Do Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in the Legislature Affect Representation in Government? A Cross-National Analysis

The presence of right-wing populist parties in legislatures has the potential to change the calculus of government formation. I examine the effects of right-wing populist parties on four characteristics of governments in 14 Western democracies: (1) government size; (2) government fragmentation; (3) ideological dispersion/polarisation; and (4) ideological congruence between governments and legislatures. The findings suggest that right-wing populist parties are associated with declines in government size; however, the other effects are found to work through general patterns of legislative fragmentation.