This chapter assesses the evolution of the Moderates, the key catch-all party on the mainstream right in Sweden, within the context of an embedded post-materialist political culture and an emboldened populist radical right party. More specifically, the chapter looks at how the Moderates have developed electorally, ideologically and strategically since the 1990s. The key argument is that the ‘silent counter-revolution’ has been quite challenging for the Moderates across different arenas (i.e., electoral, governing and internal arena) and that the party had major difficulties, at least initially, in adapting to a new political landscape.

This concluding chapter assess if the general argument of the book holds true for all the country cases included in our analysis. It then turns its attention to the three party families of the mainstream right – Christian Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals – and examines the ways in which all of them have found it a challenge to cope with the tension between the silent and silent counter-revolutions. The third section looks at the four policy dimensions that have been and will continue to be key for the electoral profile of the mainstream right, namely, European integration, immigration, moral issues and welfare. The chapter closes by advancing three suggestions on the future research agenda on the mainstream right in Western Europe and beyond: that scholars monitor the extent to which the ‘winning formula’, which some parties have hit upon, proves to be successful in the long term; that, in the light of the programmatic changes some of them have made, scholars continually re-evaluate their classification as members of particular party families; and, finally, that scholars explore the impact of negative partisanship on both the mainstream right and the far right.

In spite of their scope and significance, the challenges faced by mainstream parties on the right of the political spectrum continue to garner far less attention than those encountered by their mainstream left rivals and those posed by parties of the far right. This chapter discusses those challenges. It begins by trying to bring some conceptual clarity and to offer working definitions of both the mainstream right and the far right in Western Europe. It then outlines our argument that mainstream right parties in Western Europe experience a tension between, on the one hand, adapting to segments of the electorate that express the liberal and progressive values of the so-called ‘silent revolution’ and, on the other hand, representing voters who sympathize with the arguably authoritarian and nativist ideas associated with the so-called ‘silent counter-revolution’. This tension, we argue, presents mainstream right parties with particular policy and political challenges when it comes to European integration, immigration, moral issues and welfare. Having introduced the topic, and our take on it, the chapter ends by presenting a short summary of each of the contributions to come.

This chapter investigates how mainstream right parties have shifted their policy positions since the 1980s. Facing a changing political space and the double pressure of the silent revolution and counter-revolution, mainstream right parties need to strategically reposition themselves in order to stay electorally relevant. We argue that mainstream right parties have increasingly shifted their position in order to appeal to more culturally conservative working-class voters. We analyse mainstream right party strategies beyond the two super dimensions (left–right and liberal–authoritarian) and describe their movements on four issue dimensions: investment versus consumption; traditional morality; immigration; and European integration. We additionally show how mainstream right parties react to the success of populist radical right parties and demonstrate that a significant reaction to radical right success is only present in the case of immigration issues.

After the end of the premiership of Margaret Thatcher in 1990, the Conservatives struggled to regain the hegemonic position they enjoyed under her leadership, having to wait until 2019 to once again win a general election with a convincing majority. This chapter analyses these travails in relation to the silent revolution and the silent counter-revolution. As a classic catch-all party, the Conservatives have had to battle to hold together a sufficiently broad electoral coalition, challenged in the political centre by the Liberal Democrats and (for a time) New Labour, and on the right by Eurosceptic populists in the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and more recently the Brexit Party. As the chapter explores, the Conservatives in opposition after the 1997 general election responded initially to the silent counter-revolution, attempting to shore-up their support on the right. Ongoing electoral defeat saw the party under David Cameron embrace the process of value change identified in Inglehart’s ‘silent revolution’ thesis. In more recent years, the Conservatives have sought once again to contain, and arguably have embraced, the silent counter-revolution of the populist radical right.

The Dutch multiparty system has incorporated exponents and beneficiaries of both the silent revolution and, more recently, the silent counter-revolution. Whilst post-materialist parties contributed to the erosion of the traditional party families’ dominant position, the breakthrough of populist right-wing parties after the turn of the twenty-first century has been more spectacular. These proved to be serious electoral competitors to the two established centre-right parties: the Christian Democrats (Christen Democratisch Appel, CDA) and conservative liberals (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie, VVD). Those two parties adapted their positions in reaction to the right-wing insurgents, sharpening their positions on immigration and cultural integration in particular, and also collaborated with them in office. None of this has stemmed the popularity of the populist right, which continues to play an important role in the highly fragmented Dutch party landscape.

