Radical Parties Research Articles

In the Shadow of Brexit: The 2019 European Parliament Elections as First‐Order Polity Elections?

AbstractEuropean Parliament (EP) elections have traditionally been described as ‘second‐order national elections' in which campaigns are fought by national parties on national issues. We argue that the 2019 elections should instead be considered ‘first‐order polity' elections. It is not EU‐level party politics or policy issues that are debated, but rather the legitimacy of the EU itself. Firstly, the EP elections have transformed into an EU ‘blame game' in which national governments are punished or rewarded over their stance on European integration. Secondly, the 2019 election was about the EU's fundamental values, not only with respect to multiculturalism, but also gender equality and LGBTQ rights. Finally, these first‐order polity elections are driven in large part by traditional news and social media platforms. While this is a long way from the patterns of the early EP elections, they still fail in fulfilling the function of holding MEPs and European party groupings adequately to account.

The European Parliament as an Arena and Agent in the Politics of Climate Change: Comparing the External and Internal Dimension

Climate change policy is a key example for globalized multi-level governance, involving the European Parliament (EP) both as legislator of internal European Union (EU) regulation and discursive agent in global climate negotiations. Based on the comparison of decision-making in external and internal climate change policy, the article investigates the link between the role of the EP as a political actor and arena for the interaction of competing party groups: Does EP involvement in negotiations on legally binding legislation prompt or constrain partisan polarization in comparison to declaratory statements about future goals of climate action? Harnessing a discursive institutionalist theoretical framework, the article compares EP resolutions about annual Conferences of the Parties (COPs 20 to 24) with the revision of four legislative acts for Phase IV of EU Climate Action: namely, emissions trading, effort sharing between Member States, the promotion of renewable energies, and energy efficiency standards. Using roll-call voting data and the review of legislative documentation, the contribution tracks the emergence and negotiation of political conflict in these two sets of cases. Overall, the case studies indicate a low level of external politicization, as indicated by low party group polarization, internalization of political conflict at the committee level, and compromise-building between issue dimensions.

Eurosceptics into the Limelight? Eurosceptic Parliamentary Actors and Media Bias in EU Affairs

In the spotlight for some time now, the potential of national parliaments to legitimise EU politics has become even more salient given the growing politicisation and public contestation of EU issues. Their ability to realise this potential depends, however, vitally on citizens being actually aware of parliamentary involvement in EU affairs. Academic as well as political attention has therefore more recently turned to the communication function of parliaments, and here the media play a crucial role. Important is not only whether EU parliamentary affairs are covered in the media, but also <em>who</em> within parliament gets the opportunity to raise European issues in the media. In the context of this thematic issue, the question of media visibility is of particular interest with regard to Eurosceptic parliamentary party groups and their members. Do Eurosceptics in parliament get to dominate parliamentary EU news in the media and thus to take ownership of EU issues—or do the media freeze parliamentary Eurosceptics out of the coverage? Both would seriously undermine the legitimising potential of national parliaments. The article therefore analyses to what extent we can find a visibility bias in the print media coverage of Eurosceptic parliamentary actors and explores the factors that contribute to such bias. For the analysis, it draws on a quantitative dataset of all newspaper articles covering parliamentary EU affairs in six member states (Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Poland and the UK) over a period of four years (2010 to 2013).

Impact of politically generated shocks on monetary performance: a cross-country comparison

During the post-Great Recession period, macroeconomic stability had more often been threatened by socioeconomic shocks due to the rising of public discontent with the high unemployment rate and poverty, the activation of radical parties and movements, and the aggravation of the geopolitical confrontation in the world. Depending on the type and depth of such shocks, they become politically generated shocks and, in particular, affect the monetary sphere. The article investigates three types of politically generated shocks and their impact on the monetary sphere. It has been found out that the shocks generated by political populism are characterized by fiscal domination in the economy, the use of monetary measures in the budget deficit financing. Shocks arising after the use of international sanctions against certain countries have an external origin and primarily cause the increase in national exchange markets volatility. On the whole, macroeconomic and, especially, monetary instability is the result of the great shocks for the economy, the depth and duration of which are determined by the nature of the crisis, particularly, when country participates in the military conflict. The aforementioned types of politically generated shocks are analyzed based on the experience of countries such as Argentina, Turkey, and Ukraine, which at one time introduced the regime of inflation targeting in monetary policy, but were forced to modify it influenced by political and economic instability.

