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Do radical right fringe parties affect main parties in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)? Using data from the Manifesto Project, we analyze the relationship between radical right fringe parties' and main parties' policy programs regarding sociocultural issues in six post-communist countries of CEE. Even though radical right fringe parties have participated in government in several of these countries, and in Hungary a fringe party has become the country's second largest party, our analysis shows that the sociocultural issues in radical right fringe party manifestos do not systematically relate to the changes in main party manifestos regarding those issues. Even if some of the main parties in our study might often agree with the radical right fringe parties, our analysis shows that the latter do not directly influence the policy priorities of the main parties.

The 2014 European Parliament elections were hailed as a 'populist earthquake' with parties like the French Front National, UKIP & the Danish People's Party topping the polls in their countries & commentators warning about the consequences of a large radical right populist bloc in the Parliament. But what happened after the elections? Based on policy positions, voting data, & interviews conducted over more than four years with senior figures from 14 radical right populist parties & their main partners, this major study explains these parties' actions & alliances in the European Parliament.

The spread and success of radical and populist parties has triggered a profound debate on the state of democracy. Not only are these parties described as the outcome of a democratic malaise in which democratic regimes had ceased to integrate, represent and engage all their citizens. At the same time, questions arose as to the consequences of these parties for existing representative democracies. Could radical and populist parties be a (partial) cure to the woes of established democracies? Or would they make the democratic malaise even worse, further poisoning an already sick patient? Could it be that these parties act like a placebo that exists because of the democratic malaise but does not actually change anything except for those who desperately want to believe in an effect? The contributions to this Special Issue address questions of the impact of radical and populist parties on representative democracy. This introduction systematise their findings along party functions and draws broader conclusions.

Are populist parties bad for representative democracy or are they filling a representative gap? While it has been broadly established that the emergence and success of populist parties is not merely a sign of protest, there is still a sparsity of empirical investigations into whether these parties represent hitherto under- or unrepresented social groups or whether they offer a policy profile that was in demand but not present. Using Pitkin's concepts of symbolic, descriptive and substantive representation, this article opens up the dimensions in which populist parties might challenge or aid democratic representation. It then places the articles in the Special Issue 'Populist Representation of, by and for the People?' along these dimensions and highlights their specific contributions.

This article investigates how and why Austrian parties have (re)constructed claims of national sovereignty and brought them to the centre of political competition. Theoretically, claims for national sovereignty are directed at recovering the peoples autonomy from 'sinister elites and 'harmful outsiders like immigrants. As such claims vary in terms of policy content, salience, and discursive means, this article uses the analysis of manifestos and speeches to ascertain how the radical-right populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) constructed sovereignty claims in 2013 and 2017. Furthermore, it shows how the mainstream right Austrian Peoples Party (ÖVP) adopted these claims, significantly narrowing the gap to the far-right FPÖ on the national and economic dimension of sovereignty, and largely renounced its pro-European and anti-sovereignist positions by 2017. In a second step, we examine whether the claims by these two parties match the preferences of their voters. Here, the findings suggest that the FPÖs sovereignty claims broadly correspond to the demands of its voters whereas ÖVP voters only partially express support for such claims, mainly on the national sovereignty investigating in detail the form and conditions of their occurrence. ; (VLID)3819015

Do radical right fringe parties affect main parties in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)? Using data from the Manifesto Project, we analyze the relationship between radical right fringe parties and main parties policy programs regarding sociocultural issues in six post-communist countries of CEE. Even though radical right fringe parties have participated in government in several of these countries, and in Hungary a fringe party has become the countrys second largest party, our analysis shows that the sociocultural issues in radical right fringe party manifestos do not systematically relate to the changes in main party manifestos regarding those issues. Even if some of the main parties in our study might often agree with the radical right fringe parties, our analysis shows that the latter do not directly influence the policy priorities of the main parties. ; (VLID)4347621