Do measures of militant democracy contribute to reduce the policy influence of radical right populist parties?

A new phase in the development of radical right populist parties (RRPP) has questioned the role of these parties since the beginning of the 2000s. While increasingly legitimized and increasingly gaining access to power, they tend to be perceived as normalized political parties. At the same time, many researchers argue that they are a threat to the quality of democracy. Yet, their real – direct or indirect – influence on policy-making has barely been investigated and the existing literature dealing with this subject remains limited. My paper thus aims to fill this gap by apprehending the relationship between populist parties and the policy-making process. The research thus contributes to discover if, to what extend and how radical right populist parties try to influence policy-making. In order to do so, the process-tracing method is used, based on original data. Three West European cases are compared in this research: the Swiss Union démocratique du centre (UDC), the French Front national (FN), and the Belgian Vlaams Belang (VB), and their respective influence on policy-making in the foreigners’ criminality policy sector is assessed. The results of the research show that RRPPs influence policy-making, but only regarding a very limited number of pledges and indirectly. Because they are perceived as dangerous parties for democracy, measure of militant democracy prevents them from exercising a direct influence on policy-making. Therefore, RRPPs develop other strategies to exercise a policy influence in the long term. The results finally suggest a reflexion regarding militant democracy.