Terrorism and Ressentiment in Revolutionary Russia*

Abstract During the late nineteenth century, revolutionary terrorism emerged as a political tactic in Europe and across the world, where it formed one part of anti-colonial, anti-capitalist and national liberation movements. While its public spectacle took advantage of the new media landscape to communicate affective and political messages, terrorism was ultimately a ‘weapon of the weak’, a means for individuals and small groups to fight against the increasingly powerful modern state. The turn to insurgent violence was consequently imbricated with the experience of state violence. Focusing on a period of revolutionary unrest and heightened political violence in early twentieth-century Russia, this article takes a micro-historical approach to examine how individuals and radical parties came to explain, justify, and incite terrorist acts through narratives of vengeance and ressentiment. Drawing on recent scholarship by anthropologists and historians of emotion and bypassing psychological modes of explanation, it tracks specific articulations of political subjectivity that combine claims to (popular) sovereignty, universalism, dignity and rights with the language of honour and shame. The terrorist act was frequently justified as a sovereign right derived from the experience of state violence upon the body.

Oral Questions in the European Parliament: A Network Analysis

AbstractInternal working structures within parliaments are notoriously hard to capture. While analyses based on bill co-sponsorship work for the US Congress, this approach is not feasible in many parliamentary systems. Drawing on data from the European Parliament’s legislative term of 2009–2014 this article shows that parliamentary questions can be another option. Members of the European Parliament may demand information from the Council or the Commission through oral questions. We take advantage of the fact that these questions are signed by their authors and construct a social network of members of the Parliament that support each other’s oral questions. This allows investigating how members and their groups and committees cooperate to control both Council and Commission. Our approach helps to map out the internal structure of the party groups and explore which forces shape the global network. We find that cooperation is mostly driven by party group membership with ALDE, Green/EFA, and GUENGL turning out as the most cohesive groups while SD is internally rather loosely connected. The second strongest clustering characteristic is a legislators’ native country.

How Do They Get In? Radical Parties and Government Participation in European Democracies

AbstractDespite their alleged anti-systemness and ‘non-coalitionability’, radical right and radical left parties have, since the early 1990s, both supported and entered coalition governments in a number of European liberal democracies. Using the classical ‘size and ideology’ framework, this study sets out to examine how – or, put differently, under what circumstances – radical right and radical left parties are able to overcome the obstacles associated with governing and enter coalition governments. Inspired by previous observations regarding the complex and multicausal nature of radical government participation, the study relies on a configurational method. By means of a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 37 radical parties at 207 coalition formation instances in 22 (Western and Central and Eastern) European countries, the article sheds light on different paths that lead to government inclusion (and exclusion) of radical actors. The empirical evidence indicates that electoral success in combination with a fairly similar policy position to a weak prime minister party is sufficient for government inclusion. The paths to government exclusion, by contrast, underline the importance of ideological distance in combination with size-related factors.

Pluralism, Governance, and the New Right in German Memory Politics

The memory landscape in Germany has been lauded for its pluralism: for reckoning with the past not only critically but in its many complex facets. Nevertheless, particularly victims of repression in East Germany lament that their plight is not adequately represented and some have recently affiliated themselves with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and other groups on the far-right spectrum. This article seeks to explain the seeming contradiction between existing pluralism in German public memory and dissatisfaction with it by tracing how memory activists have shaped memory policy and institutions. Based on extensive interview and archival research, I argue that the infiltration of civil society into the institutions that govern memory in large part explains the strength of critical memory in unified Germany and the country’s ability to accommodate a variety of pasts. However, there is also a distinct lack of pluralism when it comes to the rules of “how memory is done,” to the exclusion of more emotional and politicized approaches that are sometimes favored by some victims’ groups. Using the case of the recent debate about the Hohenschönhausen Memorial, I contend that this explains some of the attraction felt by these groups towards the right.

