Right-wing populist challengers have traditionally avoided environmental issues, as these have long been dominated by green parties and associated with the political left. However, in the second decade of the 21st century, environmental issues gained prominence across Europe due to growing public concern about climate change, prompting some right-wing populist challengers to engage with this issue in unexpected ways. This paper examines under which conditions and how these parties addressed environmental issues between 2009 and 2019.
Applying computational text analysis to legislative speeches from ParlEE data set over the selected period, we estimate party positions on the environment across the political spectrum, focusing on both left-wing and right-wing challenger as well as mainstream parties. We examine whether right-wing populists have accommodated the “green” stance on environmental issues and shifted their positions in response to rising salience or used it strategically to challenge mainstream parties. Thus, we bring together the demand and supply sides of politics, emphasizing issue salience, parties’ strategic positionings and the framing of environmental concerns.
Our findings contribute to understanding the strategic adaptation of challenger parties to shifting issue salience in European politics and the evolving role of environmental issues in party competition that challenges the conventional left-right environmental divide.