Competing over the ‘left behind’: the effect of independent local lists on the electoral performance of populist parties

Clanek analyzuje volebni podporu středových populistických stran v Ceske republice. Na zakladě dat z narodnich volebnich studii a s využitim vybraných teorii volebniho chovani nejde volebni podporu těchto stran vysvětit pomoci tradicnich konfliktnich linii, ale pťedevsim pomoci hodnoceni valencnich charakteristik.

<p>Voters of populist parties tend to be dissatisfied with democracy. Some scholars attribute this dissatisfaction with how our democracies function to poor representation by mainstream parties and a feeling of not being heard. We should see this representation improve with the success of populist parties. This improved representation should, in turn, have a positive impact on populist party voters’ satisfaction with democracy (SWD). Existing case studies have only looked at the link between formal populist party representation in parliament or government, and populist party voters’ SWD, with mixed findings, the most puzzling of which is that populist party voters may even become less satisfied with growing formal representation. There is no comparative study on populist parties’ actual responsiveness to populist party voters and the connection to their SWD. Thus, we ask: How well do populist parties represent populist party voters, and how does this populist party responsiveness influence populist party voters’ satisfaction with democracy? We define populist party responsiveness as issue-based agenda-responsiveness between populist party voters and populist parties and investigate the link to SWD using data on 21 countries from the 2019 European Election Studies. We find that populist parties in Europe are not generally more responsive to populist party voters than mainstream parties. Populist parties’ agenda-responsiveness has a positive effect on populist voters’ SWD while being in government does not increase the positive effect of populist party responsiveness on their voters’ SWD. They may be disenchanted by how well their parties can eventually “walk the talk.”</p>

This article analyzes the post-war period in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the role which international actors, mainly represented through the Office of High Representative (OHR), and local political actors played. The primary aim and significance of this article is to present to what extent OHR and local political actors contributed to the establishment of rule of law, security, stability, self-sustainability and creation of modern-functioning state. Therefore, the research questions of this paper address the role of international and local actors in state-building process and their contributions in the creation of a democratic state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Furthermore, this article examines the roots, causes and results of the political crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The international community, on one hand, never brought their objectives to the state of completion and full implementation, on the other hand, due to the excessive involvement of international community local political actors never held themselves accountable for current political predicaments. Therefore, both, the international community and local political actors must find a way and means to transform DPA Bosnia and Herzegovina towards possible EU member state Bosnia and Herzegovina by using bottom-up step by step state-building strategy.

Populists in PowerDanieleAlbertazzi and DuncanMcDonnellLondon & New York, Routledge (2015), XII‐204 p. (Routledge Studies in Extremism and Democracy), ISBN 978‐0‐415‐60097‐2

Investigating regional identities within the pan-Alpine governance system: The presence or absence of identification with a “community of problems” among local political actors

Why do some citizens trust in local political actors and institutions while others do not? With data from the Norwegian Local Election Survey 2019, we examine characteristics of citizens with high and low local political trust. The analyses indicate that trust in the different political actors and institutions is closely linked. For example, those who report high trust in the mayor also report high trust in politicians in general, in the municipal council, and in the municipal administration. In other words, people tend to have either high or low trust in the entire local political system. Furthermore, we find that trust in local political systems and actors is associated with a number of individual and contextual factors including the sense of belonging to the municipality, the use of municipal services, and political participation. Trust also seems to be linked to being on the winning team: those who voted for parties that won the election are more trustful than those who voted for parties that that did not win the election.

Parties usually argue in favour or against a government coalition based on party considerations in terms of projected policy implementation, power in office and vote maximization – that is, the ‘policy, office, votes’ triad. So far, however, it remains unclear which claims mainstream parties invoke to motivate their choice to rule or not rule with populist parties. Adopting the ‘policy, voter, office’ triad, this article examines mainstream parties' Twitter claims on ruling with populist parties in Austria, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands (2006–2021, N = 1,919). Mainstream parties mainly reject ruling with (mostly radical right) populist parties. To justify unwillingness, policy-based motives referring to the populist parties' extremist nature trump motives on office-seeking and vote maximization. To justify willingness, predominantly office-seeking motivations are invoked. Party characteristics (ideology, incumbency status, size) and context, however, shape these claims. This study sheds light on mainstream parties' patterns of political communication on coalition formation with populist parties.

The increasing support for populism is indicative of a profound crisis in European societies. The prevailing cultural narrative posits that support for populist parties, particularly those of a right-wing orientation, is predominantly a reaction to the erosion of nationalistic and religious identities. A growing critique of supranational institutions became visible in some countries. In Europe, populist parties are growing, but Euroscepticism seems to show different trends. Euroscepticism is diminishing and trust in Europe has been growing since 2018 and in particular since 2022. Is there a lack of trust in the European institutions which is reflected in all political parties? What are the reasons for trust and distrust within the political parties in general and within the populist parties in particular? In most countries, the war between Ukraine and Russia is seen as an external threat to the European Union. Did the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war lead to a “rally around the flag” phenomenon, and is trust in the European Union increasing because of this external hostility? We found evidence of people switching back from populist to mainstream parties and becoming less Eurosceptic, hinting at a “rally around the flag” effect. The study focuses on panel data from voters in 10 countries—Spain, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Hungary—from two waves, namely 2018 and 2023, as well as a cross-section of the 2023 wave. The main focus is on supporters of populist parties, which will be compared to mainstream parties. This study thus explores whether the Ukraine war reinvigorated trust in the European Union.

