Right‐Libertarian Parties and the “New Values”: A Re‐examination *

Among the most noted and studied societal tendencies of recent decades have been those associated with structural change in industrial societies becoming postindustrial. Within political science, much attention has been focused on the behavioural and institutional effects of value change accompanying that transition, and especially on the diminishing impact of class and ideology on politics. Among the institutional effects have been (at times and in some places) decline in support for “established” parties and the rise of alternative political organizations, including new parties on both the left and right. Many of the new parties of the left, and especially those labelled “left‐libertarian”, are generally viewed as harbingers of things‐to‐come in the “new” politics ‐ progressive vehicles, driven along by the tides of change. In contrast, the new parties of the right are generally viewed as conservative, authoritarian, materialist reactions to change ‐ representing transitional efforts to stop change and its effects. The latter parties presumably tell more about the past, the present, and efforts to preserve them, than about the “new” in politics. The purpose of this article is to explore the possibility that some of the new right‐wing parties ‐ especially those in social democracies ‐ might themselves be viewed more accurately (or at least as justifiably , based on reinterpretation of the available evidence) as reflections of new values and as vehicles of forward‐looking change. If so, then those parties, like their left‐libertarian counterparts, may tell us something about the future of postindustrial politics.