5
Such and similar electoral achievements provided the extreme right with coalition
or blackmail potential at local or national levels in several countries, which led to a
widespread concern among the scholars that democratic consensus could be disrupted as
a result of their growing electoral share and political influence (Betz 1994, Ignazi 2003).
Recent studies have focused on a number of research questions on this topic, such as the
meaning(s) and typologies of the extreme right, the threat that the ERPs pose on the
existing policies and institutions, the individual-level foundations behind voting for the
extreme right, and social and macro-economic factors that explain the cross-country
differences in its vote share.
The electoral success of the ERPs depends on the existing political opportunity
structure, that is the conditions that are external to these parties. Electoral laws, for
instance, may strongly shape the electoral fate of the extreme right. A majoritarian voting
system restricts the opportunity structure for new parties to become nationally
competitive or grow in vote share, while PR systems do not place as much constraint on
the newcomer political actors. This idea is attributable to the Duverger’s Law, according
to which the simple majority system favors a two-party system whereas the PR system
facilitates a multi-party system (Duverger 1965). In the United States, United Kingdom,
and Australia, for instance, the long-standing two- or two-and-a-half party systems have
largely restricted the emergence of a strong ERP in these countries. The extreme right is
electorally powerful mostly in PR systems, such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and
Norway.
The existing constitutional and legal restrictions on political extremism (e.g., laws
on racism, discrimination, or hate speech) is another factor that can shape the political
Convention