Contagious Parties: Anti-Immigration Parties and Their Impact on Other Parties' Immigration Stances in Contemporary Western Europe

Abstract

Anti-immigration parties have experienced electoral lift-off in most Western democracies, although the consequences of their victories for real-life policy outcomes have remained largely unexplored. A key question is: do electoral pressures from anti-immigration parties have a ‘contagion’ impact on other parties’ immigration policy positions? In this article, I argue and empirically demonstrate that this is the case. On the basis of a comparative-empirical study of 75 parties in 11 Western European countries, I conclude that this contagion effect involves entire party systems rather than the mainstream right only. In addition, I find that opposition parties are more vulnerable to this contagion effect than parties in government. The findings of this article imply that anti-immigration parties are able to influence policy output in their political systems without entering government.

Full text

http://ppq.sagepub.com/
Party Politics
http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/16/5/563
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/1354068809346002
2010 16: 563 originally published online 2 March 2010Party Politics Joost van Spanje
Parties' Immigration Stances in Contemporary Western Europe
Contagious Parties : Anti-Immigration Parties and Their Impact on Other
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
Political Organizations and Parties Section of the American Political Science Association
can be found at:Party PoliticsAdditional services and information for
http://ppq.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:
http://ppq.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:
http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/16/5/563.refs.htmlCitations:
What is This?
- Mar 2, 2010 OnlineFirst Version of Record
- Aug 31, 2010Version of Record >>
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
Anti-Immigration Parties and Their Impact on Other
Parties’ Immigration Stances in Contemporary
Western Europe
Joost van Spanje
ABSTRACT
Anti-immigration parties have experienced electoral lift-off in most
Western democracies, although the consequences of their victories for
real-life policy outcomes have remained largely unexplored. A key
question is: do electoral pressures from anti-immigration parties have a
‘contagion’ impact on other parties’ immigration policy positions? In
this article, I argue and empirically demonstrate that this is the case. On
the basis of a comparative-empirical study of 75 parties in 11 Western
European countries, I conclude that this contagion effect involves
entire party systems rather than the mainstream right only. In addition,
I find that opposition parties are more vulnerable to this contagion
effect than parties in government. The findings of this article imply that
anti-immigration parties are able to influence policy output in their
political systems without entering government.
KEY WORDS anti-immigration parties elections immigration Western Europe
Introduction
Anti-immigration parties have emerged in most Western democracies and in
some countries have enjoyed considerable electoral success. Many scholars
have studied the factors underlying the electoral performance of these parties
because it is these parties that affect real-life policy outcomes in their coun-
tries (e.g. Golder, 2003; Ivarsflaten, 2008; Van der Brug et al., 2005). Elec-
toral success does not automatically translate into policy influence, however,
so the question concerns the extent to which the policy influence of anti-
immigration parties is related to their electoral fortunes.
PARTY POLITICS VOL 16. No.5 pp. 563–586
Copyright © 2010 SAGE Publications Los Angeles London New Delhi
www.sagepublications.com Singapore Washington DC
1354-0688[DOI: 10.1177/1354068809346002]
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Needless to say, the electoral performance of anti-immigration parties has
an impact on the direct policy influence they can exercise in parliament
and, if they gain access to power, in office (see Heinisch, 2003). Anti-
immigration parties’ electoral success might also exert indirect effects, i.e.
by influencing other parties’ policy positions (see also Williams, 2006: 51).
To what extent is this the case? Do electoral pressures from anti-immigration
parties exert ‘contagion effects’1on the positions of other parties on the issues
that they try to mobilize on, most notably, immigration? This is the main
question guiding my article.
This question is seldom addressed, which is perhaps surprising as the
answers are interesting from a scientific perspective. The extent to which anti-
immigration parties affect party competition is a relevant question in several
research fields. Moreover, its importance goes beyond scientific interest. If
such contagion effects exist, then the presence of anti-immigration parties
would affect policy-making throughout Western Europe, which would raise
all kinds of questions about the desirability of this situation.
Here, I focus on a key issue of anti-immigration parties, namely immigra-
tion policy. I assess whether the electoral success of anti-immigration parties
has any effect on the positions of the other parties in contemporary Western
European countries regarding immigration, and, if so, what it is. I focus on
one type of impact, defined in terms of Downsian spatial competition. An
effect is considered ‘contagion’ if other parties shift to more restrictive immi-
gration policy positions after electoral success of the anti-immigration party
in their country. I measure contagion effects in various ways, not only con-
cerning right-wing parties – compare with the ‘contagion of the right thesis’
(e.g. Norris, 2005) – but also contagion affecting the party system as a whole.
Previous Work
It is a widely held belief that the electoral victories of anti-immigration
parties cause other parties to copy these parties’ rhetoric. The existing liter-
ature suggests ‘contagion effects’ of two kinds. First, established parties are
said to have shifted to the right (Harmel and Svasand, 1997; Norris, 2005).
Second, many researchers share the view that the mainstream parties have
co-opted restrictive immigration policies (Downs, 2002; Minkenberg, 2002;
Pettigrew, 1998; Schain, 1987, 2002).2As the core issue of anti-immigration
parties is immigration (e.g. Betz, 2002; Van der Brug and Fennema, 2003),
and these parties’ positions on the left–right axis3vary considerably (e.g.
Lubbers, 2001; Norris, 2005), the expectations concerning the immigration
dimension are much more straightforward than those regarding left and right.
This article therefore focuses on contagion effects regarding immigration.
The first reports regarding co-optation by the establishment of anti-
immigration policies and rhetoric date back 20 years. In the late 1980s,
Schain wrote that established French parties had partly adopted the anti-
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
564
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

immigration rhetoric of the National Front (1987). In particular, the main-
stream right had co-opted anti-immigration views, according to Schain
(1987: 242). In his more recent work (2002), Schain gives examples of
mainstream politicians from both the left (Fabius in 1985) and the right
(Balladur in 1998) who tried to open up the debate on the policy positions
taken by the National Front (2002: 238, 240).4Similarly, Minkenberg
(2002) reports an ‘agenda-setting effect’ in France, leading the other parties
to co-opt the agenda of the National Front. In his view, the situation in
Germany is similar to that in France, with the ‘major parties’ embrace of
the right-wing definition of the “asylum problem” in 1992’ (2002: 267).
In the same vein as Schain and Minkenberg, Pettigrew (1998) states that
‘while far-right efforts have gained only minimal power directly, they have
shifted the entire political spectrum to the right on immigration’ (p. 95). He
maintains that this thesis holds not only for Europe, but also for the United
States and Australia.
In a similar vein, William Downs emphasizes that the strategy of co-
optation of policies by other parties is widespread across Western Europe
(2001). Downs gives examples concerning various parties, among them the
Social Democratic Party in Denmark, arguing that the co-opting of strat-
egies can be witnessed on both the left and right of the political spectrum
(2001, 2002).
A notable exception to the consensus on the contagion regarding the
immigration issue is a study by Perlmutter, who concludes that the influence
of anti-immigration parties in Germany and Italy regarding immigration
was small (2002). It is very likely, Perlmutter argues, that the mainstream
parties in these countries would also have become more restrictive on immi-
gration without the emergence of the Republicans (REP) in Germany and
the Northern League (LN) in Italy in the early 1990s.5
This brief overview6makes clear that the academic debate on contagion
effects revolves around two questions, which both follow from the applica-
tion of Downsian spatial analysis. Do anti-immigration parties exert conta-
gion effects on the immigration issue? And, if so, is only the right affected
by this contagion, or the left as well? These are two of the questions that I
aim to answer in this article. Another question addressed is the extent to
which the responses in terms of policy positioning can be explained by
Downsian spatial competition for votes.
Approach
In the relevant literature, the notion of contagion builds on the landmark
theory of electoral competition developed by Anthony Downs (1957). This
theory takes into account the relevant actors at elections: voters on the one
hand and parties on the other. The electoral process is described in this theory
as an electoral market with parties on the ‘supply side’ and voters on the
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
565
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

