TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bromhead,Alan de
AU  - Eichengreen,Barry
AU  - O'Rourke,Kevin H.
TI  - Right-Wing Political Extremism in the Great Depression
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17871
PY  - 2012
Y2  - February 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17871
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17871.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alan de Bromhead
Mansfield College
University of Oxford
Oxford OX1 3TF
United Kingdom
E-Mail: alan.debromhead@mansfield.ox.ac.uk

Barry Eichengreen
Department of Economics
University of California, Berkeley
549 Evans Hall 3880
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
Tel: 510/642-2772
Fax: 510/643-0926
E-Mail: eichengr@econ.Berkeley.edu

Kevin H. O'Rourke
All Souls College
Oxford University
Oxford OX1 4AL, UK
Tel: + 44 (0)1865 279 348
Fax: 353-1-6772503
E-Mail: kevin.orourke@all-souls.ox.ac.uk
AB  - We examine the impact of the Great Depression on the share of votes for right-wing anti-system parties in elections in the 1920s and 1930s. We confirm the existence of a link between political extremism and economic hard times as captured by growth or contraction of the economy.  What mattered was not simply growth at the time of the election but cumulative growth performance.  But the effect of the Depression on support for right-wing anti-system parties was not equally powerful under all economic, political and social circumstances.   It was greatest in countries with relatively short histories of democracy, with existing extremist parties, and with electoral systems that created low hurdles to parliamentary representation.  Above all, it was greatest where depressed economic conditions were allowed to persist.
ER  -