The Rise Of French National Front From The Perspective Of Supply And Demand

Recently,the Western Europe is experiencing the test of distributive crisis,political representation and identity crisis,and the right-wing populism found its soil of breeding and spreading in people's unrest and angry moods,thus the right-wing populist parties are also rising rapidly and are playing an increasingly important role in the domestic and the international community.Being members of the same party,although the right-wing populist parties each in different countries and regions has its characteristics,they have certain similarities in the logic and impetus and environment needed for development.Because of the complexity of integrity research on the family of right-wing populist parties and research limits of this thesis,this paper select one representative party-France's National Front as the breakthrough point of the research.The author attempts to analyze the development and rise of France's National Front in the framework of Supply and Demand Theory,which following the logical mainline of voters' demand-political opportunity structure-organization and strategy of the National Front from macroscopic to microcosmic,combining with the current French situation and the latest trends of National Front.Moreover,the author tries to discuss about the interaction between France's National Front and democracy as well as the future development of the National Front.The thesis is mainly divided into five parts:The first part reorganizes and generalizes the connotation and the related theory of the populist right-wing party.Based on the current academic debate,the author firstly presents the definition and classification of populist right-wing party and discusses its relationship with traditional far-right force.Besides,having reviewed the relevant theories of populist right-wing party,the author mainly explains the content and the development of the Supply and Demand Theory,which is also the foundation to "locate" and interpret the National Front in France.The second part discusses French voters' political demand in the process of globalization and modernization.This part tries to explain which and why part of voters may be potential voters of France's National Front under the influence of the current environment.It also reflects the main characteristics of the core voters of National Front,which include the lost ones in modernization and multiculturalism full of anxiety and anger.The third part analyzes the political opportunity structure of the National Front in France from two aspects of the institutional and political environment.This part focuses on the influence that political opportunity structure has on the political space and actual election achievements of the National Front.Institutional environment mainly discusses the impact of electoral.system on France's National Front,while the political environment is mainly talking about the behavior of the mainstream political parties and their interaction with the National Front.In addition,the popularity of new media also breaks the limitations of the National Front in the traditional media era.It may lead to new influence on the development of the National Front,which is also included in the discussion.The fourth part discusses the organizational structure of the National Front and what kind of behavior model it takes to increase its legitimacy and political identity.This thesis emphatically analyzes adjustments to the strategy,image and positioning of the National Front that Jean-Marine LE PEN makes after she took office.This part helps to understand why voters tend to choose the National Front rather than other radical parties of France,and why France's National Front can be more successful than most right-wing populist parties in western European.Based on the analysis of above parts,the fifth part examines the interaction between the National Front in France and the current democracy combining with the election results of the National Front in recent years.On the one hand,this part discusses the impact of the rise of the National Front on democracy in aspects of parties'setup,political issues,mainstream parties' policy and social psychology,etc.;on the other hand,it also discusses the constraints of democracy on the National Front,and then explores the challenges and the future development of the National Front.