Party Realignment, Economic Crisis, and Varieties of Populism in Europe

• In Event: Italian Politics after a Decade of Economic Recession

Abstract

The paper examines how the recent economic and political crisis within the EU has effected the diffusion or consolidation of varieties of populisms in Europe, making the category of populism increasingly difficult to be attributed only to some specific (ideologically determined) political parties. Focusing on several current empirical cases of populisms in various European countries, we will try to disentangle the role of the crisis with respect to other variables referred to party (system) change - such as party realignment and party system restructuring – to the growing electoral strength of populist parties in Europe. The general hypothesis which inspires the contribution is that the redefinition of Western parties (Mair, 2013) has offered opportunities for the emergence of new populist parties, whereas the crisis has provided a specific opportunity for the consolidation of both old and new populist parties. The paper will test this hypothesis by a) analysing the relationship between the economic crisis and the recent evolution of party systems in all 28 EU countries; b) mapping populist parties currently existing in Europe, and classifying them according to different ‘types of populisms’ (especially in terms of inclusionary and exclusionary cases: Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2013); c) collecting electoral and secondary data about their strength and social penetration (i.e. ‘emergence and consolidation’).

Authors

• manuela caiani, SNS florence (italy)

• paolo roberto graziano