‘demand side’. In this view, the co-optation of an anti-immigration party’s
policies by a rival party can be understood as an inter-party electoral strategy.
Let us initially assume, in accordance with Downs’ theory, that parties are
rational actors involved in competition for votes along a (one-dimensional)
spatial continuum, and that voter preferences are distributed along this
dimension as well. Parties will, in that case, strategically adapt their posi-
tions in attempts to attract more voters. If a particular competitor performs
well in particular elections, it is reasonable for the other parties to expect
many voters to be close to their competitor’s position on the continuum.
These parties will therefore expect to attract more voters by moving closer
to their competitor’s position.
If we assume, furthermore, that the immigration issue has some degree of
salience in contemporary Western Europe, parties are expected to adjust their
policy positions on immigration to substantial changes in the political context
in which they are operating. Thus, they will adjust their immigration policy
position according to the electoral performance of an anti-immigration party.
After all, previous research suggests that voters do not prefer such a party
over the mainstream right on the basis of just any issue, but because of
their positions on specific issues, most notably immigration (e.g. Ivarsflaten,
2005b; Van der Brug and Fennema, 2003; Van der Brug et al., 2000). Of
course, these parties campaign on other platforms as well, such as law and
order, corruption and populism. However, they usually link these themes
to immigration. Moreover, immigration issues are widely considered to be
their main concern (e.g. Betz, 2002; Ivarsflaten, 2008).
When focusing on immigration policy positions only, however, following
Downs runs the risk of an oversimplified picture being presented. Ever since
Downs’ major publication more than 50 years ago, spatial theory has been
developed and improved upon (e.g. Enelow and Hinich, 1990; Merrill and
Grofman, 1999; Shepsle, 1991). Major modifications were guided by the
insight that parties compete not just by taking a position on a specific issue,
but also by emphasizing particular issues more than others (e.g. Budge et
al., 1987). In addition, parties can try to prevent specific issues from gaining
salience by, for example, ignoring the entire issue. In Schattschneider’s words,
a ‘conclusive way of checking the rise of conflict is simply to provide no
arena for it’ (1975 [1960]: 65).
In a recent article, Meguid (2005) presents a ‘modified spatial theory’ that
improves upon the standard spatial models, among other things, by adding
the insight that parties may influence the salience of particular issues. This
means that, first of all, when an anti-immigration party enters the political
scene the other parties may react by copying the anti-immigration stance
(what Meguid calls an ‘accommodative’ strategy), by taking up a radically
different position (‘adversarial’), or by not taking any stance at all (‘dis-
missive’). Second, this means that not only the mainstream right, but also
‘non-proximal’ parties, can affect the salience of the immigration issue. As
Meguid empirically demonstrates, the three types of strategy waged by both
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
566
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

proximal and non-proximal parties affect the electoral fortunes of green and
anti-immigration parties.
In this article, the causal chain examined by Meguid is reversed. Instead of
examining the impact of other parties’ policy positions on anti-immigration
parties’ success, I study the effects of anti-immigration parties’ electoral
success on other parties’ policy positions. In Meguid’s terms, this article
revolves around ‘accommodative’ versus ‘adversarial’ strategies. Note that
immigration policy outcomes are more likely to be affected by these two
strategies than by ‘dismissive’ strategies.
Hypotheses
In view of the theoretical considerations mentioned above, it can be expected
that if parties that are fierce advocates of immigration restriction become
successful in the electoral arena, the other parties will – all other things being
equal – adjust their positions7more to the restrictive end of an immigration
restriction scale. Thus, the following hypothesis can be stated (Hypothesis 1):
Hypothesis 1: The more electoral success an anti-immigration party has, the
more the other parties in the political system become restrictive on immi-
gration.
Another parameter that is mentioned in the existing literature as relevant
to contagion effects is party positioning in terms of left and right. In theory,
mainstream right-wing parties have an extra incentive to adjust their stances
on immigration, compared to left-wing parties, after anti-immigration party
victories (see also Norris, 2005). After all, the logic of Downsian spatial
competition in the context of contemporary Western Europe predicts that
rightist parties are threatened to a larger extent by anti-immigration party
success than leftist parties are. In accordance with this view, the results of
earlier research suggest that it is mainly the established right that competes
for votes with anti-immigration parties in Western Europe (e.g. Carter, 2005:
206; Van der Brug et al., 2005: 560). In addition, it may be relatively easy
for right-wing parties to adopt a hard line on immigration, as they typically
‘own’ the issues of cultural unity and national pride. As Bale notes, a tough
stance on immigration ‘can often be reconciled with a tradition of defend-
ing the nation and its culture from external threats’ (2008: 463). For these
reasons, parties of the right are expected to yield more to electoral pressures
from anti-immigration parties than parties of the left (Hypothesis 2):
Hypothesis 2: The more right-wing it is, the more susceptible a party is to
contagion effects on the immigration issue.
The first two hypotheses build on theories of party competition in the
Downsian sense. However, parties are not always expected to behave in a
straightforward way as predicted by Downsian spatial analysis. It is argued
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
567
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

in the existing literature that parties do not always compete in similar ways,
or to the same extent, with each other (e.g. Adams et al., 2006). In addition,
based on the ‘modified spatial theory’ (Meguid, 2005), not only right-wing
parties are expected to compete with anti-immigration parties for votes, but
also left-wing parties. Meguid illustrates this with the example of French
communist voters who switched to Le Pen in 1986 (Meguid, 2005: 348).
As a result, the left may also have repositioned on the immigration issue,
as research on Austria, Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands suggests
(Bale et al., 2008). If this holds true, then the second hypothesis should be
disconfirmed. After all, the modified spatial theory provides no a priori
reason for expecting right-wing parties to adjust their policy positions to a
greater extent than left-wing parties.
In addition, this leads us to more specific expectations about contagion
effects. Two hypotheses will be added to Hypotheses 1 and 2, specifying two
categories of parties that face possible constraints in the possibilities they
have to adjust their policy positions to a changed political environment. A
first relevant subsample is that of parties in government. Parties are hypoth-
esized to be less prone to repositioning on the immigration issue when in
office than when in opposition, because government status is associated with
constraints. From both legal and practical perspectives, it is difficult for
parties to make any sudden changes to their policies when in government:
not just because they may have their own track record on the issue, but also
because their policies are not independent of those of their predecessors.
Moreover, their governing status makes it riskier for parties to make bold
statements on any policy issue, because such statements would raise expec-
tations among voters that the parties are unlikely to meet. Problems linked
to immigration have proved to be both relatively complex and largely beyond
the control of national governments. Parties in coalition governments face
additional constraints, as they also have to deal with their coalition partners
in general, and to comply with an – often detailed – governing contract with
these partners in particular.
An additional reason for expecting that government parties are less prone
to give in to electoral pressures to shift on new issues such as the immigra-
tion issue is related to governing as a party goal. To the extent that parties
are office-seeking, parties in opposition are expected to be more willing to
try different strategies and to adopt new stances than governing parties. After
all, parties in opposition are expected to be anxious to gain or regain access
to power. Parties in government, by contrast, have weaker incentives to revise
policy positions that have proved successful in past elections. I therefore
formulate a third hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: Parties in government are less susceptible to contagion effects
on the immigration issue than parties in opposition.
A similar logic applies to another group of parties. It is argued that niche
parties are ‘fundamentally different’ in the way they compete in the electoral
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
568
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