The chapter analyses the performance of populist political parties in the 2024 EP election in the Czech Republic. The election ended with a significant increase in support for several populist parties: Action of Dissatisfied Citizens, Freedom and Direct Democracy and the Oath and Motorists. All populist parties used radical-right rhetoric before the election, expressing different levels of criticism of the European Union, strong anti-immigration attitudes and negative attitudes toward the Green Deal. The preliminary data show that the electoral support for the populists was based on a higher level of mobilization in so-called peripheral areas of the Czech Republic, potentially affected by recent inflation and austerity policies pursued by the government. All in all, the 2024 EP election in Czechia significantly increased support for populist political parties. Keywords: populism; Czech Republic; Euroscepticism; far right; radical right

The cost of partitocracy: party funding in East Central Europe

ABSTRACTThis article examines the territorialization of party replacement in the Czech Republic between 2010 and 2017. Using spatial analytical techniques, we found that despite the significant success of new populist parties, which considerably transformed the parliamentary strength of individual parties, the “new” geographical patterning of party support was far from real transformation. Historically, most of the rightist and center-right parties relied on higher support in areas with a high development potential and the developmental axes related to them, whereas established left-wing parties found support in areas with a low development potential. The elections of 2010 and 2013 were exceptions to this pattern, but the elections of 2017 interrupted this deviation when geographical support for some of the new populist parties (those which had succeed in 2013 already) moved mostly to underdeveloped areas. However, as the programmatics of most of the new populist parties are relatively unclear (especially on the left-right ideological division), one can hardly speak of class realignment, but rather of spatial re-stratification of Czech politics: traditionally leftist and rightist voters largely abandoned “their” (established) parties, but on the other hand, their voting mostly did not contravene the Czech spatial division between leftist and rightist regions.

The history of the prerevolutionary Russian Black Hundreds movement is an integral part of the general European history of populist parties and movements, especially of the far-right type. However, the European context of the Black Hundreds is not reflected in Russian and foreign historiography. This absence of a broader context for the study of the Black Hundreds constitutes a huge blank spot in our understanding of this complex and often contradictory political phenomenon. This article examines the groundbreaking possibilities of studying the Black Hundreds phenomenon in a European context of the history of populist parties and movements. A comparative approach to the study of the Black Hundreds movement would help us to understand many complexities of its history. By doing a comparative analysis of the Black Hundreds with other European far-right populist movements, we can trace elements of similarities and differences and determine elements of Russian uniqueness. The comparative approach helps us to avoid incorrect conclusions about the essence of the Black Hundreds movements. Incorrect conclusions include identifying the Black Hundreds with traditionalist counter-revolutionary movements from the time of the French and other democratic revolutions between 1770 and 1850 or with fascism, National Socialism and related ideologies in the 20th century. Instead, in many ways, the Black Hundreds movements were the forerunners of today’s mass European far-right populist parties and movements and even centrist and leftist populist parties. Populist parties are protest movements against traditional parties across the political spectrum. It is time to explore the Black Hundreds movement as part of the history of populism. Also through the comparative approach, one can determine the place of the Black Hundreds in the European-wide context of the history of European revolutionary, antirevolutionary, and counterrevolutionary movements, nationalism, the consolidation of ethnic and political nations, questions about the identity of individuals, strata, and societies, and the development of nationalist, separatist, autonomist, and regionalist parties and movements. Studying the Black Hundreds in a broad context has a huge current relevance and helps us to sort through the elements of mythmaking in the history of the Black Hundred phenomenon from its origins to the present day.

Populist parties increasingly take a welfare chauvinistic position. They criticize mainstream parties for cutting and slashing welfare at the expense of the ‘native’ population and to the benefit of the ‘undeserving’ immigrant. Given the electoral success of populist parties, we investigate whether and when mainstream parties ignore, attack or accommodate welfare chauvinism. Using key theories of party behaviour, we test whether mainstream parties (1) respond immediately to populist parties, (2) respond with a time lag, or (3) respond only when they lose elections or are in opposition. Our quantitative analyses of party manifestos, speeches and policies of European mainstream and populist parties (1980–2012) show that mainstream parties adapt to populist parties on welfare chauvinism, but which parties adapt and when varies significantly. In our in-depth examinations of the Dutch and Danish cases, we highlight important cross-country and cross-party differences.

Scholars of electoral behaviour regularly link political dissatisfaction to two types of behaviour: voting for populist parties and unstable voting behaviour. It is therefore not surprising that the electorates of populist parties are generally assumed to be rather volatile. In this article, we argue that this is not necessarily the case – in particular in a context of increasingly strong and viable populist parties. We make use of data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project to show that voters for populist parties are neither more nor less volatile than voters for mainstream parties. Political dissatisfaction among voters for populist parties even increases the likelihood of stable voting for populist parties. The supply of populist parties further conditions the stability of the populist vote, as voters in systems with established populist parties are more likely to vote stably for populist parties. Finally, we find that in a context of strong and stable populist parties, the effect of political satisfaction on vote switching is somewhat reduced.

The first case study presented in this book covers the Netherlands. This chapter seeks to identify the populist parties that have appeared in contemporary Dutch politics, to describe their ideological characteristics and to explain their electoral performance on the basis of the explanatory model outlined in Chapter 1. I will thus discuss the role of the electoral system, the responsiveness of established parties with regard to the issues central to the appeal of the populist challengers, and the electoral credibility of the populist parties themselves. The four themes central to the appeal of many populist parties (culture and ethnicity; economic hardship; European integration; and corruption) are discussed insofar as they have been relevant to the electoral competition between the populist parties and their mainstream competitors.