Taming the far right? Government inclusion strengthens rather than weakens far-right parties

Can inclusion in government break the appeal of far right parties? This question is critical given the global rise of far-right parties which makes government formation increasingly difficult. Commentators and pundits alike increasingly argue that the appeal of the far right could be broken by including far-right parties in government. The idea is that taking over government responsibility, dealing with the constraints of day-to-day politics and making policy compromises would make it difficult for far-right parties to maintain their popular appeal. We test this argument by analyzing 1,237 cabinets in 57 democracies from 1976 to 2023 by relying on a difference-in-differences design. We find no evidence that executive participation weakens far-right support. On the contrary, far-right parties gain in popularity, increasing their vote share by an average of about six percentage points in the next election. Thus, government inclusion does not break the appeal of the far right, it consolidates their electoral position.