arena (Adams et al., 2006). More specifically, it has been empirically shown
that these parties lose votes if they change their own ideological positions,
at least in terms of left and right – the reason why these parties were
described as ‘prisoners of their own ideologies’, having ‘no real choice other
than to cling to the policy ground they have staked out for themselves’
(Adams et al., 2006: 526). If this is the case, then the ‘niche parties’ investi-
gated in this study – (former) communist and green parties – are expected to
differ from the other parties8in the sense that they do not shift on the immi-
gration issue according to the electoral performance of anti-immigration
parties (Hypothesis 4):9
Hypothesis 4: Green and (ex-)communist parties are less susceptible to
contagion effects on the immigration issue than other parties.10
Anti-Immigration Parties
In order to measure the contagion effects of anti-immigration parties, these
parties should first be distinguished from the others. Following Fennema,
anti-immigration parties are defined as parties that employ the immigration
issue as their main political concern in electoral campaigns, or are viewed
by elites of other parties as doing so (Fennema, 1997). So, these parties are
thought not only to be strongly in favour of immigration restriction, but
also to attach much importance to the immigration issue.
The operationalization of the concept of anti-immigration party is based
on these two criteria, as follows.11 First, all the parties that have a fierce
anti-immigration stance are selected. In accordance with the literature
(Lubbers, 2001; Norris, 2005), positions towards the immigration issue are
used for case selection in this article. As in the studies mentioned, these posi-
tions are derived from expert surveys. Parties placed at the extreme of an
‘immigration restriction’ scale by country experts are provisionally labelled
anti-immigration parties (criterion one).12 Such parties all scored higher than
any party founded before the start of mass immigration to Western Europe13
ever scored, which is over 8.5 on this 0–10 scale.
In a next step, the parties that do not attach more importance (criterion
two) to the immigration issue than any established party ever did are erased
from the provisional list of ‘anti-immigration parties’ and put into the
category of ‘other parties’. Hence, parties scoring less than 18.0 on a 1–20
immigration importance scale by Benoit and Laver (2006) are not selected.
As a result of this two-step selection procedure, the parties viewed as anti-
immigration in this study are highly comparable across time and countries.
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
569
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Data
In order to address the research question, I select a time span during which
there was a wide variety in electoral performance of anti-immigration
parties, and take into account several countries that are comparable in many
other respects. I therefore study 13 political systems in 12 Western European
countries,14 from 1990 onwards. Since 1990, several anti-immigration parties,
such as the Flemish Bloc, have obtained more than 10 percent of the vote
in elections to the national parliament, and others, such as the Northern
League in Italy, have joined government coalitions. Many other parties, by
contrast, such as the Center Democrats in The Netherlands, remained
without any electoral success. Four main datasets are employed in this
article, data derived from an expert survey conducted by Lubbers (2001),
a similar one by Van Spanje et al. (2006), the European Election Study (EES)
1999 and data on electoral system traits collected by Carter (2005).
Expert survey results reported by Lubbers (2001) and by Van Spanje et
al. (2006) are used for party positions on the issue of immigration. The use
of expert surveys has its advantages and disadvantages compared to other
ways of measuring the relevant party characteristics, including judgements
on the basis of party origins, secondary reading, mass surveys, elite studies
and the analysis of party manifestos (Mair, 2001: 12–17). In this case, no
viable alternatives are available, because these two expert survey datasets
are the only ones that allow for cross-time and cross-country comparisons
of immigration party positions. Lubbers asked experts to provide a 0–10
‘immigration restriction’ score for the parties in the countries of their exper-
tise. His questionnaire was sent by regular mail to 288 political scientists in
17 countries in 2000. The overall return rate after two reminders was 52
percent (Lubbers, 2001). The resulting immigration restriction scores in
2000 of the parties included in the analysis range from 0.9 (RC in Italy) to
9.1 (MS-FT in Italy), with a mean of 4.6 and a standard deviation of 2.2.
The immigration position question was replicated in an expert survey
concerning the situation in 2004 (Van Spanje et al., 2006). A group of 557
political scientists in the same countries as in Lubbers’ study were invited
by email to answer exactly the same question in their country of expertise
concerning the situation in 2004. The experts were carefully selected on the
basis of the websites of universities and academic institutions worldwide.
The overall response rate of 39 percent after one reminder (Van Spanje et
al., 2006) was comparable to similar expert surveys conducted before this;
Huber and Inglehart, for example, report a response rate of 41 percent
(1995). For 2004, the relevant immigration party positions have a mean of
4.8 and a standard deviation of 2.0. The scores vary between 0.8 for the RC
in Italy and 9.3 for the MPF in France. The change in immigration policy
positions between 2000 and 2004 provides the values of the dependent
variable at the second time-point.15
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
570
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

On the basis of the case selection procedure outlined in the previous
section, 26 parties in Western Europe are labelled as anti-immigration. The
group of parties considered as anti-immigration is very similar to that of
comparable studies (e.g. Gibson, 2002; Golder, 2003; Van der Brug and
Fennema, 2003; Van der Brug et al., 2000). See Table 1 for the list of the
26 parties in Western Europe that are identified as ‘anti-immigration’.
These parties’ electoral scores constitute the main independent variable
of the analyses presented in this article. The electoral scores before the start
of the measurement of the dependent variable are added to the analysis, that
is, between 1990 and 2000. The main independent variable pertaining to
Hypothesis 1 (anti-immigration party success) is the change16 in the average
national-level electoral performance of all the anti-immigration parties taken
together in a political system in the decade before the first measurement
point concerning the dependent variable.17 This variable has a mean of
+1.86, a standard deviation of 3.44, a minimum of –5.5 percent (in Sweden)
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
571
Table 1. Twenty-six anti-immigration parties in Western Europe (1990–2004)
Country Party Abbreviation
Austria Freedom Party of Austria FPÖ
Belgium – Flanders Flemish Bloc VB
Belgium – Wallonia To Act Agir
Belgium – Wallonia National Front FN
Belgium – Wallonia New Front of Belgium FNB
Belgium – Wallonia Party of the New Forces PFN
Britain British National Party BNP
Britain National Front NF
Denmark Danish People’s Party DF
Denmark Progress Party FrP
France National Front FN
France National Republican Movement MNR
Germany German People’s Union DVU
Germany National Democratic Party of Germany NPD
Germany The Republicans REP
Italy Northern League LN
The Netherlands Centre Democrats CD
The Netherlands Centre Party ’86 CP’86
Norway Fatherland Party FLP
Norway Progress Party FrP
Sweden The New Party DNP
Sweden New Democrats NyD
Sweden Sweden Democrats SD
Switzerland Car Party/Freedom Party of Switzerland AP/FPS
Switzerland National Action/Swiss Democrats NA/SD
Switzerland Swiss People’s Party SVP
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

