In the study, the researchers analyzed the voting figures for 700 Eurovision entries from 40 countries over the past 20 years. After their analysis, they saw that there was a correlation between countries where many people sympathize with radical right-wing parties and voting for entries with ethnic folk music and elements of original languages and folk costumes.
The researchers compared the contribution’s score with how many percent of the country’s members of parliament belonged to a radical right-wing party. In countries with a high proportion of right-wing politicians, for example Hungary and Serbia, people voted more for other countries’ ethnic-national contributions. The explanation, according to the researchers, is that right-wing voters perceive the countries that emphasize the national in their contributions to be seen as allies.
The researchers add that the findings should be interpreted cautiously because they have only analyzed numbers.