Populism and Radicalism Flashcards
What is Mudde’s definition of populism?
A political approach that considers society to be ‘ultimately separated in two homogenous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus the “corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people.’
What is meant by a “thin” ideology and how does it relate to populism?
An ideology is “thin-centered” if it is independent of other ideological stances. Thus, populism may be present in any party along the left-right spectrum.
How does populism work?
- Populist leaders claim to be the ‘true democrats’ fighting to reclaim ‘the people’s’ sovereignty from the professional political and administrative classes, as well as other elite ‘enemies’. The populist leaders claim that they are one of ‘the people’ but can be the saviour of them. Populism sees the people as one and as inherently good, as being sovereign, with their culture and way of life as paramount view. The party is one with the people. (Albertazzi and McDonnell)
- Populist parties frame political narratives in ways that emphasise divisions between groups or focus on the values and identities that unify otherwise diverse people (Sobolewska and Ford, 2020)
What are examples of who ‘the people’ is represented as being in populism?
Idea of ‘little people’ - wealthy elite versus rest of society (prominent in south and eastern Europe and Latin America)
Idea of ‘the average people’ (prominent in US)
Idea of ‘the native people’ who are in opposition to threats to their homogeneity from immigrants (prominent in Nordic countries)
How does populism arise as a result of anti-political and anti-party sentiment?
- Political malaise is caused by a failure in the eyes of voters of traditional parties to adequately respond to what are in their opinion salient issues.
- For example, in Western Europe traditional parties have not adequately responded in the eyes of the electorate to a series of phenomena such as economic and cultural globalisation, the speed and direction of European integration, the decline of ideologies and class politics and exposure of elite corruption (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008)
- This results in lack of trust in politics and politicians, increasing numbers of disillusioned voters open to new radical alternatives
- Populism aims to foster and exploit anti-political feelings, as these constitute an excellent breeding ground for populist attitudes. Anti-political and anti-party sentiment will therefore make people more likely to vote for populist parties.
- Van Kessel points out that in these scenarios this may be more of an effort to punish or oust the incumbent party than to endorse the upcoming populist one (Van Kessel, 2011)
How does cultural backlash cause populism, according to Norris and Inglehart (2019)?
- long-term social structural changes in the living conditions and security which successive generations experienced during their formative years leads to a silent revolution in cultural values, stimulating a conservative backlash and authoritarian reflex, which drives support for populist parties.
- Changes in the relative size of majority and minority groups can spark a decisive shift in collective attitudes and behaviours, catalysing a reaction when a previously dominant group perceives that their core norms and beliefs are being overwhelmed by social tides and they are losing their hegemonic status. This provides an opportunity for political elites to respond to their cultural grievances. The ‘tipping point’ notion suggests that cultural interactions are influenced by the relative proportions of groups within a society.
How does the US exemplify the rise of populism due to cultural backlash?
For many older people, same-sex marriage, women in leadership roles, multicultural diversity in cities, and, in the US, an African American President were disorienting departures from the norms they had known since childhood; they felt they had become strangers in their own land. The process of cultural change was reinforced by large-scale immigration, rising access to college education, and urbanization. They may also feel that they reflect the ‘real’ majority in America – especially if they live in isolated communities where friends, family, and neighbours share similar values. Politicians thereby have opportunities to mobilize social conservatives by blaming the erosion of traditional moral values on liberal elites, corrupt politicians, and the mainstream media, as well as denigrating rising out-groups who benefit from socially liberal attitudes and policies, such as women, racial minorities, and immigrants. (Norris and Inglehart, 2019)
How does a sense of malaise or crisis contribute to the rise in support for populist parties?
- A society is especially exposed to populism if there is a general sense of collective malaise. The populist leader promises solutions and identifies the enemies/scapegoats. (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008)
How did a crisis in Venezuela lead to a ripe situation for the rise of a populist leader?
In Venezuela when oil prosperity, which had not been put to good use to encourage the diversification of economic activities, came to an end, the parties proved unable to formulate solutions for the incoming crisis and revealed themselves to be little more than empty shells. A situation of widespread malaise gripped the country, and the situation thus became ripe for the emergence of an anti-party, anti-establishment populist leader. Venezuelan democracy simply collapsed. Not surprisingly, the populist leader Hugo Chávez, although enjoying significant popular support, has so far been both unable and unwilling to institutionalize his rule. (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008)
How, according to Albertazzi and McDonnell, does the media contribute to the rise of populism?
In many instances, the European media appear to have contributed to a legitimization of the issues, key-words and communication styles typical of populist leaders. ‘Underdog’ leaders who strive to gain public attention have regularly proved able to exploit the media’s proclivity towards anything that ‘breaks the routine’ in political arenas, by resorting to communication strategies that ensure media coverage. The result of this ‘supply and demand’ relationship is an increased visibility and significant reverberation of the populist message among a wide audience. In other words, the media, intentionally or not, may serve as powerful mobilization tools for populist causes.
