<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Economic hardship fuels worries about a possible higher share of extremist parties in European legislature and executive. The article examines whether the recent economic recession resulted in growth in electoral support for the extreme right and the extreme left in parliamentary elections. The empirical analysis includes a set of 23 EU member states and observes the period from 1995 to 2012. A supplementary aim is to determine to what degree this phenomenon has a greater impact on countries that were forced to resort to IMF financial intervention. The analysis reveals that decline in GDP and growth in unemployment helped increase electoral support for extremist parties in the EU countries. Simultaneously, their share in the lower house representation grew. In these cases, the increase in support was primarily for extreme left parties. The inflation rate did not have any significant impact on growth in vote share for extremist parties. An increased vote share for extremist parties was more apparent in countries in receipt of an IMF loan.</p></abstract>

Economic hardship fuels worries about a possible higher share of extremist parties in European legislature and executive. The article examines whether the recent economic recession resulted in growth in electoral support for the extreme right and the extreme left in parliamentary elections. The empirical analysis includes a set of 23 EU member states and observes the period from 1995 to 2012. A supplementary aim is to determine to what degree this phenomenon has a greater impact on countries that were forced to resort to IMF financial intervention. The analysis reveals that decline in GDP and growth in unemployment helped increase electoral support for extremist parties in the EU countries. Simultaneously, their share in the lower house representation grew. In these cases, the increase in support was primarily for extreme left parties. The inflation rate did not have any significant impact on growth in vote share for extremist parties. An increased vote share for extremist parties was more apparent in countries in receipt of an IMF loan.

Economic Crisis and Growth in Vote Share for Extreme Left and Extreme Right Parties

Assistant professor at Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Lipová 41a, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic.

Review of Economic Perspectives

This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.

Economic hardship fuels worries about a possible higher share of extremist parties in European legislature and executive. The article examines whether the...

Economic Crisis and Growth in Vote Share for Extreme Left and Extreme Right Parties

Published Online: Oct 20, 2015

Page range: 269 - 290

Received: Jan 05, 2015

Accepted: Aug 20, 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/revecp-2015-0020

Keywords
economic growth, extreme left, extreme right, inflation, unemployment

© 2015 Jitka Doležalová et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.

Economic Crisis and Growth in Vote Share for Extreme Left and Extreme Right Parties

Published Online: Oct 20, 2015

Page range: 269 - 290

Received: Jan 05, 2015

Accepted: Aug 20, 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/revecp-2015-0020

Keywordseconomic growth, extreme left, extreme right, inflation, unemployment

© 2015 Jitka Doležalová et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.

Keywords
economic growth, extreme left, extreme right, inflation, unemployment