The Western Ukrainian Association of the League of Nations: the Ideological Platform, Activity at the Congresses of the League of Nations Union of Associations (1922 - 1924)

The geopolitical changes in the international relations after the First World War, the new trends in European foreign policy, the increasing interest to the Ukrainian issue were the main reasons which intensified an interest of Ukrainian community to the issues of international policy. Founded in 1922 the Western Ukrainian Association of the League of Nations (WUALN) endeavored to facilitate the solution of the Ukrainian issue in the format of the LNUA, manifesting the idea of Ukrainian statehood renewal. Three periods can be defined in the association’s activity: the first includes the period from January-June 1922; it is the time of organization’s foundation and its entrance to the League of Nations Union of Associations (LNUA); the second (the main) period from the 8th of June 1922 to the 23rd of June 1923; it is the time of a full membership the WUALN in the Union; the third period from the 23rd of June to the 1st of July 1924 connected with the suspension of the WUALN’s membership in the LNUA and the association’s struggle for the rights’ renewal in the organization. The WUALN did not recognized the Treaty of Versailles about the division of the Ukrainian lands between the Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia; the Riga Peace Treaty’s ratifications of 1921 between Poland, the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian Republic included to the Soviet Union. The Association had the close contacts and cooperated with the WUNR’s government in exile, political parties from the Western Ukraine: Ukrainian National Labor Party (UNLP), Ukrainian Radical Party (URP), Christian Social Party (CSP), Ukrainian Parliament Representation (UPR) and other organizations. The association coordinated actions on the international scene and its tactics with the WUNR’s government in exile and E. Petruschevich personally; still the information about the misuses of the Polish government, the facts of violations from the Polish regime of the national minorities’ rights, non-performance of the international obligations of the Polish state was obtained from the other civil and political organizations of the WUALN. The contradictions between UNR and WUNR governments influenced on the relations with the Ukrainian Association of the League of Nations (UALN) from Naddniprianschyna in 1919-1920-s; notwithstanding in the strategical lines of the “Ukrainian issue’s” solution the both associations demonstrated solidarity and co-coordination that the congress of the LNUA demonstrated vividly in The Hague. However, the contacts with the members of Naddniprianschyna gradually activated after the temporary suspension of WUALN’s activity in the LNUA in 1923. At that period the UALN often defended the WUALN’s interests in the governing bodies of the LNUA, and the WUALN considered the variant of integration to the UALN on the autonomy rights.

CLUSTERING OF UKRAINIAN REGIONS BASED ON VALUE ORIENTATIONS AND POLITICAL CHOICE OF THE POPULATIONS: METHODOLOGICAL RATIONALE AND ANALYSIS USING COMBINING DATA SOURCES

The aim of this study is clustering of administrative-territorial units of Ukraine on the basis of value orientations and the electoral choice of the population of these units. The k-means method is used. Creation of macroregions basing on the political orientations of the population is quite widespread, but such approaches have a number of limitations, primarily due to the fact that the list of political leaders or political parties can change significantly in rather short periods of time and because of difficulties with using of several political parties/leaders simultaneously in the analysis. The «value» in this article is defined within Schwartz's theory as desirable goals that go beyond specific situations, differ in importance from each other and are guiding principles in human life. The analysis uses the ten Schwartz's values, which are grouped into four dimensions: «Conservation», «Self-Enhancement», «Self-Transcendence» and «Openness to Change». The data set for this study is combination of two sources of data – sample survey and electoral statistics. Thus, the data set in this study is formed by a combination of the results of the Ukrainian vote in the Parliamentary elections in 2012 and sample survey – European Social Survey – the latest wave of which was held in Ukraine in 2012. The European Social Survey is the most actual source of data on the value orientations of Ukrainians which is in free access. After 2012 this study in Ukraine was no longer conducted. The main result of this study is the creation of clusters of administrative-territorial units based on the similarity of the results of voting and value orientations of population in these units. The first cluster includes administrative-territorial units, where population has more expressed values of Self-transcendence than in Ukraine as a whole. In the second cluster there are units where population has more expressed values of Self-enhancement and Openness to change. The third cluster is characterized by more expressive values of Self-transcendence and Conservation. Except of different levels of expression values, clusters differ by the level of support of political parties that participated in Parliamentary elections. This approach allows evaluate the received cluster structure in dynamics, use in analysis results of national and local elections in different years. Also it makes clustering space two-dimensional, which enables not only to discover similar administrative-territorial units, but also, for example, to identify groups of parties whose supporters share similar values. Although the article uses data from 2012, the successful application of this approach to the clustering of administrative-territorial units opens up the ways for such clustering on more recent data.

