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Abstract
This article presents an agency-based approach to the success of radical right-wing populist parties. It posits that radical right parties will only experience sustained electoral success when they are built prior to their electoral breakthrough and when they institutionalise rapidly. The process of institutionalisation will progress more quickly when radical right parties have a leader with strong internal leadership qualities and when sufficient attention is paid to the recruitment, training and socialisation of candidates. The argument is illustrated through a comparison between two Dutch radical right parties: the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) and the Partij Voor de Vrijheid (PVV). The two cases offer a compelling example of learning effects in politics: Geert Wilders (PVV) observed the collapse of the LPF and has avoided making the same mistakes.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of West European Politics, as well as Nicole Bolleyer, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. We are grateful to the EUI for awarding us a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (Sarah L. de Lange) and a Max Weber Fellowship (David Art), which enabled us to work on this article.
Notes
1. The ‘war of words’ about the appropriate terminology to describe the parties discussed in this article is still ongoing (Mudde Citation1996, Citation2007). This article employs the term radical right parties, because of its distinctive capacities and because the term strikes the right balance between exclusiveness on the one and inclusiveness on the other hand (Zaslove Citation2007: 66). To define the ideology of radical right parties this article follows Betz (Citation1994: 4), who argues that these parties are right wing in their ‘rejection of individual and social equality and of political projects that seek to achieve it’, radical in their ‘rejection of the established socio-cultural and social-political system’, and populist in their ‘unscrupulous use and instrumentalisation of diffuse public sentiments of anxiety and disenchantment’ and ‘appeal to the common man and his allegedly superior common sense’.
2. The LPF and PVV are right-wing, radical, and populist and therefore qualify as radical right parties (Akkerman Citation2005; Lucardie Citation2007; Lucardie and Voerman Citation2002; Vossen Citation2009; Wansink Citation2007). The two parties are in favour of less immigration and more integration, pointing in particular at the challenges posed by the existence of a sizeable Muslim community in the Netherlands. They are also very critical of the cultural and political elite in the Netherlands, presenting themselves as parties of the people.
3. While it is impossible to understate the importance of Fortuyn's death, we argue that the divergent trajectories of the LPF and the PVV cannot be explained by this fact alone.
4. The PVV is entitled to a fifth seat in the European Parliament when the Treaty of Lisbon comes into effect and the number of seats in the European Parliament allocated to the Netherlands increases.
5. The existence of a formal and public gedoogakkoord makes the position of the PVV much stronger than that of the Dansk Folkeparti, which has supported a right-wing minority cabinet led by Venstre since 2001.
6. Research has demonstrated that the size of the potential electoral constituency for radical right parties in the Netherlands has been fairly constant over time. Moreover, it also shows that the LPF and PVV take similar positions in the Dutch political space and that the electoral constituencies of the parties are almost identical (Achterberg Citation2008).
7. According to several LPF politicians, this led to the emergence of ‘party barons’, who often contested decisions taken by the party executive.
8. In 2002 Winnie de Jong and Cor Eberthart were expelled from the parliamentary group and went on to found Conservatieven.nl. The party participated in the 2003 parliamentary elections, but received only 2,521 votes. Between 2003 and 2006 another five members turned their backs on the LPF, some of whom subsequentially founded breakaway parties. Two of these participated in the 2006 parliamentary elections: Eén NL, led by Joost Eerdmans and Marco Pastors, and the Partij voor Nederland, led by Hilbrand Nawijn. However, the two parties did not pass the electoral threshold of 0.67 per cent and hence did not gain representation in the Second Chamber.
9. However, the PVV participated in only two municipalities in the 2010 local elections, namely Almere and Den Haag. According to Wilders, this decision was motivated by that fact that he ‘found too few people for whom I could vouch. If you participate under these circumstances, you risk shooting yourself in the foot.’
10. The only intraparty conflict that has become public has been between Martin Bosma, Wilders' lieutenant, and Hero Brinkman. The latter has repeatedly asked urged Wilders to democratise the PVV, arguing that the party needs members and a youth organisation to recruit sufficient qualified candidates (internal memo leaked by EenVandaag on 18 November 2010).
11. Wijnschenk claims that he was never interested in entering parliament, and only agreed to take a place on the list that was not likely to win a seat. Whether this was his choice, or whether he was not offered a higher spot, could not be cross-checked.
12. Wilders briefly lost his parliamentary seat in 2002, after the VVD received an electoral beating from the LPF. Fennema (Citation2010) argues that his temporal disappearance from parliament sparked Wilders' radicalisation.
13. The party statutes even stipulate that he has the right to appoint his successor and that he can revoke this appointment at any point in time.
14. This decision has been severely criticised by the established parties and political commentators, arguing that undemocratic parties should not be allowed to participate in the democratic process.
15. Internal memo leaked by EenVandaag (18 November 2010). For a more detailed account of Martin Bosma's position on the question of organisational structure see also Bosma (Citation2010).
16. Several candidates have been removed from these lists after they had spoken to the media about their involvement in the PVV (Geurtsen and Geels Citation2010).
17. Exceptions to this rule are Fleur Agema, who was elected to the provincial council of Noord-Holland for the LPF, and Barry Madlener, who was elected to the municipal council of Rotterdam for LR (Volkskrant 24 August 2006; 19 May 2009).