Euros right Essay Example for Free

Euros right Essay The radical right refers to parties with two basic characteristics. To begin with their perception of the nation is more ethnic than anything else and consequently they aim at defending the country from any possible external threats (Art, 2007, Pp 332). Right-wing parties are also populist in nature due to the fact that their political strategy involves attacking the government of the day and generally aims at tapping into the frustrations, insecurities and fears the regular citizen may have (Art, 2007 Pp 332). They are right-wing because of their opposition of socialism and more restrictive policies on immigration. They are different from the far right because they support welfare programs, rights of gay people, freedom of expression, gender equality and separation of church and state. The parties’ ideology is such that they present themselves as the guardians and protectors of liberal ideas that are traditional (Akkerman, 2005 Pp 337-354) Radical right wing populist gained its first significant successes with the appearance of the French National Front and British national party in the 1980s. James Schwarzenbach of Switzerland pioneered this trend in ideology in the beginning of the 1970s. The Front National rose in France in 1983, scoring approximately above 155 of the votes in regional elections and gaining 35 seats in the legislative election of 1986. Its support had reached a peak by 1997 at more than 14% but the support later dropped to 4% (www. stanford. edu/group/SHR/s-2/patton. html). The support of the Republicans in the European parliament decreased with a swing that favored the far right National Democratic Party of Germany. The party held a 1. 6% vote majority garnering up to an estimate 9% of the regional votes. (Jesuit and Mahler, 2004 pp25) The situation in Switzerland is slightly different. When the popularity of the Swiss Democrats and the Swiss Freedom Party grew in the 1990s they were absorbed by the Swiss People’s Party. The Swiss Party had an assertive campaign which was mainly right-wing and populist. The campaign enabled the party to acquire an estimated 28. 5% of the popular vote in 2007. The Austrian Freedom Party, another right wing party in Western Europe had great success in 1999 and formed a coalition government. The List Pim Fortuyn also formed a coalition government in 2002 and in Scandinavia the Danish People’s Party, the rightwing party has had various small successes. Jesuit and Mahler, 2004 pp26-27). The success of the right-wing political parties can be attributed to several factors. Among these are immigration, economic distress (usually levels of unemployment are used); social welfare state polices, weakening of established part systems and the proportionality of the electoral system. The support for Right wing political parties has been argued to arise from the fact that there is an increase in the multi-culturalization of the societies of west-European. In response to this, most voters have opted to support right-wing parties due to the fear of loss of a national identity as the ideology of right wing parties is against immigration. Another side to this immigration argument is that when there are high levels of immigration high unemployment levels result. This has the effect of making immigration undesirable hence increasing support for right wing parties. Another issue associated with immigration is an increase in crime which serves to make immigration even more undesirable. In effect, a high immigration rate has a favorable effect on the electoral process for the right wing parties when the economic situation is negative (Jesuit and Mahler, 2004, Pp 5). A study by Elisabeth Ivarsflaten found that the right wing parties that were successful in preceding elections; the Swiss SVP, Dutch LPF, the Front National of France had successful grievance models addressing the immigration crisis. The Austrian FPO had least success in mobilizing grievances about immigration policy and was consequently the least successful in the electoral process (Ivarsflaten, 2006, Pp17). The successful parties were more successful compared to the parties of the left which did not mobilize grievances about immigration policies. According to the study other grievance models such as economic grievance models and political elitist grievance models did not have much success in drawing voters to the right populist parties (Ivarsflaten, 2006 Pp 1-2). The radical right wing parties by focusing on a politics of resentment have capitalized on the sense of frustration by most blue-collar workers, the unemployed, less-educated and the retired and younger voters to garner support for their parties. The socially disadvantaged are more likely to blame ethnic minorities for the deterioration of conditions and to support protection of the culture while the criticizing the government (Norris, 2005, Pp 5). A five-nation comparison study found that professionals and white-collar employees have consistent under-representation in the right wing parties (Norris, 2005 Pp 6) The interaction between existing major political parties and right wing political parties facilitated by an open coalition market has contributed to the success and stability of the right wing populist parties significantly. Other political parties have had the effect of empowering the right wing populist parties by cooperating with them or being agnostic to the far right, right wing parties. Cooperation has led to increased legitimacy of the populist parties making the process of voter recruitment easier and thus increasing their support. In addition upon becoming legitimate, political entrepreneurs are drawn to the populist parties making them into a more permanent force within the party system (Art, 2005, Pp 332). This is evident from the success of the Austrian Freedom Part (FPO). The FPO formed a coalition with the conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP) in 2000. In Austria other factors like support by the media contributed to the FPO’s support and eventually stability in the country. The Krone, Austria’s largest newspaper provided Jorg Haider with a sort of free advertising and at a time when the FPO suffered political setbacks the Krone was a significant ally. Haider received favorable commentaries and the editorials lauded him in a big way. The effect of Krone’s campaign was notable fro the state elections of 1991 which resulted in FPO winning about 22. percent of the vote. This was despite the fact that Heider had been dismissed following a comment that the Third Reich’s employment policies were better than those of the government at the time. Many thought that Heider’s political career was over but the Krone came to the rescue with the editorial staff defending his comments so much that Krone received letters from the public defending Heider or lauding the editor’s (Nimmerichter) commentaries on the issues (Art, 2005, Pp 342-343). The media thus has large political might as far as shaping the attitude of readers is concerned. By bombarding readers with unambiguous messages, the direction that voters take can be influenced especially by those papers that have large circulation rats such as the Krone in Austria. Radical right-wing involvement in coalition governments is one of the factors that are sustaining most right wing political parties. Many right wing parties are now participating in government leading to a sort of convergence towards the middle and also altering the policies of various main politic parties. Following the legislative