Explaining variation with the electoral advances of Right Populist Parties (PhD Thesis)

How can we account for variance with electoral advances of right populist parties in Western Europe? Drawing on a socio-evolutionary framework, I argue that the electoral advances of right populist parties share a very plain common denominator: They are t he reaction to moderate political actors? incapability to tame discourses over the questioning of societies? social and symbolic boundaries. I propose established political parties? capabilities to lower the salience immigration-matters in public discou rse as the best way to forestall electoral advances of right populist parties. Moderate parties can do so in omitting polarization over immigration-matters and in increasing the salience of other political issues, primarily in the socio-economic realm. I conceive the strategic interplay between the mid-left and the mid-right parties as pivotal: Once a mid-right party politicizes the immigration-issue, the crucial factor impinging on the electoral advances of anti-immigration parties is the positioning o f the mid-left parties: if they oppose the mid-right parties? stances harshly, the issue remains contested, enabling the electoral advances of anti-immigration parties. If the mid-left parties take a moderate stance once faced with skeptical tones from mi d-right parties, maybe even aim for a conservative consensus, the electoral advances of right populist parties are hampered. In one sentence: Electoral advances of right populist parties are forestalled if mid-left parties largely give in to the demands of mid-right parties as the immigration issue is politicized. My PhD project will test this hypothesis via a political claims analysis, using media data. I focus on a most similar systems design and scrutinize the immigration discourses of established parties since the mid 1980s in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden and how they affected the electoral advances of right populist parties.