The implosion of radical right populism and the path forward for social democracy: Evidence from the 2019 Danish national election

Abstract

The collapse of the Danish People's Party (DPP) was pivotal for the Danish 2019 election since a substantial bloc of their previous voters moved to the Social Democratic Party (SDP). This provides an interesting countermovement to the trend of mainstream left parties losing voters to populist or radical right-wing parties across European countries. This paper seeks to explain the driving issues in this voter movement, thereby shedding light on how mainstream left parties can turn the tables vis-à-vis their new right-wing challengers. Specifically, we focus on the traditional or first-dimension issues of welfare and redistribution versus the second-dimension issue of immigration. The simultaneous left-wing turn on welfare and redistribution and right-wing turn on immigration of the Danish SDP has provided room for varying interpretations of the election result. This paper utilizes new survey data to analyze the voter movements from and to the SDP with a special focus on defectors from the DPP. We find that attitudes toward welfare and redistribution were pivotal in moving voters from the DPP to the SDP. Meanwhile, the SDP has not completely “neutralized” the issue of immigration, which still tends to induce these voters to remain loyal to the DPP. We do not find support for the claim that immigration attitudes condition the extent to which redistributive preferences increase the likelihood of switching to the SDP. The SDP's right turn on immigration, moreover, seems to push voters to the immigration-friendly (center-left wing) support parties.