Comparing the extreme right in Belgium and France : Party ideology, electoral success and party system change

This is the English version of: Ivaldi (Gilles), Swyngedouw (Marc), 2006, « Rechtsextremismus in populistischer Gestalt. Front National und Vlaams Blok » in Decker (Frank) (Hrsg.), Populismus. Gefahr für die Demokratie oder nützliches Korrektiv?, Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften / GWV Fachverlage GmbH, pp.121-143The purpose of this chapter is to contrast the situation of the Flemish Vlaams Blok and the French Front national on a number of key elements of party ideology, political competition and party system change since the mid 1980s. In deconstructing the ‘new society' utopia of the VB and FN, the analysis shows important similarities in the doctrine and, in spite of those parties' alleged commitment to representative democracy, illustrates a common and developed set of ethnocentrist, authoritarian, and anti-egalitarian values underpinning an essentially non-democratic ideology. The analysis draws on the electoral success, organisational development and institutionalisation of the far right in both countries and points to the comparable systemic isolation of those parties despite the growth and stabilisation of their electorates