Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse how Conservative parties took advantage of the political shift towards the Right which took place in almost every Western democracies during the '80s. The author firstly sheds light on the ideological families of right wing parties. Secondly, he tries to account for their electoral performance and shows that conservative parties fared better in the new political environment. Two hypothesis are considered: the first one maintains that the Conservative success were determined by social, economic and cultural changes since the early '70s; the second one states that those parties adjusted more efficiently their organizations to the new challenges.