Pragmatic issue-based narratives: discursive support for the populist far right among third-generation Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands

Populist far-right parties are often associated with economically insecure, lower-educated men from working- and lower-middle-class backgrounds. Yet immigrants and their descendants may also express support for such parties despite being frequent targets of exclusionary rhetoric. Focusing on the Netherlands, this article examines how third-generation Turkish-Dutch participants develop favorable narratives toward the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) and its leader, Geert Wilders. Drawing on nine theoretically selected cases from a broader set of 60 narrative interviews conducted between November 2023 and April 2024, the analysis explores how participants justify these evaluations and reconcile them with identities historically targeted by far-right discourse. Their narratives were grounded less in broad ideological identification than in selective, issue-based support. Three domains were particularly salient: economic concerns, LGBTI+ issues, and attitudes toward newly arrived migrants. Across these domains, participants reconciled support and identity through pragmatic prioritization of everyday concerns, selective value convergence, and boundary-making between settled and newly arrived migrants. Rather than indicating a broader electoral realignment, these narratives show how support for far-right actors may remain partial, conditional, and distinct from voting behavior. The article contributes to debates on immigrant political behavior and minority engagement with the radical right by demonstrating how issue-specific reasoning can coexist with salient ethnic and religious identities.