The Costs and Benefits of Including and Excluding RWPPs in/from Government on Voters’ Democratic Support and Voting Behaviour

Right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) are often treated as political pariahs, making that potential government collaboration with RWPPs is subject of fierce academic and societal debate (Askim et al., 2021; Fagerholm, 2021; Moffitt, 2021). Recently RWPPs, for instance Brothers of Italy or the Sweden Democrats, have joined (minority) governments. Still, overall mainstream parties remain hesitant to rule with RWPPs and they invoke a variety of reasons linked to the policy, office and votes triad to justify their decisions (Jacobs, 2022). We wish to contribute to this debate via examining how the exclusion and inclusion of RWPPs by mainstream parties affects democratic attitudes and voting behavior (see Harteveld et al., 2021; Riera & Pastor, 2021). First, systematically excluding RWPPs can be interpreted as undemocratic as the election result is not respected, giving some voters the feeling that their preferred party is consistently being ignored and that the political system is not responsive (Rummens & Abts, 2010). This could negatively affect voters’ evaluations of democracy. Likewise, it may result in boosting these voters’ propensities to vote for RWPPs or it could feed blank or invalid votes. Voters that do not support RWPPs may be affected by exclusion in the opposite way. Second, including of RWPPs in government may affect voters’ political attitudes and electoral support too. Theoretically, inclusion may (partly) restore trust in politics and support for democracy amongst voters of RWPPs as it can be seen as a recognition of the voters’ signal (Rummens & Abts, 2010). Still, these voters’ alienation and distrust may be so deeply-rooted (Rooduijn, Van der Brug, & De Lange, 2016) that ruling with RWPPs may backfire as they are perceived to become ‘part’ of the elite or as not able to ‘deliver’. Moreover, inclusion could affect attitudes of voters that do not support RWPPs differently. We aim to systematically examine the costs and benefits of excluding or including RWPPs in government for voters’ political attitudes (i.e., political trust, democratic support, anti-elitist attitudes, satisfaction with democracy) and voting behavior. To address this question, we report evidence of a 2 X 4 between-subjects experiment (N = that we conducted in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. Flanders presents an excellent case as it is home to a successful RWPP –Flemish Interest (VB)— around which a formal cordon sanitaire is installed, but which in the past has negotiated with the largest right-wing party in Flanders New-Flemish Alliance (N-VA) to form a government. In this experiment, participants were exposed by claims by the main right-wing mainstream party (N-VA) in which they either claim to be willing or not willing to rule with the main RWPP (VB), thereby invoking four distinct reasons linked to the policy, office and votes triad. We assess main effects and examine the moderating role of political predispositions. As such, we aim to contribute to the academic debate on the growing dissatisfaction in Europe and decline in trust in politics via systematically exploring the costs and benefits of (non-)inclusion of RWPPs for voters.