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Interviewing different social groups comes with specific challenges. This article focuses on the question of how to interview people who vote or work for the radical right. Over the past decades, radical right-wing movements and parties have become important political forces. Their rise has led to a proliferation of academic publications that have sought to shed light on this renewed swing to the right. In this ever-growing field of research, studies employing qualitative interviews have proven to be of invaluable importance. To date, however, there is no comprehensive, practical guidebook on how to interview the radical right. This article seeks to redress this gap. Drawing on existing studies and personal insights acquired over the course of our own PhD research, during which we interviewed over one hundred radical right respondents ranging from voters and grassroots activists to party elites, this article provides a comprehensive guide for in-depth, interview-based research on the radical right. Specifically, the article discusses a range of practical considerations, including how to find respondents, how to gain access, how to prepare for the interview and how to build rapport during the interview. The insights are useful to early career researchers who rely on qualitative methods when collecting data, as well as scholars from different fields, including political science, public administration and sociology, who are interested in understanding the perspectives and lived realities of the radical right.

Interviewing different social groups comes with specific challenges. This article focuses on the question of how to interview people who vote or work for the radical right. Over the past decades, radical right-wing movements and parties have become important political forces. Their rise has led to a proliferation of academic publications that have sought to shed light on this renewed swing to the right. In this ever-growing field of research, studies employing qualitative interviews have proven to be of invaluable importance. To date, however, there is no comprehensive, practical guidebook on how to interview the radical right. This article seeks to redress this gap. Drawing on existing studies and personal insights acquired over the course of our own PhD research, during which we interviewed over one hundred radical right respondents ranging from voters and grassroots activists to party elites, this article provides a comprehensive guide for in-depth, interview-based research on the radical right. Specifically, the article discusses a range of practical considerations, including how to find respondents, how to gain access, how to prepare for the interview and how to build rapport during the interview. The insights are useful to early career researchers who rely on qualitative methods when collecting data, as well as scholars from different fields, including political science, public administration and sociology, who are interested in understanding the perspectives and lived realities of the radical right.

Published online 27 February 2018 ; This article investigates the changing face of governmental responsibility through a comparative content analysis of the yearly budgetary presentations of the French ministers of economy and finance. The cases analysed are the governments under the Hollande (2012–2017) and first Mitterrand (1981–1986) presidencies. In both cases, there were strong external pressures that hindered the pursuit of expansionary budgetary policies and that forced the executives to pursue more restrictive measures. The analysis consists in a comparison of how the ministers in the two different time periods justified this policy course, hypothesizing that international institutional constraints played a more prominent role during the Hollande than during the Mitterrand presidency. By distinguishing between responsive and responsible justifications, we find that institutional constraints are indeed more prominent in the justifications provided by contemporary ministers. These findings have important repercussions for understanding how the national democratic cycle functions under the conditions of European integration. In particular, they indicate that the accountability stage results to be significantly altered, as governments do no longer take full credit for their measures, but rather present themselves as spokespersons for a web of institutions. These findings, we argue, are likely not to be peculiar to France but rather relate to a general trend in European politics.

Published online: 24 Mar 2017 ; This article investigates the responsiveness of the Parti socialiste towards specific social groups under the Hollande and Mitterrand presidencies. It thereby contributes to the discussion on the changing representativeness of social democratic parties in Western Europe. The study is based on a content analysis of the governments' justifications for the annual budget. With this innovative approach it is possible to assess whether the responsiveness of a party persists at the governmental level. Through an inductive coding procedure, three categories of responsive justifications are discerned: inequality reduction, needs of specific social groups and general functioning of society. In line with its title, the article mainly focuses on the second category, identifying a shift from responsiveness to the low-income classes towards responsiveness to the middle classes. Furthermore, a corresponding transformation of the Parti socialiste is observed, from advocating expansive policies in the early 1980s to justifying restrictive policies today.