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This chapter focuses on Islam in the aftermath of the killing of Theo van Gogh. The Dutch print media, as well as Dutch public and commercial broadcasters, have openly admired the heirs of the anti-Islam discourse broached by Pim Fortuyn, Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders. Their respective movies/ documentaries, “Submission” and, more recently, “Fitna” garnered intense media attention, especially in Europe. The prevalent lens of secularism in the media distorts the condition of faithfulness and alienates those who might otherwise be more inclined to seek greater assimilation.

Some of the larger and more famous recent attempts to export blasphemy restrictions from the Muslim world to the West have had such a complex and long lasting effect that they require particular examination. These are detailed in Chapter Ten and include the continuing affair of The Satanic Verses, renewed when author Salman Rushdie's was given a knighthood by the British government. The so-called “Danish Cartoons” crisis of 2005–2006 continues to reverberate when the images are republished or forbidden to be printed, as in 2009 when Yale University Press censored them and other images from a book detailing the cartoons crisis itself. Other examples include Newsweek's account of a Qur’an flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo, a report which was later disproved; Pope Benedict XVI's controversial speech at Regensburg; and Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders's provocative film, Fitna. These upheavals frequently involved political manipulation. For example, the Danish cartoons were first published in September 2005 and republished, even in Egypt, Morocco, and Indonesia, without any outcry. Only in January 2006, following a decision by the OIC in its Mecca meeting to make an issue of the caricatures, did riots, violence and boycotts erupt and some 200 people die.

This chapter empirically investigates the political supply of radical right-wing parties. Not only to make sure that the FN and the PVV are actually comparable, which is a necessary condition to justify a comparison of their voters. But also to find out whether there are differences in their political messages, which, in turn, might account for different demands within their respective constituencies. Based on a fine-grained analysis of 1,378 hand-coded tweets of Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, the chapter shows which reference groups they denounce and which groups they claim to support, which issues they prioritize and how they articulate these issues. The findings indicate that the political supply of the two politicians is highly comparable. Rather than offering standardized ‘products’ to a general electorate, both radical right politicians use relatively similar forms of ‘product differentiation’ (Eatwell, 2000), by articulating the demands and identities of multiple societal groups in a nativist fashion. Importantly, both leaders do so through ‘dual closure’ (Parkin, 1979), denouncing both elites (above) and non-native out-groups (below).

This chapter presents the third and final ideal type of radical right support I discerned: radical conservatism. The latter can mainly be found among socially well-to-do respondents, voting for the FN and PVV for ideological reasons. Contrary to the first two types, the electoral support of these interviewees is not fostered by feelings of relative deprivation, nor is it strongly shaped by socio-economic considerations or justified by moral claims. Instead, socio-cultural convictions dominate their discourse, notably denunciations of non-native out-groups (especially Muslims) who would lack the willingness to assimilate to the native majority culture. Finally, in contrast to respondents corresponding to other types of radical right support, these interviewees tend to describe themselves explicitly as conservatives and display a relatively high level of political sophistication, which, in turn, is related to their relatively high level of cultural and economic capital. The chapter also discusses an ideal-typical variant of this form of radical right support and highlights the differences between French and Dutch ‘radical conservatives’.

This chapter presents the main conclusions of the book and connects the findings of the empirical supply-side- and demand-side-oriented parts of the study. Most importantly, it discusses the structural homology between the three-tiered discourse of Le Pen and Wilders on the one hand and the socio-political worldviews of their interviewed voters on the other. By doing so, the chapter explains how the two politicians are able to symbolically unify an agglomerate of voters with highly diverse interests, preoccupations, and preferences. The second part of the chapter, then, presents the most important perspectives for future research. It notably pleads for an electoral equifinality approach to the study of radical right support in particular and electoral behaviour more generally.

This chapter presents the first form of radical right support that I discerned. The latter can be mainly be found among respondents in lower income groups suffering from intragenerational decline. Their electoral support is ultimately rooted in a specific form of relative deprivation, in which non-native out-groups (below) are perceived as unfairly privileged—notably in terms of housing, health care and welfare-state benefits given to the latter by public workers and politicians (up there). Importantly, both the comparative reference group (below) and the responsible reference group (up there) are resented by these interviewees. Relying defensively on their nationality, the ultimate resource they dispose of, Le Pen and Wilders are seen as the only politicians who would give priority to ordinary natives like themselves. The chapter also discusses ideal-typical variants of this form of radical right support and highlights the differences between French and Dutch ‘hard-done-by’ voters.

Chapter 7 presents the second form of radical right support that I discerned: contributionism. This is found primarily among respondents in the (lower) middle classes, who possess more economic than cultural capital. Having made their way outside the official education system through hard work, they see their relative success as the fruit of their own efforts. Accordingly, this ideal-type is not so much characterized by the belief that one receives too little, as was the case with ‘hard-done-bys’, but rather by the conviction that one gives too much; notably through tax money—collected by politicians and the state (up there). This, in turn, is believed to be redistributed unfairly to non-natives (‘below’, e.g. Arabs, asylum seekers, Greeks), who are believed to violate the self-reliant deservingness criteria of these voters, emphasizing their own ‘disciplined selves’ (Lamont, 2000) The chapter also highlights the differences between French and Dutch ‘contributionists’ and discusses and ideal-type variant of this form of radical right support.

Who votes for the radical right and why? In recent years, many studies have been published that try to answer this question. The aim of the introductory chapter is to situate this book in the abundant radical right literature. By doing so, it explains why and how demand-side and supply-side factors need to be taken into account, before arguing why the widespread assumption of electoral homogeneity should be questioned. Drawing on historical and contemporary evidence in the sociological and political science literature, the chapter subsequently introduces the concept of electoral equifinality, that is of key importance for the rest of the study. This section directly leads to the chapter’s final part, in which the research questions and the outline of the book are presented.