Labour-Intensive Geographies and Support for Radical-Right Parties

Does variation in local economic environments help explain why some areas exhibit systematically higher support for radical-right parties? To address this question, I focus on two drivers related to the type of industry where individuals work and socially interact. First, in contrast to knowledge-based industries, labour-intensive industries are characterised by a clustering of individuals with high job vulnerability and low education. Second, when they coincide spatially, these two socioeconomic characteristics give rise to nativist preferences and exclusionary attitudes, which drive support for radical-right parties. I test these claims with two empirical strategies. In geographical municipal-level data from Spain, I confirm that support for radical-right parties is determined by exposure to labour-intensive activities such as certain sectors of agriculture and tourism. In addition, survey data from 17 European democracies confirm that working in labour-intensive industries boosts the roles of job vulnerability and education in developing and expressing exclusionary political behaviours.