**5. Conclusions**

In view of the results, it is possible to identify several issues that have significant implications in terms of orienting not only the research on the radical right in Spain, but also the comparative research agenda on European radical right.

It has been shown how two of the main theories possibly explaining the radical right vote, presented here as the losers of globalization (H1) and identity vulnerability (H2) hypotheses, lack significant explanatory power for VOX's vote in this analysis.

In short, empirical evidence allows us to refute the losers of globalization hypothesis (H1). In fact, the findings appear to indicate the opposite, showing that VOX's vote increases with income and is lower among unqualified workers (even though there is no significance). First, this reinforces the need to avoid mechanical approaches which are so in vogue even in scholarly literature, interpreting the vote for these types of parties as purely the result of social and economic disintegration. In particular, empirical findings lead us to outright rejection of all these interpretations which have uncritically interpreted VOX's electoral surge as a reaction of the disadvantaged and working class against the establishment (Zubero 2019). Even though the proletarianization processes have arisen in other scenarios (Rydgren 2013), this does not appear to be the case for VOX's electoral base in Andalusia, at least for now.

Regarding the identity vulnerability hypothesis (H2), the significance of the immigration and religion variables disappears when it is introduced alongside the contextual variables in model 4, and therefore this hypothesis can also not be deemed reliable. Though it is true that the anti-immigration component is a key pillar for most radical right parties (from the point of view of political offer and demand), we have seen how its explanatory power in VOX's case is limited and in fact disappears completely when we introduce other contextual factors in the regression analysis. The lesser significance of the anti-immigration component in the party's ideological plane (Acha 2019a) is also confirmed by its electoral base. In this case, VOX refutes the so-called "single-issue party thesis": the idea that these parties are being supported predominantly on the basis of the immigration issue (Mudde 1999). This is a significant difference between VOX and other European radical right parties.

The most relevant finding of this research has been to show the predictive capacity of contextual socio-political factors. Specifically, we have shown that the vote for the radical right party is linked to centralist tendencies, right-wing ideological self-identification and a negative opinion of the Prime Minister. Thus, VOX's surge could be understood as primarily the result of socio-political dynamics specific to the Spanish (and Andalusian) context, more than global and wide-reaching structural processes. The growing polarization regarding the territorial issue, added to almost four decades of hegemony of the PSOE in Andalusia, appear to have been key factors when activating this electoral base (a base which, in any case, has been activated thanks to the existence of a sufficiently solid and credible party option). Thus, it appears to confirm the importance of supply-side factors such as the necessary condition to activate demand-side factors, in line with what has been noted by authors such as Mudde (2007) or Norris (2005). It is important to note that these findings refer only to the Andalusian context and should not be considered as true for the national political context. Nevertheless, it is possible that these explanations for VOX's electoral base would be repeat in other arenas.

VOX's case is perhaps a new type of radical right within the far right family that is qualitatively and quantitatively di fferent from the third wave of extremism in Europe (from the 80s to the 2000s). This fourth wave is ideologically more flexible and has a more diverse electorate, as Mudde (2019) develops elegantly. A radical right which is ultimately an agen<sup>t</sup> (from the point of view of the agency theory) that can guide and strategically emphasize certain issues, even beyond the issue of immigration (De Lange and Art 2011). In the case of the 2018 elections in Andalusia, we saw how the party not only prioritized the territorial issue in its discourse (given the residual nature of the immigration issue for the electorate), but also how its electoral support closely followed this framework. Future lines of research should examine to what extent this electoral base evolves and to what extent the party can successfully activate new electorally profitable dimensions. The medium-long term electoral consolidation of the radical right in Spain will depend on this to a grea<sup>t</sup> extent.

To sum up, this research has examined in detail the electoral base of VOX in the Andalusian elections of December 2018. Some notable findings that have characterized the vote for VOX have been pointed out, considering the prolific previous literature about European radical right voting. In this sense, VOX can be interpreted as a good example of the European radical right's evolution. What is clear is that the radical right party will receive close scrutiny and will play an important role in Spanish society and democracy in the future.

**Funding:** This work was supported by the 'Ayudas para la Formación de Profesorado Universitario' (FPU), Ministry of Education, Government of Spain [FPU16/04643].

**Acknowledgments:** The author would like to thank Robert Gould, two anonymous reviewers and editors for constructive and helpful comments and suggestions.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declare no conflict of interest.