Why Do Women Vote Radical Right? Benevolent Sexism, Representation and Inclusion in Four Countries

ABSTRACTExamines how gender, benevolent sexism, and the representational context shapes support for radical right parties (RRPs) in four countries: Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and Norway. Employing the 8th wave of the European Social Survey (ESS), we find benevolent sexism is a key component of RRP support for men but not women. For men, it appears that sexist attitudes are at least partly a function of a more general orientation to outgroups. We also find that gender moderates the effects of immigration anxiety and authoritarian attitudes on an RRP vote. Finally, there is some evidence that the gender gap is largest where mainstream parties isolate an RRP and the gap is partly a function of the inability of RRPs to attract women with less progressive views on gender equality.

Becoming the ‘party of civil rights’: the Radical Party, 1962–1979

ABSTRACTThe article reconstructs how the Italian Radical Party became, from the mid-1960s, the party of ‘civil rights’, and what its main battles for these rights were between 1967 and 1979. In the Italian political system the Party played a crucial role in the process of re-institutionalization that took place in the 1970s, helping to transfer demands formulated in social and cultural terms since the 1960s to the legislative-institutional level. Making the battle for civil rights the object of their own political action had a systemic meaning for the Radicals – namely, to undermine the dominion of the Christian Democrats and redefine the relations between the political sphere and society. This was closely linked to the political strategy of the party and to the organizational form it gave itself from 1967 onwards. These aspects, however, did not remain unchanged between 1967 and 1979; rather, they fed on the Radicals’ evolving vision of Italian society (on its social turmoil) on the one hand, and on the other they reacted to the evolution of the Italian political scenario, in particular to the possibility of building a parliamentary alternative to the Christian Democracy.

Do Voters Polarize When Radical Parties Enter Parliament?

AbstractDo voters polarize ideologically when radical views gain political legitimacy, or does the rise of radical voices merely reflect societal conflict? We argue that elite polarization as signaled by radical parties' first entrance into parliament leads to voter divergence. Immediately after the election, legitimization and backlash effects mean that voters on both ideological sides move toward the extremes. In the longer term, this polarization is solidified because of radical parties' parliamentary presence. A panel study of Dutch voters shows that the 2002 parliamentary entrance of a radical‐right party indeed led to immediate ideological polarization across the political spectrum. Estimating time‐series cross‐sectional models on Eurobarometer data from 17 countries (1973–2016) shows an additional long‐term impact of radical‐right party entry on polarization. The presence of radical voices on the right has polarizing effects, illustrating how such institutional recognition and legitimization can have a far‐reaching impact on society.

Do Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in the Legislature Affect Representation in Government? A Cross-National Analysis

ABSTRACT The presence of right-wing populist parties in legislatures has the potential to change the calculus of government formation. I examine the effects of right-wing populist parties on four characteristics of governments in 14 Western democracies: (1) government size; (2) government fragmentation; (3) ideological dispersion/polarisation; and (4) ideological congruence between governments and legislatures. The findings suggest that right-wing populist parties are associated with declines in government size; however, the other effects are found to work through general patterns of legislative fragmentation.

Position or Preference? Explaining Parliamentary Party Group Leaders’ Role Orientations in Belgium

AbstractParliamentary party group leaders (PPG leaders) are understudied but important actors in contemporary parliaments. This article examines the role orientations of PPG leaders in Belgium, using data from 66 semi-structured elite interviews. Contradictory to theoretical views on frontbench roles as institutionally determined ‘position roles’ and despite Belgian PPG leaders’ comparatively limited intra-party authority, the findings indicate role variation on two dimensions, resulting in five distinct PPG leader role types. These are explained using multi-value Qualitative Comparative Analysis (mvQCA). We find that, while some roles are indeed heavily shaped by contextual factors such as parties’ government status, size or electoral performance, others are more clearly driven by individual-level factors such as prior experience or progressive ambitions. As such, this article provides substantial insights into an underexposed aspect of legislative organisation, introduces QCA as a novel method to explain parliamentary roles and makes a theoretical case that also among frontbenchers preference-driven roles are possible.

