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ABSTRACT
New Zealand First is occasionally misclassified as a ‘radical right’ and/or ‘right-wing populist party.’ This presents an opportunity to examine how parties might be placed into this family of parties. This paper draws from literature describing parties to propose five criteria to classify a party as radical right/right-wing populist, in part based on views in the electorate. Criteria include: (1) An intersection of populist style and antipathy to immigration; (2) Cultural authoritarianism; (3) Political authoritarianism; (4) Supporters who identify as right-wing; and (5) An electorate that views the party as far right. This study concludes that apart from perhaps two of these criteria, including the least discriminating, New Zealand First was not radical right/right wing populist. More broadly, this study expands on our understanding of ‘radical right’ and/or ‘right-wing populist’ parties by illustrating that the US Republican party, although classified less often with European radical right populist parties than New Zealand First, should be classified as such.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. In models (not shown) that controlled for age, education, ideological self-placement, evaluations of the economy, strong leader sentiments, and gender.
2. The SVP won the most seats in several federal elections; 1st in 1999 in vote share, with the most seats after elections in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019, and has been a governing party for decades, so has been established as a coalition partner.
3. Sahil Chinoy, New York Times 2019/06/26; Analysis by Will Lowe (Princeton), using Manifesto Project data.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Todd Donovan
Todd Donovan is professor of Political Science at Western Washington University.