The chapter explains how the centrist Christian Democratic Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) has responded to the challenges of the silent revolution and counter-revolution by demonstrating a selective willingness to cooperate with the populist radical right Freedom Party (FPÖ). Sufficient electoral distress led to the installation of new leaders who were able to change the strategic status quo. In the first instance, in 1995 Wolfgang Schüssel emphasized policy-seeking and in the second case Sebastian Kurz pursed vote-seeking. Both strategies resulted in a positional alignment and eventually a coalition with the FPÖ, which at the time was pursuing office. Changes in the ÖVP depended on shifts in the balance of power among important intra-party groups, specifically, hardline Conservatives and market Liberals viewing cooperation with the FPÖ as advantageous for their respective interests. Overall, the chapter concludes that while the ÖVP has been affected by massive voter de-alignment since the 1980s, it responded to the counter-revolution and the resulting surge of nativist populism mainly by means of emulation and cooperation.

This chapter maps the development of the electorate of the mainstream right (and its subfamilies) in Western Europe between 2002 and 2016 based on the European Social Survey. It does so in terms of sociodemographics (education, income, occupation, age and gender) and attitudes (immigration, European integration, moral issues and redistribution). Special attention is given to factors setting the mainstream right electorate apart from that of the populist radical right. The chapter shows that the mainstream right electorate has a rather stable and broad social base, (still) characterized above all by (higher status) occupations and income levels rather than by education. In terms of attitudes, too, economic conservativism remains a stronger predictor than views on cultural issues. These and other chapter findings suggest that, despite underlying shifts in Western European social structure and party competition, the mainstream right’s electoral coalition shows a relatively high level of resilience.

This chapter analyses Spain’s mainstream conservative party, the Popular Party (PP). Of the two revolutions analysed in the book – the silent and silent counter-revolutions – the Popular Party only confronted the former for several decades. In general, it adapted to a more liberal society by moderating to capture centrist voters in the 1990s without losing far right voters, thereby remaining hegemonic on the right. Midway through the subsequent decade, Spain’s two main parties, the Socialist PSOE and PP, moved further apart on post-materialist and centre–periphery issues. Today, PP is severely weakened and ideologically sandwiched between two right-wing party challengers, the more centrist Citizens and the far right Vox. This political fragmentation is due to a favourable opportunity structure for the rise of new parties after 2010 – related to the Great Recession, political corruption and the push for independence in Catalonia. In this context, PP was unable to retain its diverse electorate. It now confronts dilemmas similar to those of many of its European counterparts, and the party’s initial response to the rise of Vox was to move rightward and accommodate it as an ally.

The 2018 general elections marked a major defeat for the mainstream right in Italy. Scoring a mere 14 per cent, Forza Italia (Go Italy, FI) lost its primacy over the centre-right coalition. Excluded from the national government, the mainstream right finds itself – for the first time since 1994 – in a minority position within Italy’s political right. To understand whether this transformation reflects the tension faced by the mainstream right in coping with the silent revolution and counter-revolution, and with the migration policy challenge, this chapter reconstructs the relationship between the different components of the Italian centre-right over the past twenty-five years (1994-2018). Focusing on Berlusconi’s personalistic parties, its right-wing (populist) partners and Christian democratic allies, the chapter accounts for the demand-side and supply-side evolution of the Italian centre-right. The analyses point to the crucial role played by the issue of migration in shaping right-wing politics in Italy.

The German Christian Democrats are one of the most successful parties of the mainstream right in post-war Europe. They have held the Chancellor’s office for approximately forty-nine years, compared with just short of twenty years for the Social Democrats (SPD), their primary opponents on the mainstream left. Although the silent revolution eventually pulled the Christian Democrats to the left as the party followed public opinion, its primary contribution has been to cause fragmentation on the left. This fragmentation has meant that the left side of the political spectrum has been weaker overall. German unification also contributed to left-party fragmentation, helping the Christian Democrats to dominate politics. The silent counter-revolution, on the other hand, has been unusually weak in Germany. This weakness meant that the Christian Democrats did not face much of a threat from the right side of the political spectrum. The combination of a strong silent revolution fragmenting the political left and a weak counter silent-revolution minimizing a threat from the right has contributed to the long-term success of the German Christian Democrats.