Public support for cordons sanitaires against the radical left and radical right

Though radical parties have often been excluded from government by mainstream elites (the ‘cordon sanitaire’), little is known about how voters evaluate such practices. Using data from the Czech Republic, where radical left and radical right parties have both been excluded, we examine voters’ support for the cordon sanitaire, and whether they differentiate between parties in this regard. We find considerable popular support for the cordon sanitaire, with less than a quarter of respondents rejecting this idea outright. Notably, left-wing voters are more likely to oppose cordons sanitaires against both the radical left and right, while right-wing voters are highly supportive of excluding both parties from government, with limited support among the electorate for excluding only one side of the ideological spectrum. The results indicate that where the cordon sanitaire has been established at the elite level, it may garner substantial popular support for excluding a range of radical parties.