The ideological flexibility of established radical right parties in Western Europe

: a comparison between the Italian League and the French National Rally

Abstract

It is argued in the literature on cleavage theory that political parties are not "empty vessels", but they are rather bounded by the societal realm: they have difficulties to be ideologically flexible as there is the implicit assumption that when a political party belongs to a given side of an ideological conflict (or cleavage structure), it is ideologically rigid (inflexible). By contrast, this thesis focuses on how established radical right political parties can be ideologically flexible towards one of the newest emergent conflicts theorized by Hooghe and Marks (2018): the new transnational cleavage. However, the radical right parties are believed, among others, as the most inflexible towards the new transnational cleavage because they are considered as EU issue owners. Alternatively, I theoretically argue that political parties are to be considered as rational actors (votes-oriented) which are capable to be more flexible than we thought. Thus, I deploy and develop a holistic framework that includes both historical and rational choice institutionalist ideas in order to explore flexibility of political parties, taking into account both demand side and supply side factors (contextual flexibility, internal flexibility and external flexibility). Moreover, based on the idea that complex issues must not be understood as one-dimensional conflicts that parties and citizens approve or oppose, I argue that also the new transnational cleavage must be conceptualised as a combination of three dimensions (institutional, economic and cultural).

Through the deploy of multiple quantitative methods, including secondary data analysis and manual content analysis, I compare the flexibility of the League and the National Rally on the new transnational cleavage from election to election. The key empirical findings of this study demonstrate that the League and the National Rally have indeed been flexible, but in different ways. The League has demonstrated being fully flexible by increasing its EU issue ownership through the economic dimension and shifting position from marginal pro-Europeanism to hard-Euroscepticism thanks to the institutional and economic dimension. Whilst the National Rally is to be considered as partially flexible as it significantly increased its EU issue ownership through its economic dimension, but it kept a Eurosceptic position all over the period observed.

The significance of this thesis is that it highlights the complexity of parties’ nature, demonstrating that the classical cleavage model designed by Lispet and Rokkan does not sufficiently depict the ideology of political parties, which require a more dynamic cleavage model. Moreover, this research contributes to the much known and much debated concept of Euroscepticism. It demonstrates that the League and the National Rally have been capable of adopting stance that allows them to employ elements from both Euroscepticism and Europeanism. Thus, this study aims to pave the way for further research within the social and political sciences which should provide a richer understanding of party politics, Euroscepticism and radical right.

Date of Award	9 May 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Michelle Cini (Supervisor) & Nieves Perez-Solorzano Borragan (Supervisor)