In most countries, the established news media are the mouthpiece of ruling class and defend status quo. However, there is evidence that certain campaigns by the mainstream media could lead to anti-political attitudes and public cynicism of particular media outlets may be fertile ground for populist sentiments.
Media populism (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008)
- Definition of media populism: highly commercialised media production and media coverage that yield to general popular tastes, as in the case of tabloid media
- Where media populism thrives, so does political populism
- Unintentional convergence in goals between media populism and political populism
Social media is now also important and can lead to people becoming more radicalised and being in ‘echo-chambers’ where their existing opinion is reinforced and made stronger.
What role does the personality of populist leaders play?
numerous political figures have stood out by virtue of their personality and their voicing of popular discontent. These include the likes of Jean-Marie Le Pen, Jörg Haider, Christoph Blocher, Pim Fortuyn, Donald Trump and Silvio Berlusconi; personal charisma and media savvy have thus played a significant part in the origins and subsequent construction of populist movements.
Strong personalities of populist leaders fits well into the news medias desire for the spectacular and emotional treatment of reality, including political life (Albertazzi and Mcdonnell, 2008) . For example, in the 2002 general election campaign in the Netherlands, ‘television news coverage of the parties was highly personalised, and the LPF coverage focused heavily on the leader’. (Albertazzi and McDonnell)
In what way can populism be a threat to democracy?
Populist perspectives are almost unavoidably incompatible with democracy (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008)
Representative politics is the main target for populists, with their desire to abolish all intermediate actors, associations and institutions. For example, it has often been said that there is a ‘silent majority’ whose views are not taken into account by the official parliamentary majority (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008)
Populism exerts a negative impact on the democratic framework; no case of successful institutionalisation of a populist movement (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008)
Three elements of democracy populists find particularly intolerable: basic individual rights, minority rights, politics in general and the defence of pluralism (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008)
Populism questions the role of elected representatives in democratic regimes, seeking to corrode faith in their leigitimate authority (Norris and Inglehart, 2019)
the broader consequences of populism include the stability of established democracies and hybrid regimes, for party competition and the issue agenda, and for the civic culture. (Norris and Inglehart, 2019)
Populism can jeopardise democratic choice in deeply divided societies (Rogenhofer and Panievsky, 2020)
Through an exclusive definition of the political community large sections of the citizen population face political disenfranchisement and an erosion of individual rights. (Rogenhofer and Panievsky, 2020)
What is an example of a populist party being able to capitalise on a feeling among the electorate that mainstream parties were not responding adequately to what they saw as salient issues?
The attempt by mainstream parties to broaden their support often results in such parties converging on key issues, leaving lots more vacant political space for populist parties to garner support from. This is exemplified by the rise of Pim Fortuyn’s party in the Netherlands; Van Kessel shows that while the three main parties in the Netherlands all had no real negative (or positive) stance on multiculturalism, Fortuyn was able to exploit this issue (by taking a negative stance) to gain support. If main parties do not respond to newly salient issues in a way that differentiates themselves from each other, then voters will be motivated to look away from them and towards populist parties that are at the very least engaging with such issues (Van Kessel, 2011)
What is an example of a populist party benefitting from a crisis/sense of malaise?
Worldwide financial crisis hit Greece in 2009, giving rise to sovereign debt crisis. The government resorted to bailout funds from the IMF and EU. The policies introduced led to severe recession, triggering political crisis.
Levels of mobilisation were on the rise, with new social movements emerging, thousands of people participating in demonstrations against government austerity policies, and general strikes being called by trade unions.
There was rising anti-party sentiment which coincided and a that the two main parties at the time (PASOK and ND, centre-left and centre-right respectively) were incompetent
Over the last decade, radical left parties had consistently followed a protest strategy, which opposed government austerity policies and prioritised links to their members, trade unions and social movements
Therefore, they were less subject to the legitimacy crisis that hit the party system in 2012 and unlike the main parties not punished for the current poor economic and political state.
SYRIZA managed to benefit from this, almost quadrupling their vote share in May 2012 from what it had been in 2009.
What is an example of populist left-wing parties having a similar view to populist right-wing parties?
Often a joint nationalistic/Eurosceptic presence in left- and right-wing populist parties; Halikiopoulou (et al, 2012) considers the political parties from the left and right in the European elections in Greece and France in 2009 and finds that the empirical evidence suggests that nationalism is often present in both. Halikiopoulou asserted that in the right this resulted from an ethnic nationalism, whilst in the left it resulted from a type of civic nationalist that equated the nation with class and sought to protect its class interests within its territorial boundaries. Maybe also a strategic interest in both left- and right-wing parties in opposing European integration to differentiate themselves from the other parties.
