The rise of the populist radical right in Western Europe

European View, Jun 2015

Populist radical right (PRR) parties are on the rise in Western Europe. Where do the electoral successes of these parties come from? First, it has been shown that the opening of borders has fuelled the divide between the ‘losers’ and ‘winners’ of globalisation. The ‘losers’ are individuals who feel threatened by international competition. They vote for PRR parties because they agree with their nativist, populist and Eurosceptic positions. Second, various social and political developments have facilitated the success of these parties. Some examples of these developments are increased electoral volatility, the ideological convergence of the mainstream parties, and increasing immigration and unemployment. Third, PRR parties themselves are, to a large extent, responsible for their own successes. Without their increasingly moderated messages and profiles, their often appealing external and internal leaders, and their well-institutionalised party organisations, their (long-term) successes would not have been possible. Most probably, the PRR party family will remain with us for a while.

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The rise of the populist radical right in Western Europe

The rise of the populist radical right in Western Europe Matthijs Rooduijn 0 0 M. Rooduijn (&) University of Amsterdam , Postbus 15578, 1001 NB Amsterdam , The Netherlands Populist radical right (PRR) parties are on the rise in Western Europe. Where do the electoral successes of these parties come from? First, it has been shown that the opening of borders has fuelled the divide between the 'losers' and 'winners' of globalisation. The 'losers' are individuals who feel threatened by international competition. They vote for PRR parties because they agree with their nativist, populist and Eurosceptic positions. Second, various social and political developments have facilitated the success of these parties. Some examples of these developments are increased electoral volatility, the ideological convergence of the mainstream parties, and increasing immigration and unemployment. Third, PRR parties themselves are, to a large extent, responsible for their own successes. Without their increasingly moderated messages and profiles, their often appealing external and internal leaders, and their well-institutionalised party organisations, their (long-term) successes would not have been possible. Most probably, the PRR party family will remain with us for a while. Populism; Political convergence; Radical right; Euroscepticism; Globalisation; Anti-immigration - Although populist radical right (PRR) parties have been on the rise since approximately the mid-1990s, the elections to the European Parliament in May 2014 were the most telling mark of their success. Parties such as the National Front (Front National, FN) in France, the UK Independence Party in Britain and the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) in Denmark all attracted about 25 % of the votes and became the biggest parties within their respective countries (Do¨ ring and Manow 2015). They were not the only ones. The Freedom Party (Partij voor de Vrijheid) in the Netherlands, The Finns (Perussuomalaiset) in Finland, and the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei O¨ sterreichs, FPO¨ ) were also reasonably successful during the European elections. The day after the elections, various media outlets were talking about a ‘political earthquake’ (see, for instance, Parker et al. 2014). What is going on in Western European democracies? Where has this upsurge of PRR parties come from? Before it is possible to answer these questions, it is of vital importance to carefully define what we are talking about when we employ the label ‘populist radical right’. Which parties belong to the PRR party family and why? Defining the undefinable Various political scientists have aimed to define the PRR party family (see Betz 1994; Kitschelt 1997; Norris 2005). This has led to considerable conceptual fuzziness. Some talk about ‘neo-populist’ or ‘national populist’ parties, while others refer to these parties as ‘extreme right’, ‘anti-immigrant’ or ‘xenophobic’. The Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde (2007) coined the term ‘populist radical right’. Scholars are increasingly employing this term and the corresponding definition. For this reason, I will also employ Mudde’s definition. According to Mudde (2007), PRR parties are nativist, authoritarian and populist. Nativism can be defined as ‘an ideology, which holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (‘ the nation’ ) and that nonnative elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the homogeneous nation-state’ (Mudde 2007, 19). Non-native persons could be, for instance, immigrants or people of another race or religion (Albertazzi and McDonnell 2008). The second attitudinal element that PRR parties share is authoritarianism. PRR parties want their society to be strictly ordered. They therefore place strong emphasis on the importance of law and order. Violations of the rules should be punished severely. The third main attitudinal element of PRR parties is populism. Populism could be seen as a set of ideas according to which the ‘good’ people are betrayed by an ‘evil’ elite (Hawkins 2010). Although it is often rather unclear who these parties consider to be ‘the people’, they are crystal clear about their negative attitude towards the elite (Canovan 2004). The elite is considered to be arrogant, selfish, incompetent and often also corrupt. This critique could be directed towards a political elite (the established political order, the political ‘caste’), an economic elite (large companies, bankers in general) or a cultural elite (academics, writers, intellectuals). Today’s PRR parties are also very critical of European unification. Their Eurosceptic attitude fits nicely with their nativist and populist outlook. Negativity towards immigrants from other European countries1 and the bureaucratic EU elites who, allegedly, do not listen to the ordinary people’s concerns, can be found among virtually all contemporary PRR parties’ programmes in Europe. It is important, however (...truncated)


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Matthijs Rooduijn. The rise of the populist radical right in Western Europe, European View, 2015, pp. 3-11, Volume 14, Issue 1, DOI: 10.1007/s12290-015-0347-5