Mainstreaming populist discourse: the race-conscious legacy of neo-populist parties in Australia and Italy

Curran examines the political legacy of far-right neo-populist parties in Australia and Italy. She argues that assessments of their ‘success’ need to extend beyond the electoral decline or organizational implosion of the parties themselves. An important measure of their impact is the influence they have exerted on mainstream political discourse and styles of communication. That they have been successful in having such an impact is well illustrated in the politically expedient adoption of race-conscious, anti-immigration and anti-asylum policies in Australia and Italy. Curran examines the influence of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party and Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord (Northern League) on the mainstreaming of populist discourse in these two countries. She focuses on some of the populist themes and styles embraced by the Australian political leader John Howard and his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi, and she concludes that, regardless of their political fragility or outright demise, these far-right neo-populist parties have been successful in injecting populist themes and prejudices into the mainstream political discourse in their respective countries.     

Three decades of populist radical right parties in Western Europe: So what?

The populist radical right constitutes the most successful party family in postwar Western Europe. Many accounts in both academia and the media warn of the growing influence of populist radical right parties (PRRPs), the so‐called ‘verrechtsing’ (or right turn) of European politics, but few provide empirical evidence of it. This lecture provides a first comprehensive analysis of the alleged effects of the populist radical right on the people, parties, policies and polities of Western Europe. The conclusions are sobering. The effects are largely limited to the broader immigration issue, and even here PRRPs should be seen as catalysts rather than initiators, who are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the introduction of stricter immigration policies. The lecture ends by providing various explanations for the limited impact of PRRPs, but it is also argued that populist parties are not destined for success in opposition and failure in government. In fact, there are at least three reasons why PRRPs might increase their impact in the near future: the tabloidisation of political discourse; the aftermath of the economic crisis; and the learning curve of PRRPs. Even in the unlikely event that PRRPs will become major players in West European politics, it is unlikely that this will lead to a fundamental transformation of the political system. PRRPs are not a normal pathology of European democracy, unrelated to its basic values, but a pathological normalcy, which strives for the radicalisation of mainstream values.     

“The Immigration Problem” and Norwegian Right-Wing Politicians

In this article, we explore Norwegian Progress Party politicians’ change of their rhetoric of immigration after the party for the first time became part of a coalition government in 2013. Equal to other right-wing populist parties in Europe, immigration has been the main reason for voters to support the Progress Party. How then does their immigration rhetoric change after entering office? This is important, as an intolerant immigration rhetoric has far-reaching consequences for the political climate in Europe. Right-wing populist parties can achieve much regarding migration policies merely because there is broad consensus on a strict migration policy today. However, to succeed remaining in office, they must remain being acceptable to other parties in the parliament and their coalition partner and therefore they need to moderate the way they go about communicating their message. Too much moderation however might lead to a split within the party, or losing core voters.     

Motivation of politicians and long-term policies

We analyze the motivation of politicians in democracies when long-term policies are socially desirable. Politicians receive utility from holding office and from the success of their projects. We refer to the two extreme types of politicians as “populists” and “policy success-seekers”. One result is that inefficiencies in the political process are smaller when a politician is of the populist type. When politicians offer incentive contracts, the problem of inefficient decision-making may be solved. The amount of money necessary to induce the incumbent to undertake the socially optimal project decreases with the degree of populism he displays.     

Economic crisis and the variety of populist response: evidence from Greece,Portugal and Spain

Abstract

Greece, Portugal and Spain are among the countries worst hit by the 2008 Great Recession, followed by significant electoral and political turmoil. However, one of the dimensions in which they differ is the presence and varieties of populism in parties’ political proposals. Drawing on holistic coding of party manifestos, we assess the varying presence of populist rhetoric in mainstream and challenger parties before and after the 2008 economic downturn. Our empirical findings show that populism is much higher in Greece compared to Spain and Portugal. We do not find a significant impact of the crisis as the degree of populism remains rather stable in Greece and Portugal, while it increases in Spain, mainly due to the rise of new populist forces. The study confirms that populist rhetoric is a strategy adopted mainly by challenger and ideologically radical parties. In addition, inclusionary populism is the predominant flavour of populist parties in new Southern Europe, although exclusionary populism is present to a lesser extent in the Greek case. We contend that the interaction between the national context – namely the ideological legacy of parties and the main dimensions of competition – and the strategic options of party leadership is crucial for explaining cross-country variation in the intensity of populism and the specific issues that characterise populist discourse.     

