A rational choice for the extreme right

In the Netherlands, as in other West European countries, the extreme right party is considered to be a leper in the political arena. Most members of the political elite assume that its political discourse can not be compared with that of the other political parties. Do voters also consider the extreme right to be outside the dominant political discourse? Or do they in fact view it as a 'normal' party whose attractiveness is determined using the same criteria on which the preference for other parties is based? To answer this question the comparability of party preference is tested with an unfolding scale analysis which provides us with a one-dimensional ideological space in which we find the Centrumdemocraten at the extreme right and Groen Links at the extreme left.

Party preference is determined by the same variables for all parties. The best
predictors for party preference are party size and ideological proximity. There is a modest effect of ethnocentrism on party choice, but ethnocentrism is found to be a general indicator of party preference. The same is true for the interaction between nationalism and subjective social isolation.

The only party specific effect for extreme right party preference is the interaction
between ethnocentrism and the extreme right position on the left-right scale. Thus, voters who consider themselves right wing and show a high degree of ethnocentrism are likely to have a higher preference for the Centrumdemocraten. It should be stressed, however, that this interaction effect is very small compared to that of party size and ideological proximity. Overall, then, the preference for the extreme right party in The Netherlands reflects a rational choice in which all parties are considered equally.