and a maximum of +7.1 percent (in Flanders). The average of the national-
level electoral performance of all anti-immigration parties per country is also
added in order to control for the fact that some countries have more success-
ful anti-immigration parties than others. The average anti-immigration party
success by country in the 1990s varies from 0.0 in Britain to 22.5 percent
of the national vote in Austria (mean = 8.3, SD = 7.2).
The starting point of the period under study is 1990, the date of the first
measurement point of immigration restriction scores that define the case
selection. Only the national level is taken into account in this research, as
electoral performance at this level is bound to have the largest contagion
impact. National-level elections are seen as the most important, ‘first-order’
elections (Reif and Schmitt, 1980). It is important to note that there is a wide
variation in the electoral performance of anti-immigration parties included
in the study. For example, the lack of success of the British National Party
(BNP) contrasts with the meteoric rise of Haider’s Freedom Party in Austria
(FPÖ). Needless to say, the latter party is expected to have a larger impact
on party competition than the former.
From the EES 1999, left–right party positions have been derived in order
to test Hypothesis 2. The EES 1999 is a stand-alone survey conducted imme-
diately after the European Parliamentary election that year, using random
samples of voters in each of the member states of the European Union. The
number of interviews carried out varies between the countries from 500 to
over 3,000. The study is extensively documented on the European Elections
Studies (EES) website (http://www.europeanelectionstudies.net). The EES
datasets are very well suited for comparative research, as has been shown
in many studies (e.g. Van der Brug et al., 2000; Van der Eijk and Franklin,
1996). Voters’ perceptions of party positions in terms of left and right have
proved similar to left–right estimations based on manifesto contents, roll-call
voting behaviour and the perceptions of parliamentarians (Van der Brug,
1998, 1999; Van der Brug and Van der Eijk, 1999). Moreover, the percep-
tions of voters are cross-checked with those of experts, and turn out to be
almost identical (Benoit and Laver, 2006; Lubbers, 2001; Marks and Steen-
bergen, 1999).18 Measurement of the left–right positions of all the parties
in the dataset results in a mean of 5.0, ranging from 1.0 (the Unity List in
Denmark) to 9.7 (MS-FT in Italy), with a standard deviation of 1.9.
Carter (2005) collected data on an institutional variable concerning the
electoral system that the relevant literature (e.g. Norris, 2005) suggests con-
trolling for. This is the effective electoral threshold in a country, nationwide
(Carter, 2005). The threshold a party has to pass in order to be represented
in the national parliament ranges from 0.5 in Finland to the estimated figure
of 37.5 in France and the United Kingdom (Carter, 2005: 149–151, 154).19
The mean value of this variable is 8.52; the standard deviation is 12.30.
Each party for which all the adequate data are available from these four
sources is included in the analysis.20 Data concerning the relevant time
periods (from 1990 to 1999 regarding the independent variables and between
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
572
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

2000 and 2004 for the dependent variable) are available for 75 parties in
the 13 political systems under study.
Of the 75 parties, 36 (48 percent) have served in government between the
two measurement points of January 2000 (Lubbers, 2001) and June 2004
(Van Spanje et al., 2006). A dummy variable was included to distinguish
these parties from opposition parties.
A dichotomous variable separates niche parties from other parties. Niche
parties are classified following the relevant literature (Adams et al., 2006;
Meguid, 2005). Of the 75 parties, 19 are identified as niche parties (25
percent).
Finally, a control variable was added that identifies parties that formed
coalition governments including an anti-immigration party. It could be
expected that such parties would have been particularly affected by conta-
gion on the immigration issue, perhaps accounting for any overall effect
that might otherwise be found. A dummy variable identifying parties that
governed together with anti-immigration parties is therefore included in the
analysis to control for this possible effect. Out of 75 parties, 14 have been
in government together with an anti-immigration party, or with an anti-
immigration party supporting the government. This is 19 percent of the
total of 75 parties.
For descriptive analyses of the dependent and independent variables, see
Table 2.
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
573
Table 2. Descriptive analyses of the dependent and independent variables
Variable N Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Dependent variable
Change in immigration 75 0.05 0.83 –2.3 2.8
position 2000–4
Level 2 variables
Effective threshold 13 8.52 12.30 0.5 37.5
Average anti-immigration 13 8.29 7.23 0.0 22.5
party success 1990–2000
Change in anti-immigration 13 1.86 3.44 –5.5 7.1
party success 1990–2000
Level 1 variables
Niche party 75 0.25 0.44 0 1
L–R position 75 4.98 1.85 1.03 9.66
Governing party 75 0.48 0.50 0 1
Government cooperation with 75 0.19 0.39 0 1
anti-immigration party
Source: Carter (2005); Lubbers (2001); Van Spanje et al. (2006).
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Method
Contagion effects are measured by way of cross-sectional multivariate analyses
on immigration policy positions with party (other than anti-immigration
party) as the unit of analysis. The way of modelling, hierarchical linear
modelling, takes into account that the 75 observations are clustered by polity
(Hox, 2002: 1). Hierarchical linear regression models are estimated by way
of restricted maximum likelihood estimation with the change in positions
between 2000 and 2004 taken up by the parties that were not anti-immi-
gration as the dependent variable. The significance of the effects is assessed
on the basis of robust standard errors.
The main independent variable pertaining to Hypothesis 1 (anti-immigra-
tion party success) is the change in the average national-level electoral per-
formance of all the anti-immigration parties taken together in a political
system in the decade before the first measurement point concerning the
dependent variable. A positive effect of the Hypothesis 1 variable would
indicate that anti-immigration party success is associated with subsequent
immigration policy shifts by other parties, which would be consistent with
the first hypothesis.
For Hypothesis 2 (vulnerability of parties that are more to the right), the
left–right party positions of each of the parties under study are added, as
well as the interaction of these positions with the main independent vari-
able. If the interaction variable yields a significant positive effect, the second
hypothesis is confirmed. After all, parties that score higher on a 1–10 left–
right scale are expected to shift more to the upper end of the 0–10 immi-
gration restriction scale if the anti-immigration party vote gains are higher.
Testing the third hypothesis (governing parties are less susceptible to conta-
gion) also requires two additional variables. A dummy variable is included
in the model, distinguishing parties in government from parties that were in
opposition during (part of) the period between 2000 and 2004. Unless its
interaction with the Hypothesis 1 variable yields a substantial negative effect,
the third hypothesis is to be rejected. If it yields a negative effect, roughly
equal to the size of the (positive) effect of the Hypothesis 1 variable, this
would mean that contagion effects only pertain to opposition parties.
In order to test Hypothesis 4 (niche parties are less susceptible to conta-
gion), a dummy variable distinguishing niche parties (N = 19) from the other
parties is added to the analysis. Classification is based on the description of
niche parties in the relevant literature (Adams et al., 2006; Meguid, 2005).
In order to satisfy expectations from the extant literature, the interaction of
this dummy with the Hypothesis 1 variable should be significantly negative,
demonstrating that niche parties shift significantly less on the immigration
issue than other parties after anti-immigration party victories.
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
574
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Results
Let us now turn to anti-immigration party success and the ideological posi-
tions of the other parties. Does the electoral performance of the anti-immi-
gration parties matter for the immigration positions of established parties
(Hypothesis 1)? See Model 1 in Table 3 for the results of the first analysis.
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
575
Table 3. Models explaining change in immigration policy position of 75 Western
European parties, 2000–4
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
bbbb
(RSE) (RSE) (RSE) (RSE)
Constant 0.07 –0.04 –0.04 –0.10
(0.13) (0.16) (0.16) (0.18)
Party-level variables
Niche party 0.61 0.67 0.87
(0.13) (0.14) (0.14)
L–R position –0.07 –0.06
(0.04) (0.04)
Governing party 0.00 –0.01 0.03
(0.22) (0.15) (0.17)
Government cooperation with –0.14 –0.00
anti-immigration party (0.15) (0.14)
Country-level variables
Effective threshold 0.00 0.01
(0.01) (0.01)
Average anti-immigration party –0.03 –0.02
success 1990–2000 (0.02) (0.02)
Change in anti-immigration 0.11* 0.16* 0.13*
party success 1990–2000 (0.05) (0.07) (0.06)
(Hypothesis 1)
Cross-level interaction variable
Governing party ×Change in –0.15** –0.16***
anti-immigration party success (0.05) (0.05)
1990–2000 (Hypothesis 3)
N party level 75 75 75 75
Variance component party level 0.58 0.42 – –
(0.76) (0.65)
N country level 13 13 13 13
Variance component country level 0.12** 0.14** – –
(0.35) (0.38)
Deviance 183.59 180.02 177.05 161.56
(d.f. = 2) (d.f. = 2) (d.f. = 4) (d.f. = 4)
*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001 (one-tailed). Robust standard errors (RSE), computed
using the software HLM, are presented in parentheses. All the continuous variables in the
models are centred around their grand means.
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Model 1 fits the data reasonably well (Deviance = 183.59, d.f. = 2). The
results in Table 3 indicate that 0.12/(0.12 + 0.58) = 17 percent of the variance
in change in party positioning on the immigration issue in 2004 is at the
country level (Model 1), which is significantly different from zero. This also
means that the expected correlation of the values of the dependent variable
of two randomly drawn parties in the same country is 0.17. Clearly, the
assumption of independent observations is violated. Hierarchical modelling
is required to account for this violation (Hox, 2002: 1).
When I add the party-level and country-level variables (Model 2), only
one of them yields a significant effect in the predicted direction. The variable
pertaining to Hypothesis 1, the anti-immigration party success change, has
a positive impact that reaches statistical significance at the p= 0.05 level
(one-tailed). Based on Model 2, one would predict that a 1 percent increase
in electoral performance of anti-immigration parties in the country in the
1990s leads to an average shift of 0.11 points on a 0–10 immigration restric-
tion scale by (all) other parties in the country.
Unexpectedly, the niche party dummy has a strong positive effect. This
suggests that niche parties actually shift more on the immigration issue than
other parties do, at least when the change in anti-immigration party success
is at its mean. Interestingly, the positive impact of the niche party dummy,
the size of which is more than four times its standard error, indicates that
niche parties are not immobile at all. Indeed, Model 2 indicates that, on
average, these parties shifted substantially more to the restrictive end of the
immigration restriction scale than other parties between 2000 and 2004.
Note that this holds even after controlling for the fact that almost all of the
niche parties are in opposition (15 out of 19 niche parties in my dataset).
Examples of niche parties that repositioned on the immigration issue are
the French communists (+1.7 on the 0–10 scale), Greek communists (+1.8)
and the Greens in Denmark and Italy (both +1.6). Furthermore, Model 2
suggests that the more left-wing a party, the more restrictive on immigration
it became. Both effects would be significant if a two-tailed test (p < 0.05)
was applied. None of the other variables have a significant impact.
In order to test Hypotheses 2–4, I examine whether the slopes of the left–
right party placement (Hypothesis 2), the government party dichotomous
variable (Hypothesis 3) and the niche party identifier (Hypothesis 4) vary
across countries. As it turns out (not shown), the slope of the government
status dummy varies significantly whereas that of the ideological party place-
ment and the niche party dummy do not. This indicates that the effects of
left–right and niche party status do not significantly vary across countries,
and thus do not vary according to (country-specific) anti-immigration party
success. In other words, left-wing and niche parties are no less affected by
anti-immigration contagion than other parties. The second and fourth
hypotheses are therefore to be rejected.
As the effect of the government party dummy significantly varies by
country, I attempt to explain this variation by including a cross-level inter-
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
576
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

