Guardians of the West? Para-Christian identities and radical right party preferences in the West European public

Research on the connection between religion and the radical right in Europe and beyond has usually focused on the supply side and the presumed role of the radical right as guardians of the Christian occident, i.e. "the West", highlighting particular "Christian" narratives in terms of a politically motivated appropriation of Christian symbols and identities and variously labeled as "Christianism" (Ryan) or "Civilizationalism" (Brubaker). This paper turns the viewing direction around and attempts to explore the corresponding demand side of radical right-wing parties in Western Europe, focusing on the electoral appeal of the narrative of the Christian occident. It is argued that the Occidental narrative appears as a version of a culturalized Christian identity among voters of radical right-wing parties – referred to here as para-Christian identity in line with the European interwar far right’s mix of Christian semantics with völkisch and neo-pagan elements. For the analysis, the Occidental narrative is operationalized as an ENEC marker (Exclusionary, Neo-Ethnic, Christian). We then analyze survey data from the European Value Study 2017 for a group of ten Western European countries in order to examine the correlation between radical right-wing party affiliation and para-Christian identity. The analysis also includes classic electoral research variables, in particular an ethnocentric (anti-minority) attitude pattern, which typically explain a significant part of the radical right party preference. However, we expect to show that in the West European electorates, the narrative of the Christian occident in conjunction with ethnocentric attitudes can contribute to explaining the willingness to vote for the radical right.