This book explores the minds and lives of regular people to explain why far right parties are increasingly popular in democracies. While other titles focus on macro trends, like immigration and globalization, this book investigates people's day-to-day experiences and institutional contexts that connect their local ties to their electoral decisions.
'While country specialists have always been aware of the huge regional differences in support for the radical right, the comparative study of radical Right-Wing mobilization has for a long time focused almost exclusively on the level of the nation state. This is changing rapidly: the question of how local conditions and - perhaps more importantly - beliefs about local conditions and communities facilitate or hinder mobilization by the radical right is becoming one of the most important issue in this field of research. Professor Fitzgerald has written the first book-length treatise on this issue. She provides a concise theoretical framework and ample empirical evidence. Without doubt, her book will shape the development of the subfield.' Kai Arzheimer, University of Mainz, Germany