action of this dummy with anti-immigration party success (Model 3). As it
turns out, in doing so I explain virtually all of the cross-country variation
of the government status variable, as the slope variance of the government
dummy falls from 0.27 to 0.07, which is not significantly different from
zero (at the p= 0.05 level) anymore, not shown. The cross-level interaction
effect has the predicted negative effect (b = –0.15), which is significant at
the p= 0.01 level. The Hypothesis 1 variable retains its effect (b = 0.16)
and its significance (p < 0.05) when I add the interaction effect. According
to Model 3, a 1 percent higher success rate of anti-immigration parties in a
country is associated with an average shift of 0.16 points to more restric-
tive policies on a 0–10 scale for opposition parties and a 0.16 – 0.15 = 0.01
point shift by governing parties. Thus, the change in immigration stances
between 2000 and 2004 is affected by the electoral performance of anti-
immigration parties in the country in the decade before (Hypothesis 1).
However, governing parties are significantly less susceptible to this conta-
gion effect (Hypothesis 3).
As a final model (Model 4), I estimate all the variables that yield a signifi-
cant impact (either in the predicted or the ‘wrong’ direction) in Model 3.21
When doing so, the Hypothesis 1 (b = 0.13, significant at the p= 0.05 level)
and Hypothesis 3 (b = –0.16, significant at the p= 0.001 level) variables yield
effects similar to those in Model 3. Figure 1 captures the effect of govern-
ment status on the interplay of anti-immigration party success and policy
shifts, with the 1990–99 anti-immigration party performance change on the
x-axis, and the other parties’ immigration policy shifts in the following five
years on the y-axis.
As one can tell from Figure 1, the immigration policy positions of govern-
ing parties (represented by the dotted line with the gentle slope) hardly shift
at all. Parties in opposition, by contrast, shift to more restrictive immigration
positions when anti-immigration parties have increased their vote-shares, and
take up more liberal positions when these parties lose votes (indicated by the
solid, steep line). The opposition parties’ average shift is estimated at –0.04
points when the country’s anti-immigration party performance change is 1
SD (3.44) below its mean (1.86) at 1.86 – 3.44 = –1.58. Opposition parties
are predicted to shift +0.85 points on a 0–10 scale when anti-immigration
party success is 1 SD above its mean (at 1.86 + 3.44 = 5.30, not shown).
In sum, I conclude that there is a ‘contagion impact’ (Hypothesis 1) that
affects opposition parties more than parties in government (Hypothesis 3).
Indeed, contagion appears to have an effect on opposition parties only (see
Figure 1). This contagion effect occurs regardless of a party’s ideological
position (Hypothesis 2). Niche parties are no less susceptible to it than are
other parties (Hypothesis 4).
Finally, one of the control variables tests the argument that in countries
where centre–right parties relied on the anti-immigration parties to forge
government coalitions, the former parties adopted the policy stances of the
latter, notably on immigration. Models 2 and 3 give no support to this
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
577
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

