The Determinants of Far Right Party Support in Europe : The Role of Economic Insecurity

What is the impact of unemployment on far-right party support? This article develops a framework that links unemployment and economic insecurity to far-right party support, while taking into account both the heterogeneity of the workforce and the role of labour market institutions. We focus on the effect of unemployment on outsider and insider labour market groups, and examine the extent to which unemployment benefits and Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) mediate the effect of unemployment on economic insecurity, thus limiting the impact of unemployment on far right party support. We carry out our analysis on a sample of 16 Western and 10 Eastern European countries between 1991 and 2013. We find that unemployment only leads to higher far-right support when benefits replacement rates are low. The results with regards to the mediating effect of EPL are more complex as EPL only mediates the impact of unemployment when we take into account the share of foreign - born population in the country