Dual multiscalarities: The effect of economic inequality on the populist radical right vote at different electoral levels

Abstract

The primary theme of this thesis is bringing together the multiscalarity of locally determined economic inequality with the multiscalarity of different electoral levels. It asks how economic inequality-between contiguous neighbourhoods, within districts, and within municipalities-affects populist radical right voting at different electoral levels-in European Parliament, national parliamentary, and provincial elections in the Netherlands between 2012 and 2019. This thesis' academic contributions are twofold. Firstly, it innovatively places scholarship on economic inequality and populist radical right parties in the context of the literature on second-order elections, which by itself already sees little rigorous cross-electoral analysis (but cf. Cabeza, 2018). It thereby adds a novel dimension to discussions in urban studies on locally restricted contextual factors predicting populist radical right voting and polarisation (Gravelle et al., 2021). Secondly, it adds to established economic inequality literature: first, by re-emphasising the significance of a consistent psycho-perceptual causal mechanism through which effects arise, and furthermore by following Cremaschi et al. (2022) in expanding the study beyond classic indicators of inequality to encompass public service access, too.