Aim: The main goal of this paper is to explain the increase in the number of young voters in Poland declaring their willingness to vote for the extreme right party, the Confederation. In our analysis we referred to rational choice and social identity theories. In this article we tested two hypotheses: H1: Polish youth support radical-right parties (mainly the Confederation) because they offer a free-market programme (anti-interventionism) that corresponds to the values of the young generation. H2: Polish youth support radical right parties (mainly Confederation) because they are Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant.
Method: We verified our assumptions by analysis of data collected in the course of our own survey research (N=1373). We focused our efforts on statistical tendencies and by applying mixed binomial logistic regression modelling we have been able to explore associations that significantly increased or decreased chances for voting on radical right-wing party.
Results: Based on results provided by the models we confirmed H1 and H2, identifying as the strongest predictors for radical right wing voting gender identity, redistribution, anti-immigrant and anti-EU sentiments.
Conclusions: Our findings overlapped with evidence provided by other scientists in the field and indicate growing dissatisfaction of young men who vote for right-wing parties to preserve free-market capitalistic economy, male supremacy and cultural homogeneity.
Contribution: Our paper contributes to the ongoing debate twofold: 1) by exploring impact of important sentiments and opinions of the youngest voters in Poland; 2) by providing ‘fresh’ empirical evidence of deep ideological polarization between young male and female voters in Poland.
