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other parties of the political establishment such as social democratic or socialist parties
(especially if the moderate left also converges towards the political center). In sum,
convergence of social democratic and moderate conservative parties, together with an
extended period of government participation by the moderate conservatives, creates the
electoral opening for the authoritarian right that urges voters to abandon their loyalty to
the established conservative parties (Kitschelt 1995, 17).
What does Kitschelt’s argument about established party convergence tell us
regarding the comprehensive picture of the extreme right? It tells us that electoral
performance and government experience of the ERPs should not be considered the only
indicators of their effect on politics. If we treat the ERPs as the only ‘agents’ of right-
extremist politics, we may miss the contribution of other, more mainstream, more
established, parties to the advocacy or enactment of authoritarian and exclusionist public
policies. Therefore, in evaluating the relevance of the extreme right in individual
countries or across established democracies, we should consider the possibility of the
established party effect on authoritarian policy-advocacy or policy-making. For instance,
it is possible that some ERPs have been electorally weak because ‘moderate’ parties have
already occupied the policy positions of the extreme right by embracing, pursuing, or
enacting authoritarian policies (before an ERP grows). After all, if a moderate party
satisfies the majority of right-authoritarian voters by occupying the right on the
ideological spectrum, a new-born ERP would have a harder time in gaining electoral
support because it would be more difficult for the party to present itself to the electorate
as an entirely novel political alternative.
Convention