Demographic fears, status uncertainty, and the urban–rural divide: Symbolic boundary-making of radical-right voters in small and medium-sized towns

Abstract How do radical-right voters in small and medium-sized towns react to demographic diversification? Based on 20 in-depth interviews with radical-right voters in the Dender region (Belgium), this article analyses how voters articulate symbolic group boundaries in a rapidly changing environment, drawing on the discourse of local radical-right parties. As in other European countries, radical-right parties in Belgium politicise demographic change by portraying ‘non-white’ populations as a threat to long-established ways of life. We argue that the political cultivation of demographic anxieties by radical-right parties fuels voters’ status uncertainty and encourages them to draw bright symbolic group boundaries that exclude groups that do not fit into their imaginary of the small towns. Our analysis clarifies the entanglement between politically cultivated fears of demographic change and voters’ narratives, contributing to the growing literature on how radical-right parties exploit the urban–rural divide to frame ‘white’ and ‘Christian’ rurality as supposedly incompatible with migration.