Perceived socio-economic change and right-wing extremism: Results of the SIREN-survey among European workers

The chapter investigates whether there is a link between perceived socio-economic change and the development of extreme right-wing attitudes. A representative sample of 5,812 workers of eight European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Switzerland) were invited to answer a phone questionnaire tapping the following areas: perceptions of change in job conditions during the last five years, evaluation of personal current socio-economic condition, organizational identification, collective relative deprivation, prejudice against immigrants, chauvinism, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, political powerlessness, and affinity with extreme right-wing parties. Results show that two different pathways can lead from perceptions of change in job conditions to extreme right-wing party affinity. When changes are perceived as positive, people are more inclined to identify with their organization, which may favour social dominance orientation. In turn, a high level of social dominance orientation supports chauvinism, prejudice against immigrants and right-wing authoritarianism, which are psychosocial antecedents of affinity with extreme right-wing parties. On the contrary, when changes are perceived as negative, people are very likely to experience strong feelings of collective relative deprivation, which in turn predicts the following psychosocial antecedents of affinity with right-wing extremism: prejudice against immigrants, authoritarianism, and political powerlessness.