election of 2004 the Danish People’s part helped to form a coalition government in which it got recognition as a support party for the Liberal-Conservative government. This has led to the party functioning as the main coalition partner for the government in daily politics. The Danish People’s Party received five chairmanships and six vice-chairmanships of committees in parliament. In addition, reform packages that made immigration policy were part of the benefits for the Danish People’s party (Rydgren, 2006, pp8). The political discourse between rights wing political parties and the center-right is increasing in many countries with the aim of securing wins and ensuring that office is not lost to the left. Participation of right wing political parties is exemplified in the case of Austria where the FPO ahs made deals with both the SPO and the OVP. The strategy of the main central right parties is to tame the right wing by including them in government. The Grand coalition of the OVP and SPO actually started implementing some of the FPO policies before the party (FPO) began to participate in the coalition government. This was an attempt by the OVP and SPO to reduce the attraction of the FPO by taking the initiative to act before FPO could do so. This however worked against them because Heider continued to increase his demands whenever the government came close to meeting them. For instance, the government implemented a policy that focused on integration of the already existing immigrants by Heider, put in new demands of repatriation (Bale, Pp 76-77). In Italy, the right wing populist party, the Lega Nord was also involved in a coalition government with Forza Italia. The Movement Sociale Italiano (MSI) was successfully turned into the Alleanza Nationale (AN) as Gianfranco Fini made an attempt at convergence so that the far right could be brought in from the cold. (Bale, 2003 pp 78). Again, Fini’s attempt was supported with the aim of making the coalition party more likely to win the elections. There is also the element of taming the right-wing political party as claimed by Silvio Berlusconi. The effect this had on Fini’s party is that the party moved beyond fascism leaving the Lega Nord as the main party concerned with immigrant- bashing (bale, Pp 78). It should also be noted that the coalition had the effect of influencing Berlusconi’s statements on immigration for example he suggested that police could be allowed to shoot ‘scafisti’ and speedboats that provided transportation means for illegal immigrants. This shows that to some degree the coalition influenced immigration policy or the thoughts on immigration policy of politicians in other parties. The Netherlands has had a continued cross-consensus among central-right parties and the right wing populist parties. This has led to the tightening of immigration and asylum regime of Netherlands over the years. This however may not be attributed to the effect of right populist parties because the Dutch centre-right has not been very encouraging of discussion with the right wing parties. This however, can be explained by the fact that the far-right parties were not as isolated as implied by moist international media sources hence heir views were not entirely unwelcome or seen as extreme. In addition, the politicians in the centre-right were not as tolerant of immigrants and progressive as presented by the foreign media. As such tightening immigration rules was acceptable to both the centre-right and populist parties. To avoid loss of support from following economic and social policies that reflect a centrist image most coalition governments are lived up to their campaign pledges and promises. In Denmark, the immigration laws were made tighter by putting stricter criteria for acceptance, increasing the period of waiting for the residency, making it more difficult for a foreigner to bring in a spouse and making it easier for the spouse to leave following a divorce. The benefits for those waiting were also reduced. The support by the public though not unanimous was high. The changes were also accompanied by reductions in public spending on the budgets leading to increased criticism from the centrist voters. (Bale, 2003 pp 79-80) In Austria, the FPO integration contract was unopposed by OVP. The contracts made integration harder, it basically required nationals of other countries (except European Union nationals) to pay for language courses and citizenship failure to which would lead to fines and deportation. This reform agenda also had on its list privatization, reduction of expenditure on welfare, education and health with an increase of expenditure on law and order budgets. The Italian right wing government has kept its promise of immigration policy but was met with much criticism from businesses due to decrease in availability of labor. Consequently Berlusconi allowed his right-wing partners to take the credit for the decline in crime apparently attributed to stricter laws on foreigners, so they could also take the rap for the market-labor issues brought about by the tougher laws on immigration. The effect of the short-lived coalition government of the CDA with the right-wing LPF also resulted in tougher laws on foreigners with requirements for payment for language classes and laws that made it difficult for the foreigners to be united with their spouses. A coalition agreement of June 2002 also announced the plans of the government to pursue illegal immigrants with the aim of damping down on businesses that employed them (Bale, 2003, pp 79-81). Generally the ride and stay of the right wing parties to power has led to a revision of immigration policies in those countries where the populist parties have been successful. The populist parties by their participation and activities in government have lead to increase in the legitimacy of the ideology of these right wing parties. In addition the center-right has given greater salience to the issues campaigned for by the far-right. This is because of the effect the mainstream center-right has on the media; their capacity at agenda-setting contributes to bringing the issues to the forefront. The center-right inclusion of right-wing parties in government has led to wins against the far-left. Voters who would have voted for the far-left are attracted to the ideology of the right wing populists. Though the right-wing has made much progress, their future is bleak. This is because of the fact that the programs of these parties is not in line with capitalism which is the main force behind globalization. For the economy of European countries to grow labor has to be exported because the continent generally has an aging population. This means that immigration is necessary and because the right wing parties do not oppose capitalism, they are likely to agree to demands of the business community concerning immigration causing them to implement policies that they were against, leading to loss of their populist appeal. Globalization is a greater force to deal with which cannot be challenged by nationalistic politics. The pressure of opposition to right wing politics is evidence that politics is not moving to the right only. When Le pen was successful in France, many youth took to the streets to protest against the National Front: far left candidates won about 10 percent of the popular vote in the first round of the elections and also in countries like Sweden and Germany the right-wing movement has been mainly unsuccessful. These factors will serve to temper the progress and prevalence of right-wing politics.