Date of Graduation

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Political Science

Advisor/Mentor

Ryan, Jeffrey

Committee Member

Gould, Kara

Second Committee Member

Sebold, Karen

Abstract

Only about a quarter of the world population is currently living under a democracy, down from 54 percent in 2006 (Owens, 2023). In the United States, President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive actions and increasingly unchecked power have many worried about a possible deterioration in the sturdiness of American democracy in the coming years (Barrow, 2025). Meanwhile in Europe, far-right movements such as Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France have scored historic wins at the ballot box (Green, 2024).

The parallel rise of authoritarianism in so many different nations suggest a potential connection between these far-right movements. Previous literature has posited that nearby countries caving in to authoritarianism could cause others to do the same (O’Sullivan, 1996). This recent far-right wave could be the result of something very similar. In the United States, this began in 2016 with Trump’s first electoral triumph on an anti-establishment, populist platform that aimed to “Make America Great Again” with policies such as tax cuts and immigration restrictions. Europe’s far-right turn less than a decade later closely mirrors the playbook of the American right. This presents the possibility of the United States as a sort of patient zero for the subsequent rise of far-right populism in Europe, with like-minded sentiments traversing the Atlantic Ocean and leading to a rapid decline in western democracy accelerated by the digital age.

This research will test two hypotheses on the causes of the recent far-right wave in Europe. The first posits that Europe’s far right surge is merely a symptom of the global economic slump coming out of the pandemic. The second suggests that the European far right’s rise is an example of policy diffusion from the United States, with politicians adopting the tenets of “Trumpism” to generate electoral success. The first hypothesis will be tested using a variety of socioeconomic metrics from the IMF and other international organizations as well as tracking electoral support of far-right parties over the last decade, while the second will be examined via a rhetorical analysis of multiple speeches from far-right leaders through the lens of the Narrative Policy Framework (Jones et al., 2022).

Keywords

Policy diffusion; Narrative Policy Framework; authoritarian populism; right-wing populism

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