The new map of political consensus. What is new in the wave of support for the populists?

ABSTRACTThe remarkable result of the 2018 Italian general election reflected the changing priorities of the Italian electorate. We examine similarities and differences in public opinion across various issues and party groupings, and show how the new electoral law and the geography of voting benefited the League and the Five-star Movement the most. Factor analyses indicate that immigration is the issue that most separates parties, while questions surrounding the redistribution of wealth tend to moderate the distance between them. It remains to be seen whether or not the coalition between the League and the Five-star Movement will hold, and whether 2018 is merely a populist ‘moment’ or portends a longer lasting populist period, and a truly new political-electoral geography of Italy.

Committee Parliamentary Specialization Index. Explaining MPs’ specialisation in the Spanish Congreso de los Diputados

ABSTRACTNowadays legislatures are largely based on committee systems. This enables a division of work and specialisation, in the context of highly complex politics and policy development. It seems clear that MP specialisation in the field of the committee they serve on is an important political asset, both for MPs and their parliamentary party group. This paper presents the Committee Parliamentary Specialization Index. This index measures the degree an MP is specialised in the jurisdiction of the committee they serve on. In the second part of the paper, the index is applied to the Spanish Congreso de los Diputados, an interesting case for testing this multi-faceted index, to find institutional, political and individual factors that better explain the degree of MP specialisation.

CasaPound Italia: ‘Back to Believing. The Struggle Continues’

This article aims to be a contribution to the ongoing debate among scholars concerning the question whether recently formed right-wing radical parties represent a new phenomenon and a break with the fascist tradition or whether they remain close to a fascist ideology. The author focuses on a specific national radical right-wing party: CasaPound Italia (cpi), founded at the beginning of this century, which declares itself to be ‘fascist’. While existing research insists on the intervention of external factors such as the economic crisis of 2008 in order to explain a new ‘wave’ of right-wing radicalism in Italy, this article will show the constant evolving of right-wing radical discourse over a longer historical period. The analysis will mainly delve into the ideological and political role played by three leading exponents of the Italian and European radical right: Pino Rauti, Roberto Fiore and Gabriele Adinolfi. Through a narrative style, and using a historical approach and qualitative analysis, this paper argues that their experiences represent the roots and sources for Gianluca Iannone’s project with cpi.

La desilusión monárquica del Partido Progresista: trono y democracia en el discurso radical del Sexenio (1868-1873)

El breve periodo que comprende la monarquía democrática de Amadeo I en España sigue planteando importantes interrogantes a los historiadores. Aunque el papel moderador del monarca italiano y su empeño en ajustarse a una sincera práctica constitucional ha merecido la atención de diversas investigaciones, no se han planteado cuáles eran las expectativas de las agrupaciones dinásticas que se disputaron el poder durante su reinado y si esa práctica constitucional se ajustaba a los parámetros que unas y otras defendían. Por ello, este artículo persigue analizar el proyecto monárquico del Partido Progresista-Democrático o Radical, así como explicar los motivos del desencanto de la militancia radical respecto a la monarquía. Un proceso que fue paralelo a la decantación republicana de esta agrupación.

Activity of modern right-wing radical parties in the Czech Republic

The author investigates political radicalism in the Czech Republic, a rather heterogeneous current considering the structure of participants: from political parties to the extremist organizations. The peculiarity of the Czech party system is the existence, along with typical radical parties, of other non-radical parties whose representatives support xenophobic, nationalist and anti-Islamic statements. This is primarily the Civil Democratic Party, known for its critical attitude towards European integration, and the Communist party of the Czech Republic and Moravia, which opposes Czech membership in NATO and the EU. Among the Czech politicians, who are close to radical views, analysts include the well-known for its anti-Islamic position of the Czech President M. Zeman and the leader of the movement ANO, billionaire A. Babich. Voters vote for them not because their economic or social programs are particularly attractive to the electorate, but because of dissatisfaction with the economic situation in the state. Almost all right populist parties oppose European integration, interpreting it as an anti-national project run by an elite distorted by a deficit of democracy and corruption.
 Keywords: Czech Republic, right-wing radical political parties, European integration, nationalism.