Left Populism Research Articles

Aporias in Greece and Spain’s Left-Wing Inclusionary Populism

ABSTRACT Populism has gained new momentum in Southern Europe during the financial crisis. Germany’s role as top creditor fueled anger toward traditional political elites in Greece, whereas Podemos exploited the same crisis in Spain to “generate discursively a popular identity that [could] be politicized.” Drawing upon Derrida’s aporetic notion of hospitality, the article argues that left-wing populism in Greece and Spain projects an antagonistic Other. This Other, both threatening and welcomed at the home of the people, oscillates ambiguously between images of the EU and corrupted national political elites. To support this argument, our narrative proceeds with comparative discourse analysis, looking at speeches of political leaders in the run-up of elections in the two countries.

Европейский левый популизм у власти: опыт Греции и Италии

The article examines the cases of Greece and Italy, the two European countries, where left-wing populist parties (SYRIZA and Five Star Movement, respectively) recently managed to not only enter the parliaments, but also even to form coalition governments. The author notices that in both countries left-wing populists followed the similar trend: the rise in electoral support during the period of economic and social instability (that was considerably more rapid and large-scale in Greece), high results at the parliamentary elections, forming a coalition government with a right-wing populist party (except the second government of Conte in Italy in 2019). After several months in power both SYRIZA and Five Star Movement saw a stable decline in their ratings, which has already resulted in the end of the coalition government in Greece. The author also focuses on the extent to which both populist parties were capable to implement their electoral programs. Finally, the article considers if the two left-wing populist parties, that originally positioned themselves as anti-elitist ones, will be able to maintain popular support after joining the political elite.

The Weakness of Liberal Democracy a Lever to the Success of Anti-Establishment Parties: Chantal Mouffe on Challenges of the Political

Today in Europe we are witnessing a populist turn, we could even speak of a “populist moment” that signals the crisis of neoliberal democracy. According to Chantal Mouffe, “the populist moment” is the expression of a set of heterogeneous demands, which cannot be formulated in traditional right/left frontier. The battles of our time will be between right-wing and left-wing populism. Although the current state of liberal societies appears to favor the development of a Right project, Mouffe proves that just a left-wing one can uphold any kind of radicalisation of democracy. The aim of this paper is to examine the reasons for the increasing success of populist parties in European countries and to consider whether the way the present crisis is manifesting is conducive to the growth of a populist narrative, especially in its right-wing variant.

On the Social Policy of the Spanish Coalition Government in a New Reality

In modern realities, a new wave of interest in socialist ideas is emerging, which is reflected not only in the economy, but also in the spheres of culture and art (the case of rapper Pablo Hasel, his Marxist and pro-Soviet discourse received great publicity and public resonance).The locomotive of progressive social reforms in Spain in the current situation is the left-wing populist party Unidas Podemos. Appearing on the wave of violent popular protests (the movement of the indignant - indignados), the political technology project has evolved significantly over the 7 years that have passed since its institutionalization. The party was able to fully integrate into the political system of the country, finally shifting the logic of its functioning from the bipartisan track towards a multiparty system. Unidas Podemos took advantage of the irreconcilable confrontation between the right-wing People's Party (Partido Popular, NP) and the left-wing Spanish Socialist Labor Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE), forcing the latter to conclude a coalition pact. The strategy of coercion fully paid off, and Unidas Podemos was able to go directly to the execution of their pre-election promises. At the moment, against the backdrop of the pandemic, the coalition and especially Unidas Podemos are in dire need of real achievements to maintain and strengthen their electoral positions that meet the aspirations of the majority of Spaniards. It is investment in education, healthcare, small business will have to become a kind of safety cushion in case cardinal deterioration of the situation in the world financial markets.The main goal is to prevent a repetition of the 2008-2011 scenario, when from crisis Spain came out at the expense of reducing the welfare of the majority, and state support was provided only to banks and large corporations.At the same time, despite the pronounced social orientation carried out transformations, it cannot be argued that their practical the implementation will produce the desired result. Risks of recurrence are high negative experience of the times of the Second Republic, when the same socialists in within the coalition governments artificially slowed down the progress of reforms, and they themselves were not systemic and were only cosmetic changes to cover up the unsightly consequences of economic stratification of society.

The Rise and Fall of Corbynism

In an era when the traditional centre-left parties have constantly lost ground to rising right-wing populist movements, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party was increasingly portrayed as a left-wing alternative to both pro-austerity incumbent parties that rule out redistributive policies and right-wing populism fuelled by the grievances of the masses targeting the traditional political elites. Corbyn managed to mobilize a vast section of the society by becoming Europe’s biggest left-wing party in terms of membership and increased its votes in the 2017 election, especially by gaining youth support. Nevertheless, the 2019 election constituted an immense fall. Regarding his political discourse both during the electoral campaigns and the serious challenges he faced, Corbyn could be identified as a left-wing populist. To be more specific, Corbyn is a democratic socialist who usually resorted to left-wing populist means within a social democratic party, and failed in his efforts to transform both the British mainstream politics and the Labour in the end.

