The rise of far-right parties across Europe has forced mainstream parties to strategically position themselves toward these challengers. A common response has been the establishment of a cordon sanitaire—a strategy of isolating and excluding far-right parties from political power. However, this strategy faces growing public debate and challenges. Critics argue that exclusion radicalizes far-right parties, enhancing their outsider appeal. Additionally, hybrid media systems allow fringe parties to bypass traditional gatekeepers and directly engage broader audiences. As electoral support for far-right parties grows, the cordon sanitaire also limits coalition-building options with ideologically similar mainstream parties. At the same time, demarcation from the far right has emerged as a political mobilization tool for some parties.
In contexts where the cordon sanitaire is contested, it can itself become a prominent electoral issue. We identify and distinguish three communicative strategies adopted by parties: demarcation, position blurring, and avoidance. Using large language models, we propose a novel framework to empirically identify these strategies through analysis of political texts, including party press releases and social media communication.
We further develop a theoretical model explaining why parties choose specific strategies, emphasizing party positions and intra-party heterogeneity. We provide preliminary evidence from the 2025 German snap-election campaign, showing how party strategies shape the salience of the cordon sanitaire as an electoral issue and influence the attention to and portrayal of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). This research contributes to understanding how mainstream parties respond to far-right challengers and the broader implications for party competition and democratic resilience.