ABSTRACT
Since the late 1980s, Western Europe has experienced the rise of a large number of radical right parties. 1 At the moment there are ten radical right parties represented in nine West European national parliaments, with vote shares ranging from 5.7 percent in Sweden to 29.0 percent in Switzerland. As a result of their electoral success, several West European radical right parties have assumed office in recent years, such as the Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (BZÖ) and Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) in Austria, the Lega Nord (LN) in Italy and the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) in the Netherlands. In recent years, radical right parties have also emerged in Central and Eastern Europe, where they have successfully contested elections in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
