The far-right’s tug-of-war with multilateral democracy promotion

Far-right parties are perceived as central actors in the contestation of international organisations: as nativist anti-pluralists, they reject constraints on popular sovereignty, especially those emanating internationally. Multilateral democracy promotion stands emblematically for liberal intrusiveness clashing with far-right ideology. The far-right fervently opposes the idea that a transnationally agreed standard of democracy exists and that international organisations have any authority to measure them by it. This contribution investigates to what extent and with how much success far-right parties use their representation at the international level to interfere. Drawing on amendment sponsorship and roll-call vote data from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, it demonstrates that far-right parties adopt an antagonist strategy compared with non-nativist parties. Specifically, far-right opposition extends to policies boosting universalist liberal norms, and is not restricted – although strongest – towards monitoring, naming-shaming and sanctioning instruments. However, far-right attempts at amending policy or voting down proposals receive little support from the pluralist majority. The results underline the ideological nature of their tug-of-war within international organisations.