Review Article
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Center-Right Political Parties in Advanced Democracies
- Noam Gidron1 andDaniel Ziblatt2
- View Affiliations and Author NotesHide Affiliations and Author Notes1Department of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; email:[email protected]2Department of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; email:[email protected]
- Vol. 22:17-35(Volume publication date May 2019)
- Copyright © 2019 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
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Noam Gidron, Daniel Ziblatt. 2019. Center-Right Political Parties in Advanced Democracies.Annual Review Political Science.22:17-35.https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-090717-092750
Abstract
This review proposes a comparative research agenda on center-right parties in advanced democracies, bringing together research in American and comparative politics. Political scientists have recently closely examined the decline of the center-left and the rise of the radical right but have paid less attention to the weakening of center-right parties. Yet cohesive center-right parties have facilitated political stability and compromises, while their disintegration has empowered radical challengers. After presenting an overview of right-wing politics in Western democracies and weighing different definitions of the electoral right, we discuss two factors that shape variations in center-right cohesion: organizational robustness of center-right partisan institutions and the (un)bundling of conservative mass attitudes on different policy dimensions. Last, we argue that a full account of the rise of the radical right cannot focus solely on the strategies of the center-left but must incorporate also the choices, opportunities, and constraints of center-right parties.





