INTRODUCTION

Many attempts have been made to explain the success of radical right parties by looking at the relationship of the radical right vote with unemployment and immigration. In the previous chapter, a relationship was found between socioeconomic variables and the radical right vote in France and Austria, but this relationship does not provide a causal mechanism to explain the difference in the level of success of radical right parties. Having similar levels of immigrants and unemployment does not lead to the same relationship in Germany. In this chapter, I move beyond previous explanations for the success of radical right parties by focusing on the role of electoral systems and coalition strategies.

The electoral system in a country plays an important role in determining the ability of a small party to gain votes. Electoral systems often are designed to make it difficult for small parties to compete. This is usually done by the imposition of barriers such as electoral thresholds or requiring a certain number of signatures to be eligible for an election. Another way in which small parties are discouraged is coordination by the mainstream parties that leads to strategic voting. Strategic voting occurs when voters choose to vote for a party other than their preferred party because they are afraid of wasting their vote, or they are afraid that their least-favored party will win if they vote for their preferred party.