Political neglect and support for the radical right: The case of rural Portugal

Why are voters in rural areas in disproportionately drawn to radical right parties? The literature has focused on economic hardship and cultural conservatism, which are supposed to be more prevalent in rural areas. However, from this point of view, Portugal presents a rather puzzling case: its rural areas have economically converged with urban areas over recent decades, and rural Portuguese residents are not notably more opposed to immigration than urban residents.

The authors hypothesize that rural voters might be flocking to Chega not because they are poorer or culturally conservative, but because they feel ignored by traditional political elites. To test this hypothesis, the authors first confirm that rurality remains a predictor of the vote for the radical right in Portugal. They do this using exit polls from the 2022 and 2024 legislative elections.

Next, the authors examine whether feelings of economic hardship or attitudes towards immigration are relevant mediators in the relationship between rurality and the vote for Chega. The answer is negative. Instead, voters in rural areas are more likely to feel neglected by public policies, and such neglect is a relevant predictor of the vote for the radical right. In other words, rural voters seem to feel politically forgotten, and this sense of neglect, in turn, fuels electoral support for a party that portrays itself as the advocate for the “forgotten Portugal.”

The authors argue that these results suggest that the growing gap between urban and rural voters in Portugal, and more broadly across Europe, might be less about culture or wealth, and more about a deeper and more complex sense of political abandonment.

Click here to go to the paper by Pedro C. Magalhães and João Cancela