Cordons sanitaires: an effective method to stop the far right?

BarcelonaFaced with the rise of the extreme right, not only in Catalonia but throughout the world, cordons sanitaires have been the main tool of traditional parties, especially on the left, to try to stop their growth and prevent them from coming to power. Have they worked? Reality shows that they have not managed to contain their rise and this week we have seen that They have not allowed the Catalan Alliance to be dethroned either from the only mayor's office it has in Catalonia, the one headed by Sílvia Orriols in Ripoll. Until now, the party only governs in the capital of Ripollès, but in Parliament its two deputies have joined the eleven of Vox for a year now. However, in the rest of the State and in Europe the extreme right has been in power for some time now. All this leads to some questions: should the strategy to stop ultra ideologies be reconsidered? What has failed? Are the cordons sanitaires enough?

To start with, the professor of Sociology at the University of Barcelona and expert on the extreme right Jordi Bonet stresses that the cordons sanitaires are not designed to stop the growth of extreme right parties and the radical populist right, but that their function is to prevent these formations from entering the institutions. That is to say, that a commitment should be signed before the elections in which all traditional formations commit to not making a pact with the extreme right. All parties, except the PP, did so in the Parliament, where they committed to not agreeing on anything with either Vox or the Catalan Alliance and also to not accept "either by action or omission" their votes to form a majority for investiture or government.

Xavier Torrens, professor of Political Science at the University of Barcelona and author of the book Saving Catalonia. The gestation of Catalan national populism (Pórtico), argues that a cordon sanitaire must be based on three pillars: political, government and institutional. It is the second pillar that Torrens points out has been breached twice in Ripoll, when Orriols was allowed to govern in 2023 and this week with the failure of the motion of censure because Junts did not end up signing the pact. However, he also sees errors in the anti-fascist pact signed in the Parliament and defends, for example, not "dialectically confronting" the extreme right: "They manage to provoke a polarization and that is the source of the rise of these parties."

Bonet, for his part, admits that a strategy of "exclusion" can feed the "victimization" of these parties and, therefore, "reinforce their mobilization and political identity," but it is also true that if they do not access government positions and, therefore, public resources, "their growth capacities are more limited." The political scientist and professor at Pompeu Fabra University Toni Rodon adds that when the extreme right is in government, it also ends up losing support because "it encounters problems implementing its policies" and its voters see that it has not kept its promises.

The pacts

For a cordon sanitaire to be effective, Bonet points out that it is essential that the right and centre-right forces commit to them. "The main responsibility for maintaining the cordon is that of the party that has the least incentive to sign it," he says. He refers to the fact that the traditional right-wing parties know that they may suffer a loss of votes to the extreme right: "The electoral calculation has made the cordon sanitaires fail," warns the sociologist. And, in this sense, he warns that it is precisely these calculations that entail the risk of traditional parties assuming the extreme right agenda.

In fact, there is a recent study entitled From collaboration to convergence: nativist attitudes among non-radical right-wing supporters, by Lie Philip Santoso, who observes that when a traditional party makes a pact with the far right, this leads its voters to adopt the postulates of the ultra agenda. "Alliances with far-right parties can normalize exclusionary policies and aggravate social divisions," the study points out. "They normalize the discourse," adds political scientist Toni Rodon.

The study was based on surveys in the United Kingdom, Germany and Denmark. In Germany, the cordon sanitaire had worked until now, but now the post-Merkel CDU has begun to flirt with Alternative for Germany, after the party now led by Friedrich Merz received the support of the far right to try to push through a law to curb immigration - in a move that would lead the position2 to have or voted against. On the other hand, In countries like Italy or Austria the cordon has not been put into practice, and the far right also won the last elections. There have not been any in Spain either, and the PP and Vox govern in municipalities and town councils. The study titled Public support for cordon sanitaires: descriptive evidence from Spain shows that the support among Spanish citizens for a cordon sanitaire in Santiago Abascal's party is "very low".

The far-right agenda

Immigration is one of the issues that the extreme right has targeted and, as a result, right-wing and centre-right parties have also toughened their discourse. This has happened to the PP with Vox, but also to Junts with Aliança Catalana. The junteros have tried to compete with Orriols' racist discourse by proposing, for example, the assumption of powers over immigration. In this sense, Torrens stresses that public policies "with social impact", as well as a narrative that counteracts that of populist parties, are key. And he gives two examples. If the school meal grants have fallen short due to the increase in the population with few resources, which can include migrants, the solution is to increase these grants so that they reach everyone, he explains, so as not to feed the racist discourse of the extreme right. As for the narrative, Torrens also advocates defending the Catalonia of 8 million as a way of "providing an image of social cohesion".

However, Bonet recognizes that there is no magic wand and that it is about winning the dispute in "the political field." Rodon reaffirms this, who also warns that neither public policies nor the most political battle give results immediately, but rather it is about "chipping away" with an eye on the medium term so that they can achieve their goals. frames imposed by the extreme right change or, at least, can be countered.