Towards the Mainstream? UKIP and the 2009 Elections to the European Parliament

This article examines the performance of the UK Independence party (UKIP) at the 2009 European Parliament election, and asks whether the party's second-place finish indicates that it is now entering the political mainstream. It argues that while UKIP's success at these elections marks an important step in its development, the party continues to face significant barriers to further electoral progress. The article also considers the implications for the Conservative party under David Cameron, and cautions that UKIP's success could signal a more generalised shift towards the acceptance of the populist right in Britain. Finally, the article argues that the rise and recent success of UKIP is deserving of greater academic attention, and outlines possible research agendas to take this work forward.     

The Populist Surge in Post‐Democratic Times: Theoretical and Political Challenges

Populism has often been described as a great challenge and threat to Western democracies. Not surprisingly, at a time in which we are witnessing a significant rise in populist actors in Europe and the US, scientific analyses and commentary regarding populism have become particularly popular and, indeed, necessary. My aim in this article is to offer a brief yet comprehensive overview of the ongoing debates in a bid to problematise the supposed ‘imminent threat’ of populism in light of recent developments within the political systems and societies of established democracies, especially under conditions of crisis. I understand populism as a specific type of discourse, and thus as a way—among others—of doing politics and appealing to groups of people. Thus, I highlight the varying orientations that populist movements might take, depending on the ideological traditions with which they are closely articulated and the sociopolitical environment in which they manifest. Last, I relate the ‘populist surge’ to discussions regarding post‐democracy.     

Assessing the diversity of anti-establishment and populist politics in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The more populism enters public debates, the more it needs close scrutiny. Central and Eastern Europe offers a useful context for exploring the diversity of parties identified as populist. Anti-establishment rhetoric provides a suitable conceptual starting point because of its pervasive role in the region’s political discourse. Using a new expert survey, this article details the relationship between anti-establishment salience and political positions, showing that anti-establishment parties occupy a full range across both economic and cultural dimensions and many occupy more centrist positions. Narrowing the focus to content analysis of anti-establishment parties’ thin ideology in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, it is concurrently found that for many actors (including those usually labelled as populist) anti-establishment rhetoric is indeed predominant, yet not always extensively combined with other elements of populism: people-centrism and invocation of general will. The findings are important for understanding multiple varieties of anti-establishment politics also beyond the region.     

The nation under threat: secularist,racial and populist nativism in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

Right-wing discourses and issues of belonging and collective identity in Europe’s political and public spheres are often analysed in terms of Islamophobia, racism and populism. While acknowledging the value of these concepts, Ke?i? and Duyvendak argue that these discourses can be better understood through the logic of nativism. Their article opens with a conceptual clarification of nativism, which they define as an intense opposition to an internal minority that is seen as a threat to the nation due to its ‘foreignness’. This is followed by the analysis of nativism’s three subtypes: secularist nativism, problematizing particularly Islam and Muslims; racial nativism, problematizing black minorities; and populist nativism, problematizing ‘native’ elites. The authors show that the logic of nativism offers the advantages of both analytical precision and scope. The article focuses on the Dutch case as a specific illustration of a broader European trend.     

Variation in policy success: radical right populism and migration policy

How do radical right populist parties influence government policies in their core issue of immigration? This article provides a systematic analysis of the direct and indirect effects of radical right anti-immigration parties on migration policy reforms in 17 West European countries from 1990 to 2014. Insights from migration policy theory serve to explain variations in the migration policy success of the radical right. While previous studies mostly treat migration policy as uniform, it is argued that this approach neglects the distinct political logics of immigration and integration policy. This article reveals significant variations in policy success by policy area. While immigration policies have become more liberal despite the electoral success of the radical right, when the radical right is in government office it enacts more restrictions in integration policies. Accordingly, anti-immigrant mobilisation is more likely to influence immigrants’ rights than their actual numbers.     