The use of religion by populist parties: the case of Italy and its broader implications

ABSTRACT The rise of populist parties in Europe and the increasing salience of religion in political discourse are two relevant, sometimes discussed as interrelated, phenomena of recent decades. While most analysis focuses on right-wing populism, this does not exhaust all possible relationships. This study addresses the role of religion in populist parties by focusing on the Italian case and adopting a comparative cross organisational perspective shedding light on how left-wing and right-wing populists use religion for different purposes. Drawing on interview data with party representatives and analysis of organisational documents and speeches, we explore the presence and the uses of religious appeals in the two populist Italian parties in recent years. We show that their use of religion varies on three dimensions: i) hierarchy of identifications, ii) salience, and iii) frame. The League represents ‘cultural populism’: religion is used as an ‘identity marker’ that is highly salient and an instrument for framing specific topics. Conversely, the Five Star Movement exemplifies ‘political/economic populism’, in which religion as an identifier is present but less salient and used to frame citizenship in juridical/legalist terms. These different usages of religion lead to different definitions of the ‘people’ and therefore in-group constituencies.

The Triumph of (Underlying)Ideology Over Populism in Western Europe

The prototypical form of populism in Europe has been that of the radical right, which combines populism with nationalism, xenophobia and certain doses of authoritarianism. European left-wing populism, for its part, had remained a marginal phenomenon until the outbreak of the economic crisis in 2008. Since then, populism has ceased to be a phenomenon almost exclusively for the radical right and has spread along the ideological spectrum or has appeared with ambiguous ideological positions. The recent electoral advances of populism in Europe have led to the formation of coalition governments between populist parties of different ideological signs (first in Greece, then in Italy). Likewise, the programmatic evolution followed by some populist parties (e.g., the populist radical right's shift to the economic center, or even center-left) or some similarities between these parties beyond their populist rhetoric (e.g., Euroscepticism), indicates that European populist parties may have more in common than might be expected. This leads us to the following question: Are we witnessing the triumph of populism over ideology? That is, do left and right populist parties tend to converge on other issues that are beyond their populist rhetoric? Or do left-right differences remain hegemonic? This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the nature of populism in Europe. In particular, this article aims to determine whether underlying ideology triumphs over populism in these types of political organizations or not. In order to do that, this study will analyze the ideological positioning and cohesiveness of populist parties in Western Europe at both party and electorate levels. Therefore, the ultimate goal of this research is to shed light on a phenomenon that is advancing electorally in Europe and that could determine future coalitions and government alliances.

Mad Marx? Rethinking Emotions, Euroscepticism and Nationalism in the Populist Left

Much attention has been devoted to how right-wing populists in Europe challenge the consensus on the benefits of European integration, but left-wing resistance to the EU is less discussed. Existing analyses tend to distinguish between three constructions of political community: a postnational EU, the populist right invoking national sovereignty, and the populist left invoking popular sovereignty. However, empirical analyses struggle to find consensus on how left populists relate to the EU, and if they invoke claims to national or popular sovereignty. This article argues that this empirical impasse stems from that populism and Euroscepticism are performative categories and not simply analytical tools, and serve to produce exclusion. There are two dichotomies in this exclusionary frame: emotional populists/rational EU, and the postnational EU/nationalist populists. Through an analysis of Podemos in Spain and the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, I show how the lines between the postnational EU, the national sovereign, and the popular sovereign are frailer than previously thought. The article concludes that these categories are less analytically astute than they are politically motivated, and analyses of the populist left in Europe must consider the performative dimension of its key terms.

Left-Wing Populism

Abstract The transformation of syriza from a minor party struggling to enter parliament into a major governing party within a short period of time, its rule in the context of an economic crisis, and its resilience following four and a half years of governance make a very interesting story. syriza has been the only radical left populist party that has governed an EU country in recent times. This introductory article accounts for the factors that facilitated syriza’s catapulting to power, while the special issue assesses some of the main issues that the syriza-led government dealt with from 2015 to 2019. With the danger of oversimplifying a more complex picture, the special issue editors argue that syriza emerged as a serious contender to power owing to two factors: i) the errors in the economic policies of the governments that ruled during the 2010–2014 period, and ii) its successful exploitation of the opportunity to capitalize on the dynamics of a grassroots protest movement (the ‘Aganaktismenoi’) through the adoption of the movement’s populist discourses. The introduction then explicates the consolidation of syriza in the Greek political system and concludes with a brief presentation of the structure of the special issue.

