The Electoral Success of the Extreme Right: Is the Presence of a Minority Important?

Abstract

Anti-minority rhetoric as an almost universal feature of extreme-right parties is often analytically and empirically linked to their electoral success. This article tests the link between the presence of an outgroup and the vote for the extreme right in an attempt to explain the electoral success of the first openly anti-system extreme-right party to enter the Slovak parliament in 2016. A multilevel approach is used to analyse the connection between Roma presence in a municipality and extreme-right support while controlling for the individual characteristics of voters. Analysis using exit-poll data covering 161 municipalities and 20 128 voters reveals no relationship between the presence of Roma in a municipality and support for the extreme right. A partial exception seems to be observed for older voters and the university-educated, who are generally the least inclined to far-right support. Interaction effects suggest that, for these groups, Roma presence might be connected to a higher probability to cast a vote for the extreme right. However, a notably higher chance of voting for the extreme right was associated with young, male, manual labourers and people without university education.