ABSTRACT
This chapter profiles the social base of elect oral support for the parties of the Extreme Right1 in Western Europe, i. e. the ques tion of whether some groups in society are more suscept ible to the appeal of these parties than others. This issue is relev ant for a number of reasons: First, by looking at the social compos i tion of European soci et ies we might be able to better understand why parties of the Extreme Right are more success ful in some coun tries than in others. Second, a careful analysis of the link between the social and the polit ical might help us to gauge the poten tial for future right-wing mobil iz a tion in coun tries which currently have no elect or ally success ful parties of the Extreme Right. Third, knowing who votes for a party might help us to get a clearer under stand ing of the under ly ing motives to cast a vote for the Extreme Right. Over the last fifteen years or so, analyses of the Extreme Right’s elect or ate(s) have become
a minor industry within the larger context of (compar at ive) Political Sociology. By neces sity, this chapter aims at summar iz ing the main find ings from this research program, but cannot strive for a compre hens ive present a tion of all that has been achieved during these years. More specific ally, find ings from national and small-n studies are (almost) completely ignored. Much by the same token, I will not delve into the fascin at ing liter at ure on the social bases of the Interwar Extreme Right in Germany and in other coun tries.2