argument. In fact, the effect yielded by the cooperation dummy variable is not
in the predicted direction and not statistically significant. This means that, on
average, having controlled for all the other relevant variables, the parties that
cooperated with the anti-immigration parties were no more affected by their
partners than other parties. This finding calls for more research on conta-
gion effects related to cooperation with anti-immigration parties.
Conclusions
The study aimed to assess the effects of the electoral performance of anti-
immigration parties on the immigration policy positions of other parties.
On the basis of comparative-empirical analyses of 75 parties in 11 West
European countries between 1990 and 2004, it is found that the electoral
success or failure of anti-immigration parties has a contagion effect on the
immigration stances of other parties (Hypothesis 1). When in government,
however, parties are not affected by this mechanism (Hypothesis 3). Two
hypotheses derived from the extant literature are thrown into question by my
findings. Parties that mobilize on niches other than immigration turn out not
to be immune to contagion impacts (Hypothesis 4). More generally, rightist
parties are not more likely to co-opt the policies of the anti-immigration
parties than leftist parties are (Hypothesis 2). This means that the ‘contagion
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
578
Figure 1. Change in immigration party positions as anti-immigration party success
changes, 2000–4
Source: Expert survey data (Lubbers, 2001; Van Spanje et al., 2006); N = 75.
Anti-immigration party electoral success change 1990–1999 (%)
Other parties’ immigration position change 2000–4 (0–10 scale)
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
–0.2
–2.8 –1.1 0.5 2.2 3.8
Opposition party
Government party
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

of the right thesis’ (e.g. Norris, 2005) is not substantiated by the evidence.
Some of the established right-wing parties cooperate directly with anti-
immigration parties in government. However, even this does not seem to lead
these parties to emulate the policy stances that brought the anti-immigration
parties their success in these countries.
The findings add up to an interesting pattern. On the one hand, green
and (former) communist parties ‘discover’ the immigration issue and repo-
sition on it. On the other, the main right-wing parties are not substantially
more affected than other parties – not even if they cooperate closely with
successful anti-immigration parties. This could be related to the distribution
of voter preferences on the issue on which this specific kind of niche party
mobilizes, i.e. immigration. Survey results suggest that in virtually all the
contemporary West European countries, a majority of voters is opposed to
the idea of the multicultural society (see, e.g., Ivarsflaten, 2005a; Van der
Brug and Van Spanje, 2009). This means that if an anti-immigration party
has success and the issue becomes salient, all other parties have incentives
to take up a restrictive policy position – not just the niche party’s immedi-
ate competitors. A left-wing party may attempt to reduce its losses to anti-
immigration challengers by withdrawing its support for the ideal of the
multicultural society.
However, findings in the relevant literature suggest that it is mainly the
right-wing parties that compete with anti-immigration parties (e.g. Carter,
2005; Van der Brug et al., 2005), and not the left. In the light of these findings,
my results suggest that the intensity to which parties compete with the anti-
immigration party does not play an important role among the predictors of
contagion effects. The extent to which the other parties compete with anti-
immigration parties does not appear to structure the contagion mechan-
isms in the way that would be expected on the basis of Downsian spatial
analysis. That is, instead of only influencing individual parties that adapt
to immediately-felt electoral pressures, the contagion seems to affect entire
party systems (cf. Downs, 2002; Pettigrew, 1998). Based on standard spatial
theory of party competition, one could draw the conclusion that co-opting
the policy positions of successful rivals is not a knee-jerk response by a party
to the competitive environment in which it is embedded.
On the basis of Meguid’s (2005) modified spatial theory of party competi-
tion, it could be argued that my findings show that the left engages in strat-
egic repositioning on the immigration policy dimension, just as the right
does. On this view, a left-wing party may, for example, try to fuel the anti-
immigration parties’ successes by explicitly addressing the issue in the expec-
tation that anti-immigration parties eat more into the mainstream right’s
electoral base than into its own. The available data do not allow me to
perform further empirical tests on this point, however.
More generally, the findings of this study seem to highlight the fact that
a party’s ability to employ vote-maximizing strategies has considerable
constraints. When in government, the party leader’s hands are tied, which
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
579
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

may lead to different outcomes than commonly used theories predict. Other
factors, such as the alignments within the party and personal preferences of
the party leaders, can also play an important role in the response of an
established party to the emergence of an anti-immigration party in its polity.
In other words, contagion effects are contingent upon the wider context of
inter-party and intra-party competition. Future research should focus on the
question of how the context matters, and to what extent.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank Sarah de Lange, Mark Franklin, André Krouwel,
Peter Mair, Wouter van der Brug, Cees van der Eijk, and three anonymous reviewers
for Party Politics for their useful comments. Any remaining errors or omissions are
the author's sole responsibility.
Notes
1 This should not be confused with the classic controversy over ‘contagion from
the left’ versus ‘contagion from the right’ (Duverger, 1954; Epstein, 1967).
2 These two types are often confused. A more restrictive immigration policy is
widely considered as ‘rightist’, whereas the ideal of the multicultural society is
usually regarded as an idea of the left. As shown empirically in this article, this
relation is not as straightforward as it prima facie seems. Recently, many parties
of the left have shifted to more restrictive immigration policies, while several
parties with a right-wing profile have become less strong advocates of the ideal
of cultural unity.
3 ‘Left’ and ‘right’ not only refer to a traditional economic axis here, but also to a
broader dimension that encompasses clusters of issue positions, as, for example,
Kitschelt and McGann (1995) note. The ‘issues that divide the Left and the Right
are linked in ways contingent upon time and space’ (Kitschelt and McGann,
1995: 44).
4 However, the National Front (FN) was electorally unsuccessful in the early 1980s.
This calls into question whether the first-mentioned effect can be considered as
‘contagion’ in the sense of this article. In the context of French politics, the actions
of Social Democrats like Fabius may be interpreted as attempts to hurt the
centre–right by legitimizing the National Front rather than as contagion effects.
Such actions dovetail with those of the Social Democratic president Mitterrand
in the 1980s. Not only did Mitterrand urge the leaders of the national broad-
casting corporations to devote more attention to FN party leader Le Pen in 1982,
he also changed the electoral rules to a system of proportional representation
before the national elections four years later. This led to the entrance of 34 repre-
sentatives of the FN in the Assemblée Nationale (Mayer, 1998: 21).
5 Perlmutter also takes another Italian party into account, the National Alliance
(AN). Whether this party can be seen as anti-immigration at the relevant time-
points is questionable, however. It did not have an anti-immigration stance by
2000 (Lubbers, 2001) or by 2004 (Van Spanje et al., 2006). Nor did the party
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
580
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