Success in opposition – failure in government: explaining the performance of right-wing populist parties in public office

Drawing on a conceptual distinction between traditional right-wing extremist and right-wing populist parties, this article examines the performance of the latter in public office. The central argument is that the specific populist aspects of such parties allow them to succeed in opposition and to do well at the game of elections. Once in government, their unique strengths turn into disadvantages. Significant structural weaknesses inherent in populist parties pose nearly insurmountable problems that make their long-term success in government questionable. The analysis also shows that the rise of right-wing populism has substantially increased the opportunity structures of conservative parties. Following the theoretical discussion, the article examines the case of the Austrian Freedom Party and draws parallels with the Italian and Dutch cases.     

Towards a New Politics: Citizenship and Rights in Contemporary Argentina

The emergence of a human rights movement represented a cultural turning point in many Latin American societies. The movement's struggle acted as a catalyst for political learning, triggering a profound renovation of the region's democratic traditions. The most impressive development has been the emergence of a rights-oriented discourse that reunites two elements that populist forms of self-understanding had kept separate: democracy and the rule of law. Cultural innovation gave birth to a new form of politicization that greatly differs from the movementist and corporatist practices of past populist movements, for the former is guided by a liberal concern: establishing clear institutional boundaries between state and civil society. Through the analysis of a series of citizens' initiatives and movements, the paper analyzes this new form of politicization and its contribution to the authorization and effectivization of rights as institutions.     

The State as Investment Market: A Framework for Interpreting the Post‐Soviet State in Eurasia

What type of state has emerged in post‐Soviet Eurasia, and what kind of theoretical framework can help us understand its behavior and performance? This article argues that we can usefully understand the logic of political and administrative organization in terms of a kind of “investment market.” Access to the state is frequently determined by actual financial payment. Would‐be officials invest in offices to obtain access to a stream of income associated with an office. This framework represents a novel perspective on the post‐Soviet state, which has hitherto either been premised on modernization theory or emphasized a robustly personalistic logic of political organization.     

Biased beliefs and retrospective voting: why democracies choose mediocre policies

There are two well-established empirical regularities about voters. First, they entertain systematically biased beliefs about how public policies affect economic outcomes. Second, voters vote retrospectively: they punish the incumbent for poor and reward him for good macroeconomic performance. Thus, political parties face a trade-off: offering popular yet economically harmful policies increases the chance of being elected today, but decreases the chance of re-election. We provide the first rigorous game-theoretical analysis of the trade-off. The model addresses two questions: How can biased beliefs and retrospective voting be explained consistently? What policy outcomes emerge in party competition? To micro-found persistently biased beliefs we introduce the psychological concept of mental models. Deviating from earlier studies, we allow parties to choose strategic mixtures of populist (i.e., bad yet popular) and good (but less popular) platforms. We show that retrospective voting provides a self-correction mechanism, so that parties offer strategic mixtures of policies in equilibrium rather than purely populist or purely good policy platforms. Thus, democracy is characterized by mediocre policy choices and half-hearted reforms. An incumbent bias or unclear responsibilities weaken the self-correction mechanism.     

Economic globalization, job insecurity and the populist reaction

A striking change in the political party systems of many established democracies in recent years has been the rise to electoral and political prominence of right-wing populist parties. Moving beyond the usual anti-statism and racism attitudinal explanatory foci, this article posits that popular support for these parties is associated with the job insecurity that populist party leaders have attributed to deepening international economic integration, or economic globalization. The conceptualization of job insecurity is discussed and its expected relationship to the mercantilism of right-wing populist parties clarified. The hypothesis is tested in the specific context of support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in the 1998 election to the Australian federal House of Representatives. The article concludes with a consideration of the wider implications of its findings.     

