Does Crime Pay? An Analysis ofNational Support for Far Right Parties in the European Union.

During the last two decades, far right parties have made increasing gains in electoral support at the national level in the member-states of the European Union. Previous research has looked at the state level conditions (e.g. the "effective" number of parties, immigration, unemployment) that have given rise to these parties. Prior findings and conclusions have been inconsistent on all of these conditions except immigration. The literature has also overlooked another possible condition in the rise of far right parties: crime rates. Thus far, crime rates have not been statistically analyzed despite the prominence of law and order planks in far right party platforms. I argue in this paper that high crime rates have helped far right parties gain electoral support. This paper examines the impact of crime rates (controlling for additional factors) on electoral support for far right parties in fifteen member-states of the European Union, between 1980-2002. Other models introduced in this paper will look at the interactions betweens these variables and their effect on far right party support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]