Far-right agenda setting: How the far right influences the political mainstream

Daniel Saldivia Gonzatti and Teresa Völker

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 2025, issue First View, 23 pages

Abstract: How do far-right actors influence mainstream parties over time? Previous research shows that mainstream parties contribute to the electoral success of far-right parties through coalitions or policy alliances. However, a long-term perspective on the influence of far-right actors, including parties, civil society organisations, and social movements, on mainstream parties’ communication is lacking. This article investigates how far-right actors and issues have influenced mainstream parties’ communication in Germany since the 1990s. Using automated text analysis, we analyse 520,408 articles from six newspapers. First, we semi-automatically collect far-right actors and mainstream parties and implement a structural topic model to analyse their issue agendas. Second, we use time-series analysis to examine agenda-setting effects and their drivers. The results show that far-right influence on mainstream parties’ communication has increased, particularly among opposition parties and around issues of Islam and migration. Notably, the agenda-setting effect cuts across party ideologies, indicating mainstream parties’ impact on the rise of the far right in democracies.

Keywords: far right; mainstream parties; political communication; agenda setting; automated text analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:espost:331215

DOI: 10.1017/S1475676525100066

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