24
Unemployment, whether measured in static or dynamic terms, has clearly not helped right-wing populist parties in Germany. The unemploy- ment rate doubled between1991and1999(from4.2percent to8.4per- cent) and was one of the most politically salient issues throughout the 1990s. But rather than increasing their support, the REPs collapsed over this period. Moreover, the REPs achieved their best state election results in Baden-W ¨urttemberg, the state with the lowest unemployment rate in Germany over the past two decades. The REPs also originated in Bavaria, the state with the second lowest annual unemployment rate since1984.25 A brief glance at other European countries calls into question the causal effect of unemployment. The two states with the most electorally success- ful right-wing populist parties since1986, Austria and Switzerland, pos- sessed the lowest average unemployment rates over the past two decades in Western Europe (not counting Luxembourg). Despite an unemploy- ment rate of3.2percent in1999, Norway’s Progress Party hovered near 30percent in public opinion polls. Moreover, in states plagued by double- digit unemployment during the1990s, such as Ireland, Spain, and Finland, right-wing populist parties failed to emerge.
What about the combination of immigration and unemployment?
Golder finds that only when foreigners comprise more than6.3 percent of the population does unemployment affect the vote share of right-wing populist parties. Of the nineteen Western European countries, only six have ever reached this high a percentage of foreign born. Germany is one country that fits this profile, but the combination of rising unemploy- ment, a large foreign-born population, and an increase in immigration has clearly not produced a successful right-wing party there. If one excludes Luxembourg from the sample, then only Austria, Switzerland, France, and Belgium remain.26 As noted earlier, unemployment rates in Austria and Switzerland have been extremely low over the past two decades, so the argument that unemployment coupled with immigration is not a persuasive explanation for the rise of the Austrian FP ¨O or the Swiss People’s Party. Thus, in only two cases, France and Belgium, might the
24Knigge, “Ecological Correlates,”1998.
25Bundesanstalt f ¨ur Arbeit,1999.
26Since most foreigners in Luxembourg are citizens of other EU countries, there is good reason to exclude it from the universe of cases.