Quick and dirty: how populist parties in government affect greenhouse gas emissions in EU member states

ABSTRACT Populist parties are on the rise. But what happens when they are in government? In order to grasp the effect of populist parties in government systematically, the paper includes all 28 EU member states in an analysis which estimates the effect of populist parties in power on the increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The results show that depending on their ideological orientation populist government participation is clearly associated with increasing GHG emissions. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the effect is quick. This is above all true for right-wing populist parties in government. Furthermore, the analysis shows that populist parties have different impacts in various regions of the EU. While right-wing populist governments are associated with an increase of GHG emissions in North Western and Eastern Europe, left-wing populist governments in Southern Europe have the opposite effect.

Left-Right radicalism and Populist attitudes in France and Spain

ABSTRACT There is little doubt that supply-side populism associates with radical platforms of the left and the right. However, few empirical analyses have focused on the connection between left-right ideological radicalism and populism at the individual level, even less in countries where populist discourses are not only associated with the radical right. This paper considers the association between populist attitudes and ideological radicalism in two countries where left-wing populist parties exist: France and Spain. For that, it uses an approach to political ideology that distinguishes political-economic issues and political-cultural ones. Main results show that radically minded individuals, located at the left and the right of the ideological axis, display stronger populist attitudes in France and Spain. However, differences between the two countries exist that highlight the relevance of context-dependent associations between populism and other (thick) ideologies in the electoral arena. In France, individuals located at the extreme right of the cultural dimension tend to show stronger populist attitudes than those located at the far left. In contrast, in Spain, individuals located at the extreme left of the economic and cultural dimensions display stronger populist attitudes.

Right-wing and left-wing populist parties as a threat to modern liberal democracies

Right-wing and left-wing populist parties as a threat to modern liberal democracies

Maradona: mito popular, símbolo peronista, voz plebeya

En el contexto de una reflexión que apunta a la relación entre deporte e identidades, el texto aborda conceptos como cultura, héroe popular o subalternidad a partir del análisis del alcance de la figura del futbolista argentino Diego Maradona. Su muerte en noviembre de 2020, que provocó enormes manifestaciones de dolor público, desató una intensa cobertura que abusó de términos tales como mito, símbolo, héroe, ídolo e identidad. La pregunta clave giró en torno de hasta dónde Maradona, un deportista inigualable y simultáneamente una figura pública conflictiva, por su conducta personal (entre ellas, condenas deportivas y causas penales por consumo de drogas) y por sus posiciones políticas vinculadas al populismo de izquierda, podía ser considerado un símbolo de una presunta identidad nacional.

Populism, Democracy, and Party System Change in Europe

How has populism transformed party systems in Europe? I survey the varieties of populism, the sources of their support and the different ways that they appeal to voters. I use data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey to explore whether populist parties are intensifying competition on the cultural dimension, accelerating the decline of mainstream parties, and increasing polarization. I argue that while left and center populist parties have upended existing structures of competition, it is longstanding conservative parties, remodeled using ethnopopulism, that have been the most consequential for the substance of political competition and the trajectory of domestic politics. I consider the behavior of incumbents and argue that varieties of populism should shape our expectations of what happens when populists rule: While left populist parties in power over the last decade have tended to become more ordinary, sometimes even shedding antiestablishment and anti-EU positions, ethnopopulist parties in power have used harsh “us-versus-them” appeals, misinformation, and democratic backsliding in their pursuit of more power.

Is there a demand for autocracies in Europe? Comparing the attitudes of Hungarian and Italian university students toward liberal democratic values inspired by J\xe1nos Kornai

In the European Union right-wing and left-wing populist parties are increasingly becoming stronger. Meanwhile in Central and Eastern Europe autocracies are emerging and becoming stabilized. Italy and Hungary are two notable examples of these processes. Italy is the only country in Western Europe where a coalition of purely populist parties won an election, while Hungary has the most mature autocracy in the European Union. By using survey methodology, we examined the preferences of Hungarian and Italian students regarding the values of liberal democracy. We seek answers to the questions whether there are any significant differences between the proportion of Hungarian students and Italian students who identify themselves with the values of liberal democracy and which of these values of liberal democracy they consider to be protected values. Based on our results, we claim that students from both countries are more likely to support liberal democratic values than to support either right-wing or left-wing populist values, even if the distributions of the two groups differ significantly. We found that Italian students adhere more strongly to liberal democratic values, while Hungarians are more open to left-wing and right-wing populism. Our results confirm that in Hungary, because of the values that many people hold, conditions are conducive for establishing a sustainable autocracy, while in Italy, the demand for such a system is much weaker.