attach much importance to the issue (Benoit and Laver, 2006; Carter, 2005: 33–4).
Therefore, the party was not included among the cases selected for this study.
6 Recently, Williams has contributed to the debate with a comprehensive cross-
national study on the impact of anti-immigration parties, including contagion
effects on the issue of immigration in 17 Western European countries (2006).
She did not address the question of how the party positions of mainstream
parties are affected by the electoral performance of anti-immigration parties,
however. Instead, she examined the position shifts of mainstream parties on this
issue as a response to the shifts of the radical right parties. Not much empirical
evidence was found on this point, and Williams concludes that ‘the other parties
do not adapt their positions on immigration directly because of the position
shifts on the issue by radical right-wing parties’ (p. 70).
7 This presupposes that the mainstream parties actually have a position on the
immigration policy dimension. As Meguid rightly points out, this is not a given
when there is no relevant anti-immigration party in the system (2005: 349).
However, I selected countries in which significant anti-immigration parties exist
only. Moreover, in each of the political contexts that I deal with in this article,
contemporary Western European countries, the immigration issue enjoys high
degrees of salience (see, e.g., Benoit and Laver, 2006). It can therefore be assumed
that parties in these contexts have a position on the immigration issue.
8 If an effect were found in accordance with Hypothesis 4, an alternative explan-
ation would be that a hard line on immigration sits uneasily with the ideologies
of far left and green parties. Most notably, the notion of the universal brother-
hood might be incompatible with very restrictive immigration policies.
9 The left–right dimension includes more issues than immigration, of course. In
addition, party positions in terms of left and right are not only determined by a
party’s immigration position, but also by the salience of the immigration issue.
However, it is consistent with the line of reasoning of Adams et al. (2006) to
expect that the other niche parties stick to their key issues. Moreover, having
very left-wing profiles, they are not expected to co-opt policy positions on an
issue that is predominantly owned by parties of the right in the countries of study.
After all, this would be the same as moderating their ideological positions in
terms of left and right, of which Adams et al. (2006) have shown that it presents
considerable electoral costs to these parties.
10 Hypothesis 4 may seem difficult to separate from Hypothesis 2. After all, (ex-)
communist and green parties are all left-wing. However, the theoretical basis on
which Hypothesis 2 is based differs from that of Hypothesis 4. Note that
Hypothesis 2 is not about right-wing parties only, but states that the more right-
wing its ideologies, the more vulnerable a party is to contagion effect, and green
parties are not necessarily far-left parties. The green parties in the sample were
all coded as having moderate positions, between 3.46 and 4.24 on average on a
1–10 left–right scale. They can therefore be expected (on the basis of Hypothe-
sis 2) to be vulnerable, and more so than the (ex-)communist parties, that were
all placed to the left of the greens. Thus, assessing Hypothesis 2 does not render
the assessment of Hypothesis 4 superfluous.
11 Note that this conceptualization is a major departure from the usual classifica-
tion of parties in the existing literature. Instead of classifying a party according
to its origins in society or its ideological background (see Mair and Mudde, 1998),
this article introduces a different basis of categorizing parties, which will not be
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
581
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

discussed at length, however, as this does not have a large impact on case selection
or results. As mentioned in the text, the group of selected parties is similar to
other studies on anti-immigration parties.
12 For a few small parties that were not included in either of these two expert surveys,
the author relied on descriptions of party ideology regarding immigration given
by Carter (2005).
13 Established parties are defined as parties that already existed before the emer-
gence of the anti-immigration parties in Western Europe at the end of the 1970s.
Admittedly, the FPÖ was founded as early as 1955. However, before Haider’s
take over in 1986, the FPÖ can be considered as a completely different party
from the FPÖ afterwards (e.g. Luther, 2000).
14 Belgium is considered to contain two separate political systems, Flanders and
Wallonia. Thus, this adds up to 13 political systems in 12 countries.
15 Even if the question asked in 2004 is identical to the one asked four years earlier,
it is questionable whether the immigration restriction scale of 2004 is compara-
ble to that of 2000. If the entire perception of immigration restriction changed
in the minds of the experts in these four years, a 4.0 score in 2004 does not mean
the same as a 4.0 score in 2000. To the extent that this influences the results, it
will have a dampening effect conducive to type-II errors. If empirical evidence is
found in support of the hypotheses, it is therefore likely that the impact is even
larger than predicted. Because hypotheses 1 and 3 are confirmed on the basis
of the available data (see below), this strengthens the findings of the article,
however.
16 The reason underlying the choice for change as the major independent variable,
rather than the absolute levels of anti-immigration party success, is that the other
parties are expected to adjust their positions mainly as a result of ‘electoral
shocks’, and not as a result of the mere presence (and possible growth stagna-
tion or vote decrease) of the anti-immigration parties. This methodological choice
did not matter much for the findings of this article, as both the change and
the average anti-immigration party success by country have significant positive
impacts significant at the p= 0.05 level.
17 National-level election results are used for this variable. If no national-level
elections were held in one or either of these years, then the result was estimated,
assuming a linear relation from one election to the next. For example, the
combined electoral performance of the anti-immigration parties in Germany in
2000 was estimated by averaging these parties’ results in the national elections
of 1998 and 2002. The combined result of the German People’s Union (DVU),
National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) and Republicans (REP) was 3.3
percent in the 1998 national elections and 1.0 percent in 2002, which produces
a result of (3.3 + 1.0)/2 = 2.2 for the year 2000. Because these parties obtained
2.4 percent of the vote in the 1990 national elections together, the change be-
tween 1990 and 2000 is estimated at 2.2 – 2.4 = –0.2. See Table 1 for descrip-
tive analyses of the variable computed in this way.
18 Estimations by experts derived from three surveys conducted at different points
in time by Marks and Steenbergen (1999), Lubbers (2001) and Benoit and Laver
(2006) are all correlated for more than r= 0.90 with the voter perceptions in
terms of ‘left’ and ‘right’ derived from the EES at the corresponding time-points
(significant at p= 0.01, one-tailed).
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
582
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

