ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Polit. Sci.

Sec. Elections and Representation

Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpos.2025.1529840

This article is part of the Research TopicShaping the Future? Exploring the Dynamics of New Parties in European DemocraciesView all 3 articles

New Parties, New Policies? The Influence of Radical Right Parties on Immigration Policies

Provisionally accepted
  • University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Radical right parties are widely regarded as influential political actors, particularly in the domain of immigration policy. In recent times, greater attention has been directed towards the potential influence of these new parties on the output of the legislative process. As radical right parties are predominantly opposition parties, the radical right aims to exert indirect effects. The paper extends research on the indirect policy effects of the radical right on immigration legislation. By utilizing the concepts of salience and distance in policy preferences, the paper provides a more accurate depiction of the radical right's potential for policy influence than previous accounts. The analysis encompasses 11 West European democracies from 1985 to 2017, a period that covers the consolidation of radical right parties. The results of linear regressions with country fixed effects illustrate that indirect effects by the radical right are not a pivotal element of immigration policy change. In the event of conservative office holders, radical right parties, however, have the capacity to exert an indirect effect on policy reforms through the interplay of salience and distance in policy preferences. An indirect effect is also evident in the highly symbolic sub-area securitization of immigration. The paper provides evidence that new parties can influence the political future of a country through their indirect influence in shaping immigration policy. Whilst the influence on political competitors has been frequently discussed, the paper demonstrates that the consequences of the radical right extend to public policy.

Keywords: Radical right parties, Immigration policy, policy change, Party competition, West European Democracies

Received: 17 Nov 2024; Accepted: 04 Jun 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Berger. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Valentin Tim Zacharias Berger, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.