The Effects of Basic Human Values on Populist Voting. An Analysis of 13 European Democracies

Basic human values have been used to predict voting patterns associated with the left–right and the authoritarian-libertarian divides. However, the connection between basic human values and populist voting has received less attention, especially if an ideational approach to populism is considered, that allows for separating it from traditional dimensions of competition. To fill this research gap, this article explores the relationship between basic human values and voting for left-wing populist parties (LPPs) and right-wing populist parties (RPPs), in 13 European democracies. The results suggest that values help explain voting for populist parties beyond the effect they have on preferences related to the economic left–right and the authoritarian-libertarian divides. First, basic predispositions reflecting tradition and conformity are negatively associated with voting for populist parties of the left and the right, thus suggesting a connection that is independent of the host ideologies to which populism attaches. Second, giving less importance to universalism and more to security correlates with voting for RPPs. Last, benevolence shows no effect on populist voting that is independent of other dimensions of political competition.

The normalization of left populism? The paradigmatic case of Podemos

ABSTRACT After a hopeful electoral debut, left populism in Europe has undergone relative normalization. While the literature on new parties might regard the persistence of left populist forces as a success, we deem instead that such an outcome should be considered against the backdrop of the initial left populist hypothesis. Based on a discussion of the existing literature and ten semi-structured interviews with party members, this paper analyses the case of Podemos in Spain as a proxy to assess the fortunes of left populism in Europe at large. We describe its political trajectory and explain its failure to go mainstream by reference to the interplay between, at a macro level, the structure of political opportunities and, at a meso level, its interpretation of the populist strategy. In particular, we focus on the paradoxical effects of the representative void, on the specific and unfavorable mutations of the populist moment in Spain for Podemos, and its own organizational and strategic shortcomings.

Left and right populists in Spain: from origins to COVID pandemics

After Franco’s death in 1975, a transition to democracy took place in Spain, accompanied by formation of a two-party system. While the overall transition was peaceful, it did not solve a number of important problems in Spanish society that became of paramount importance over the past decade. The peculiarities of the regime enshrined in the 1978 Constitution, combined with the consequences of the financial and economic crisis of 2008-2010, created the breeding ground in which populist parties formed in 2010s. The article examines the crisis of the post-Francoist political model as a prerequisite for emergence of populist parties, particularities of their programs, as well as the actions taken by them in the context of the Coronavirus pandemic. The author notes that by 2014 there developed a situation when the main parties of the country either demonstrated an unwillingness to solve pressing problems or proposed solutions that were unacceptable for a significant part of the population. In such a situation, social protest began to take its political form. The emergence of populists in the electoral field has largely renewed the country’s political agenda, revitalizing discussions on topical issues and forcing a change with the ‘heavyweights’ of Spanish politics – the Socialists and the People’s Party. The author concludes that transformation of political discourse can lead to a renewal of an entire political system of the country and a search for some new solutions to issues that remain key on the political agenda of Spain over the past decades.

The fourth stage of social democracy

This article examines the political crisis of social-democratic parties in Western Europe in light of its impact on the social-democratic emancipatory project, and asks whether the first calls the second into question. It begins by defining social democracy as an emancipatory project, and identifies three major historical phases that correspond to three distinct conceptions of the project. “Social-democratic dilemmas” section examines recent literature in comparative welfare state economics, political sociology, and studies of populism and authoritarianism, to show how the socio-economic transformations of the last five decades have enlarged and fragmented the constituency of social-democratic parties, and contends that this situation has generated powerful tensions between the normative and the mundane dimensions of the social-democratic project. Three major dilemmas—economic, cultural, and political—leading to three deep conflicts internal to the social-democratic constituency are identified and discussed. Combining these empirical findings with the three rival interpretations of the social-democratic project introduced in “Social democracy as an ideational and a mundane project” section, “Three scenarios” section develops three possible scenarios for the evolution of this project in the near future: decline, drift, and renewal. “Implications for policy and politics” section assesses the likelihood and political meaning of each scenario for the pursuit of the social-democratic project, taking into consideration the recent upsurge of left-wing populism.

Fairness, Flexibility and the Far Right: Understanding the Relationship between Populism, Social Spending and Labor Markets

The large increase in economic inequality and the dismantling of the welfare state in Western democracies has been connected to the rise of populist parties. If populist voting is explained by fear and labor market insecurity and if people care more about procedural fairness than inequality of economic outcomes, national income inequality should be less important than other factors in explaining vote shares of populist parties. Using election results from 33 European countries over the 1980-2018 period, two different classifications of populist parties and three different measures of government/welfare state size, we find no relationship between country-level economic inequality, as measured by the disposable income Gini, and either right-wing or left-wing populism. An alternative hypothesis that right-wing populism is dampened by labor market flexibility and social spending is developed and shown to have empirical support.