TY - JOUR

T1 - Climate Sceptics or Climate Nationalists? Understanding and Explaining Populist Radical Right Parties’ Positions towards Climate Change (1990–2022)

AU - Schwörer, Jakob

AU - Fernández-García, Belén

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2023.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Populist radical right parties are often considered to be the most extreme opponents of climate protection in Western Europe. Others predict a ‘climate nationalism’ among populist radical right parties combining nativism with a pro-climate agenda. Based on a new data set on party positions on climate change, including 485 party manifestos – 76 from populist radical right parties – from the 1990s to 2022 in 10 Western European countries, we find that populist radical right parties are divided but generally less likely to speak out for climate protection than other parties, which rather contradicts the climate nationalism argument. We find that populist radical right parties only became more aware of the issue since 2019 in the face of the mass mobilizations of Fridays for Future and, to a lesser extent, when it became a visible issue within the party system. Thus, we argue that populist radical right parties are forced to talk about the climate when the issue is emphasized by organized actors.

AB - Populist radical right parties are often considered to be the most extreme opponents of climate protection in Western Europe. Others predict a ‘climate nationalism’ among populist radical right parties combining nativism with a pro-climate agenda. Based on a new data set on party positions on climate change, including 485 party manifestos – 76 from populist radical right parties – from the 1990s to 2022 in 10 Western European countries, we find that populist radical right parties are divided but generally less likely to speak out for climate protection than other parties, which rather contradicts the climate nationalism argument. We find that populist radical right parties only became more aware of the issue since 2019 in the face of the mass mobilizations of Fridays for Future and, to a lesser extent, when it became a visible issue within the party system. Thus, we argue that populist radical right parties are forced to talk about the climate when the issue is emphasized by organized actors.

KW - climate

KW - political parties

KW - populism

KW - radical right

KW - Western Europe

KW - Politics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85163035960&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/01e6f508-d14e-32ce-9b2c-4fc7d5142d59/

U2 - 10.1177/00323217231176475

DO - 10.1177/00323217231176475

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85163035960

JO - Political Studies

JF - Political Studies

SN - 0032-3217

ER -