Testing the Waters: How and Why Rhetorical Accommodation Precedes Policy Accommodation of the Far Right

Mainstream parties across Europe increasingly accommodate the far right, a strategy that promises electoral rewards but carries significant risks. Yet little is known about how mainstream parties adapt their accommodation strategies in light of these risks. Building on Kollberg’s (2025) distinction between rhetorical and positional accommodation, I argue that mainstream parties first accommodate rhetorically and only later positionally. Rhetorical shifts allow parties to “test the waters” and gauge potential voter backlash, making them a useful in assessing electoral risks before committing to policy change. I test this argument using computational text analysis of anti-immigrant speech and policy across nine countries over 30 years. The results support the theory: changes in mainstream anti-immigrant rhetoric systematically precede shifts in policy positions, consistent with rhetoric being a more flexible and less path-dependent strategy. The article contributes to research on party competition by shedding light on how mainstream parties strategically respond to far-right pressure.