In power but not in office: how radical right ‘outsiders’ can influence their mainstream rivals–the UK and Australian cases

TY - JOUR

T1 - In power but not in office

T2 - how radical right ‘outsiders’ can influence their mainstream rivals–the UK and Australian cases

AU - Wager, Alan

AU - Bale, Tim

AU - Gauja, Anika

AU - McSwiney, Jordan

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Countries with populist radical right governments are the exception rather than the rule. This paper uses the Australian case of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) and the UK case of the UK Independence Party (UKIP)–and its effective successor, the Brexit Party–to help explain a puzzle: how do populist radical right parties in the absence of any likely route to winning office or even holding legislative influence achieve policy payoffs? Tracing the political factors that have driven policy influence in these two cases reveals that an entrepreneurial leader with agenda-setting influence can have policy impact, despite disadvantageous structural conditions, through the following: leveraging electoral influence over both social democratic and mainstream right parties; gaining credibility through sub-national elections; and achieving (or threatening to achieve) defections from centre-right parties.

AB - Countries with populist radical right governments are the exception rather than the rule. This paper uses the Australian case of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) and the UK case of the UK Independence Party (UKIP)–and its effective successor, the Brexit Party–to help explain a puzzle: how do populist radical right parties in the absence of any likely route to winning office or even holding legislative influence achieve policy payoffs? Tracing the political factors that have driven policy influence in these two cases reveals that an entrepreneurial leader with agenda-setting influence can have policy impact, despite disadvantageous structural conditions, through the following: leveraging electoral influence over both social democratic and mainstream right parties; gaining credibility through sub-national elections; and achieving (or threatening to achieve) defections from centre-right parties.

KW - Brexit Party

KW - immigration

KW - Pauline Hanson’s One Nation

KW - policy influence

KW - Populist radical right

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128740155&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/14662043.2022.2054567

DO - 10.1080/14662043.2022.2054567

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85128740155

SN - 1466-2043

VL - 60

SP - 125

EP - 145

JO - Commonwealth and Comparative Politics

JF - Commonwealth and Comparative Politics

IS - 2

ER -