Learning to Drive Backwards: Understanding Populist Radical Right Policy Diffusion

The rise of the populist radical right (PRR) has generated significant academic interest. As they move from the fringes to power, PRR parties tend to employ similar strategies to achieve similar public policy priorities. However, this is not always the case and PRR parties maintain significant diversity while converging around other common policy goals. Further, the rise of PRR parties in more powerful states opens up new avenues for policy diffusion to countries without PRR regimes. This begs the question: Under what conditions does PRR policy diffuse? While existing literature on diffusion provides a useful framework, the PRR ideology challenges the core underlying mechanisms and necessitates further study. Drawing on theories of PRR politics and policy diffusion, I outline ways in which these two strands of literature interact and the contours of a timely and necessary research agenda. Although I still operate within the diffusion framework, I argue that we should not expect PRR diffusion to occur under identical conditions given the ideology and policy goals of the PRR. Further research must be undertaken to understand exactly when, how, and why PRR diffusion occurs.