Politics: A Tea Party Motivation

A one-percentage-point decline in growth leads to a one-percentage-point increase in the vote share for right-wing or nationalist parties.

Our main finding is that higher per capita GDP growth is significantly negatively linked to the support for extreme political positions. While estimates vary between specifications, we find that roughly a one percentage point decline in growth translates into a one percentage point higher vote share of right-wing or nationalist parties. Moreover, we find that the amount of income inequality in a country affects the role that growth plays. Highly unequal countries display a lower growth effect than more equal countries. For countries with a more equal distribution of income, a one percentage point drop in the growth rate may increase the vote share of far right parties by up to two percentage points.

Our results therefore make clear that countries should not expect right-wing parties to get majorities unless growth declines quite as much as in the 1920s. Nevertheless, even with a less significant fall in economic growth rates, a rise in support for extreme parties is likely to change political outcomes — for example through their impact on incumbent parties’ political platforms.

Our more recent research on the vote shares of other groups of political parties points out that smaller growth rates mostly benefit right wing and nationalist parties — and not so much the communist parties. One explanation for this asymmetry may be that voters perceive right wing parties as generating more individual income uncertainty.

See The OECD's Growth Prospects and Political Extremism by Markus BrüCkner Hans Peter GrüNer, May 16, 2010.