Turning to the radical right: Examining subnational variation in radical right support after ethnic minority success in East Central Europe

The radical right party family is the fastest growing party family in Europe. Initial research centered on East Central Europe has shown that radical right parties receive higher levels of support in reaction to the success of parties that support ethnic minorities. However, the strength of radical right parties can vary considerably within a country. This paper breaks new ground by investigating the subnational factors in ethnically diverse East Central European countries that contribute to the vote share that a radical right party receives within a community. We test hypotheses drawn from the literature on ethnic competition, economic deprivation, and institutional constraints using an original dataset to explore subnational variation in support for radical right parties in national elections since 2000 in Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia. Our research yields two main findings about countries with politically mobilized ethnic minority communities: First, radical right support is lower in ethnically diverse subnational units, and second, radical right support increases after ethnic minority parties have been in government in subnational units which experienced economic decline relative to other subnational units.