Expressing or fuelling discontent? The relationship between populist voting and political discontent

Many studies have found that political discontent and populist voting are positively related. Yet, an important shortcoming of these studies is that they interpret the correlation between these two phenomena as evidence that existing feelings of political discontent contribute to the support for populist parties. We argue that there is also a causal effect in the opposite direction: Populist parties fuel political discontent by exposing their supporters to a populist message in which they criticize the elite. Our study links individual level data on political discontent of voters to the populist message of the party they intend to vote for, employing various operationalizations of populism. Based on a 6-wave panel study from the Netherlands (2008–2013), we conclude that political discontent is both cause and consequence of the rise of populist parties. Our findings imply that the effect of political discontent on populist voting has been overestimated in many previous studies.     

Was ist Rechtspopulismus?

When a new type of party labelled ?right-wing populist“ by political scientists and journalists, arrived on the political scene in Western Europe thirty years ago, many observers thought that it would only be a short-lived manifestation of political protest. Today these parties are present in almost all European countries. Building on an introductory definition, the contribution will assess the root causes of right-wing populism, its ideological and programmatic features, its organizational traits and ways of adressing voters as well as its effects on party systems, governmental policies and the democracy in general. Concluding thoughts offer a number of recommendations how the challengers—which will in all likelihood not disappear in the near future—could be politically contained.     

Populists,Producers and the Politics of Rentiership

Populism studies finds itself in a crisis of originality. While some scholars have signalled over-usage, others have argued that by contextualising populism, we are able to specify our own ‘populist moment’ and remedy the term’s slipperiness. This article opts for the latter tactic through a comparison of two aspects of contemporary populism with late nineteenth century precedents. In the late nineteenth century, the American People’s Party pioneered a mode of mass politics anchored in agrarian and industrial labour which launched the term ‘populism’ in Western discourse. Contemporary populists show rhetorical and political overlap with this template, but also come up against two new constraints: (1) a stagnant capitalism increasingly centred on ‘rentiership’; and (2) a disorganised civil society. These factors render today’s populism resistant to analogy but also conceptually more specific, sharpening the contours of our populist moment.     

Back to the populist future?: understanding nostalgia in contemporary ideological discourse

Abstract

Nostalgia is regularly depicted as an indication of a flawed political argument or allegiance, and framed as a virus more likely to take hold in places that are ‘left behind’. Its prevalence has been linked to the rise of populism in Western politics, the vote for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. This paper seeks to challenge the normative depiction of nostalgia as an alien presence within ‘normal’ political discourse, and critically evaluates theoretical attempts to distinguish between positive and negative forms of it. Instead, it sets out to explore some of the different affective, sentimental and ideational roles that various kinds of nostalgia practice perform, and highlights the particular importance of forms of political argument that accuse opponents of nostalgia while simultaneously employing some of its prevalent modalities and motifs. The paper finishes by exploring these themes in relation to the career and ideas of the iconoclastic and populist British politician, Enoch Powell.     

Rethinking Anti-Immigration Rhetoric after the Oslo and Utøya Terror Attacks

This article examines right-wing populism and populist rhetoric in Norway preceding the July 22, 2011 terror attacks at Utøya and in Oslo. It describes how the mainstream media, academics, and political parties have appealed to the public in an increasingly populist fashion and have spread fear about immigration, immigrants, and integration. It argues that while the populist right-wing Progress Party has adopted immigration and integration as its main cause and has gained support because of it, the Progress Party alone cannot be blamed for the widespread xenophobia in Norway. The media are also responsible for the way immigration, culture, and race have been reported, as are a wide range of politicians for formulating increasingly stricter immigration policies. In the aftermath of July 22 politicians became acutely concerned about their own anti-immigrant rhetoric and how it may have influenced the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. A broad consensus to address and change the language used in the immigration debate was agreed upon; more openness and more democracy was promised. Much has changed, but even more has stayed the same in Norwegian politics and attitudes to immigration and Islam.