19 Carter also measured a similar institutional variable, the proportionality of each
national election, but this is almost identical to the effective threshold variable
(r= 0.95).
20 Data are available for virtually every significant party that is not labelled as ‘anti-
immigration’. The average vote-share obtained by the parties included in the
analyses together is 95 percent, varying from 68 percent in Italy in 2004 to 98
percent in Sweden (also in 2004).
21 The government status dummy is also included in Model 4, because it is a lower-
order effect without which the cross-level interaction would be difficult to inter-
pret (see Brambor et al., 2006).
References
Adams, James, Michael Clark, Lawrence Ezrow and Garrett Glasgow (2006) ‘Are
Niche Parties Fundamentally Different from Mainstream Parties? The Causes and
the Electoral Consequences of Western European Parties’ Policy Shifts, 1976–1998’,
American Journal of Political Science 50: 513–29.
Bale, Tim (2008) ‘Politics Matters: a Conclusion’, Journal of European Public Policy
15: 453–64.
Bale, Tim, André Krouwel, Kurt Richard Luther and Nick Sitter (2008) ‘If You
Can’t Beat Them, Join Them? Exploring the European Centre-Left’s Turn Against
Migration and Multiculturalism: a Four-Country Case Study’ (unpublished manu-
script).
Benoit, Kenneth and Michael Laver (2006) Party Policy in Modern Democracies.
London: Routledge.
Betz, Hans-Georg (2002) ‘Conditions Favouring the Success and Failure of Radical
Right-Wing Populist Parties in Contemporary Democracies’, in Y. Mény and
Y. Surel (eds) Democracies and the Populist Challenge. London: Palgrave.
Brambor, Thomas, William Clark and Matthew Golder (2006) ‘Understanding Inter-
action Models: Improving Empirical Analyses’, Political Analysis 14: 63–82.
Budge, Ian, David Robertson and Derek Hearl (1987) Ideology, Strategy and Party
Change: Spatial Analysis of Postwar Election Programmes in 19 Democracies.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carter, Elisabeth (2005) The Extreme Right in Western Europe: Success or Failure?
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Downs, Anthony (1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper
and Row.
Downs, William (2001) ‘Pariahs in Their Midst: Belgian and Norwegian Parties React
to Extremist Threats’, West European Politics 24: 23–42.
Downs, William (2002) ‘How Effective is the Cordon Sanitaire? Lessons from Efforts
to Contain the Far Right in Belgium, France, Denmark and Norway’, Journal für
Konflikt- und Gewaltforschung 4: 32–51.
Duverger, Maurice (1954) Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the
Modern State: London: Methuen.
Enelow, James M. and Melvin J. Hinich (1990) Advances in the Spatial Theory of
Voting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Epstein, Leon (1967) Political Parties in Western Democracies. New York, Wash-
ington, D.C. and London: Praeger.
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
583
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Fennema, Meindert (1997) ‘Some Conceptual Issues and Problems in the Compar-
ison of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe’, Party Politics 3: 473–92.
Gibson, Rachel (2002) The Growth of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe.
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
Golder, Matthew (2003) ‘Explaining Variation in the Success of Anti-Immigrant
Parties in Western Europe’, Comparative Political Studies 36: 432–66.
Harmel, Robert and Lars Svasand (1997) ‘The Influence of New Parties on Old
Parties’ Platforms: The Cases of the Progress Parties and the Conservative Parties
of Denmark and Norway, Party Politics 3: 315–40.
Heinisch, Reinhard (2003) ‘Success in Opposition – Failure in Government: Explain-
ing the Performance of Right-Wing Populist Parties in Public Office’, West Euro-
pean Politics 26: 91–130.
Hox, Joop (2002) Multilevel Analysis. Techniques and Approaches. Mahway, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Huber, John and Ronald Inglehart (1995) ‘Expert Interpretations of Party Space and
Party Locations in 42 Societies’, Party Politics 1: 73–111.
Ivarsflaten, Elisabeth (2005a) ‘Policy Failures, Prejudice, or Persuasion: Why do
Restrictive Asylum and Immigration Policies Appeal to so Many Western Euro-
pean Voters?’ Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties 15: 21–45.
Ivarsflaten, Elisabeth (2005b) ‘The Vulnerable Populist Right Parties: No Economic
Realignment Fuelling Their Electoral Success’, European Journal of Political
Research 44: 465–92.
Ivarsflaten, Elisabeth (2008) ‘What Unites Right-Wing Populists in Western Europe?
Re-Examining Grievance Mobilization Models in Seven Successful Cases’, Com-
parative Political Studies 41: 3–23.
Kitschelt, Herbert and Anthony McGann (1995) The Radical Right in Western
Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan.
Lubbers, Marcel (2001) Exclusionistic Electorates: Extreme Right-Wing Voting in
Western Europe. Nijmegen: ICS Dissertations.
Luther, Kurt Richard (2000) ‘Austria: A Democracy under Threat from the Freedom
Party’, Parliamentary Affairs 53: 426–42.
Mair, Peter (2001) ‘Searching for the Positions of Political Actors: a Review of
Approaches and a Critical Evaluation of Expert Surveys’, in M. Laver (ed.) Esti-
mating the Policy Positions of Political Actors. London and New York: Routledge.
Mair, Peter and Cas Mudde (1998) ‘The Party Family and its Study’, Annual Review
of Political Science 1: 211–29.
Marks, Gary and Marco Steenbergen (1999) 1999 CES Expert Survey on National
Parties and the European Union. Chapel Hill, NC: Center for European Studies,
University of Northern Carolina.
Mayer, Nonna (1998) ‘The French National Front’, in H.-G. Betz and S. Immerfall
(eds) The Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Estab-
lished Democracies. London: Macmillan.
Meguid, Bonnie (2005) ‘Competition between Unequals: The Role of Mainstream
Party Strategy in Niche Party Success’, American Political Science Review 99:
435–52.
Merrill, III, Samuel and Bernard Grofman (1999) A Unified Theory of Voting: Direc-
tional and Proximity Spatial Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Minkenberg, Michael (2002) ‘The New Radical Right in the Political Process: Inter-
action Effects in France and Germany’, in M. Schain, A. Zolberg and P. Hossay
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
584
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

(eds) Shadows over Europe: The Development and Impact of the Extreme Right
in Western Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Norris, Pippa (2005) The Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market.
New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Perlmutter, Ted (2002) ‘The Politics of Restriction: The Effect of Xenophobic Parties
on Italian Immigration Policy and German Asylum Policy’, in M. Schain, P. Hossay
and A. Zolberg (eds) Shadows over Europe: The Development and Impact of the
Extreme Right in Western Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pettigrew, Thomas (1998) ‘Reactions Toward the New Minorities of Western Europe’,
Annual Review of Sociology 24: 77–103.
Reif, Karlheinz and Hermann Schmitt (1980) ‘Nine Second-Order National Elections.
A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of European Election Results’, Euro-
pean Journal of Political Research 8: 3–44.
Schain, Martin A. (1987) ‘The National Front in France and the Construction of
Political Legitimacy’, West European Politics 10: 229–52.
Schain, Martin A. (2002) ‘The Impact of the French National Front on the French
Political System’, in M. Schain, A. Zolberg and P. Hossay (eds) Shadows over
Europe: The Development and Impact of the Extreme Right in Western Europe.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schattschneider, Elmer Eric (1975 [1960]) The Semisovereign People. A Realist’s
View of Democracy in America. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press.
Shepsle, Kenneth A. (1991) Models of Multiparty Electoral Competition. London:
Routledge.
Van der Brug, Wouter (1998) ‘The Informed Electorate. Political Perceptions and
Party Behavior’, Acta Politica 33: 20–55.
Van der Brug, Wouter (1999) ‘Voters’ Perceptions and Party Dynamics’, Party Politics
5: 147–69.
Van der Brug, Wouter and Meindert Fennema (2003) ‘Protest or Mainstream? How
the European Anti-Immigrant Parties Developed into Two Separate Groups by
1999’, European Journal of Political Research 42: 55–76.
Van der Brug, Wouter and Cees Van der Eijk (1999) ‘The Cognitive Basis of Voting’,
in H. Schmitt and J. Thomassen (eds) Political Representation and Legitimacy in
the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van der Brug, Wouter and Joost Van Spanje (2009) ‘Immigration, Europe, and the
“New” Cultural Dimension’, European Journal of Political Research 48: 309–34.
Van der Brug, Wouter, Meindert Fennema and Jean Tillie (2000) ‘Anti-Immigrant
Parties in Europe: Ideological or Protest Vote?’ European Journal of Political
Research 37: 77–102.
Van der Brug, Wouter, Meindert Fennema and Jean Tillie (2005) ‘Why Some Anti-
Immigrant Parties Fail and Others Succeed. A Two-Step Model of Aggregate
Electoral Support’, Comparative Political Studies 38: 537–73.
Van der Eijk, Cees and Mark N. Franklin (1996) Choosing Europe?: The European
Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union. Ann Arbor, MI: University
of Michigan Press.
Van Spanje, Joost, Peter Mair, Cees Van der Eijk and Wouter Van der Brug (2006)
Expert Survey Concerning Political Parties in Western Democracies. European
University Institute.
Williams, Michelle Hale (2006) The Impact of Radical Right-Wing Parties in West
European Democracies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
VAN SPANJE: CONTAGIOUS PARTIES
585
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

In 2008, JOOST VAN SPANJE took up a postdoctorate position at the Amsterdam
School of Communications Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam. He obtained
his PhD degree from the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European
University Institute (EUI) in Florence, and was an exchange PhD student in the Wilf
Family Department of Politics at New York University (NYU) in 2006. Before this,
he finished his Law (2001) and Political Science (2004) studies at the University of
Amsterdam. Joost specializes in electoral behaviour and political communication.
His research has resulted in publications in leading international political science
journals such as West European Politics (WEP), Party Politics (PP), Comparative
European Politics (CEP), Acta Politica (AP) and the European Journal of Political
Research (EJPR).
ADDRESS: Amsterdam School of Communications Research, University of Amsterdam,
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
[email: j.vanspanje@uva.nl]
Paper submitted 2 August 2007; accepted for publication 24 November 2008.
PARTY POLITICS 16(5)
586
at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on October 22, 2012ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from