From Left: Hungary PM Viktor Orban, Poland PM Beata Szydlo, Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka and Slovakia PM Robert Fico pose prior their meeting in Prague on February 15, 2016. Photo: Shutterstock.

The Russia–Ukraine War and the Radicalization of Political Discourse in Slovakia

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Učeň, Peter. (2023). “The Russia–Ukraine War and the Radicalization of Political Discourse in Slovakia.” In: The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-wing Populism in Europe. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). March 8, 2023. Brussels. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0029

 

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Abstract

The report opens with a reflection on the political actors who have been labelled and analysed as populists in the modern history of Slovakia. Then, it assesses the impact of the Russian aggression in Ukraine by taking into account the broader group of radical challengers to the liberal-democratic notion of “politics as usual” in Slovakia who operate beyond the populist Radical Right. Overall, the report finds that while the Russia–Ukraine war has contributed to the radicalization of the public discourse in Slovakia, it has not engendered new populist or radical actors nor caused notable changes in the ideational profiles and political strategies of existing ones.

Keywords: Radicalization; Slovakia; Radical Right; Direction–Social Democracy (SMER); Russia–Ukraine war.

 

By Peter Učeň*

The argument presented in this report is that while Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has contributed to a radicalization of the political discourse in Slovakia, the main avenue of such radicalization was not the Radical Right or right-wing populism. The Radical Right parties were pro-Russian long before Putin’s war of aggression, have not changed their stance as a consequence of it, and have studiously avoided any suggestion of support for it, at least as far as the invasion itself is concerned. The issue did not cause significant realignment or institutional changes in the Radical Right scene. Nor are Radical Right parties the sole purveyors of an oblique pro-Russian stance. They may have been outperformed in this respect by a non-radical, centre-right party with motivations rooted in Slovakia’s domestic political conflict.

A brief historical outline of (suspected) populists in Slovakia

Accurate or otherwise, reflection on the populist phenomena in Slovak politics has often suffered from the same general problems afflicting populist studies and anti-populist activism and journalism elsewhere. In the case of academic treatments, we have witnessed conceptual stretching, confusing populism with its thicker ideational fellow-travellers (nativism, authoritarianism), and promoting populism to the status of the all-encompassing category subsuming other ideational constructs to which, in practice, populism often serves as a means to convey their messages more efficiently. Beyond the academy, anti-populist movements have also engaged in broad-brush engagement, with “populist” becoming an “officially sanctioned slur” for politics in general, which risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater and, in any event, constitutes a morally unacceptable way of marshalling popular support against bogus messages and dangerous ideas. With this caveat in mind, it is helpful to summarize the several ways of “doing politics” in Slovakia’s modern history that have been—accurately or otherwise—labelled as “populist”.

At first, the populist label was a part of various attempts at capturing and explaining the tribulations the young and underdeveloped Slovak liberal-democratic polity was experiencing in the 1990s. These included the post-1989 surge in Slovak ethnic nationalism demanding broad political autonomy or secession from the federal republic of Czechoslovakia, created in 1989–90 and dissolved in December 1992, when the Czechs and Slovaks went their separate ways.

Another powerful source of such reflection was a combination of effective nationalist and populist mobilization under the auspices of the shrewd populist politician Vladimír Mečiar. His political success and attempt to retain power led the Slovak polity to the verge of having its liberal content entirely hollowed out and continuing as an illiberal democratic facade. Later a series of articulate, yet varying, anti-establishment appeals by new political parties distancing themselves from mečiarist populism as well as the civic-democratic and largely liberal opposition that defeated it in the 1998 elections were analysed as forms of “populism”.[1]

Among the parties labelled populist from this first wave of anti-establishment challengers, Direction–Social Democracy (SMER) came to dominate and shape Slovak politics in the 2000s and continues to do so to the present day. In the past two decades, the party has undergone a series of ideological and strategic transformations, of which some can be clarified with the help of the notion of populism, while others should not be. The second decade of this century has witnessed the rise of a second generation of anti-establishment challengers, which includes the anti-corruption and market liberal Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party in 2010 as well as the anti-corruption movement Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO). While often called populist, these parties’ appeals—undeniably anti-establishment in their nature—have been primarily informed by anti-corruption and calls for integrity in politics.

A few years later, a genuinely Radical Right outfit, the People’s Party–Our Slovakia (ĽSNS), broke through on the regional level and entered the national parliament in 2016. Finally, in 2016 the Slovak polity witnessed the rise of the conservative We are Family party, which described itself explicitly as on a mission to “purify” Slovak politics and did not shy away from Radical Right tropes on occasion, particularly about immigration. As expected, both of these two new challengers have been analysed in terms of populism and extremism. All of these actors, at certain points in their political activity, presented—in varying degrees and forms—some kind of challenge to “politics as usual” in the Slovak polity. Populism—properly conceptualized—has been, and continues to be, a part of the appeal of some of them. Yet, in itself, populism hardly explains the nature of the challenges confronting Slovak politics.

Right-wing populism and other (radical) challengers since the 2020 elections

 Not all challenger parties in the Slovak political system are right-wing populists. Some would qualify as mainstream right-wing parties that (on occasion) adopt a “populist style”, but a sustained combination of nativism and authoritarianism and populism is not the defining aspect of their appeals. Moreover, the right-wing populists do not present the single dominant threat to the quality of liberal democracy in Slovakia.

As for the political fate of the challengers listed above, SaS has never been Radical Right, and in the meantime, it has practically become the mainstream party. OĽaNO retained and repeatedly reinvented its anti-establishment appeal and the form of the anti-party, deliberately eschewing a meaningful organizational structure. The movement described itself as a platform for promoting independent (read: non-partisan) personalities to the parliament to address problems in the political process, hence the name.[2] Characteristically, the movement has undergone a series of reinvention cycles before each election since 2012, in terms of candidates but also electoral appeals. The typical OĽaNO candidate list has been a rather odd mix of anti-corruption activists and whistle-blowers (often with centrist or liberal inclinations) and conservative activists from the traditional Christian as well as newer charismatic (Pentecostal) milieus. The glue that has held this somewhat motley crew of candidates has been a staunch commitment to combat political corruption.

While OĽaNO satisfies both conditions—being right-wing and populist—it has never become a Radical Right party. Following a vote of no-confidence in the OĽaNO-led government in December 2022, an internal discussion started regarding the separation of the party’s “liberal” and “conservative” wings. The latter might take the movement in a more radical direction by engaging in culture wars and vigorous opposition to “gender ideology” and the rights of trans people.

The We are Family party broke out in 2016 as a socially conservative and paternalistic party for ordinary people. The party explicitly cast its approach in contrast to the elitist manner of previous conservative champions in Slovakia. The party appeal is primarily based on the curious charisma of the party leader Boris Kollár—a millionaire with an eccentric private life (normally incompatible with any version of conservatism). Kollár is known for occasional anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rhetoric outbursts. But more importantly, We are Family is a political project of predatory opportunists who try to marshal support from a paternalist but the largely non-Left and likely non-religious electorate. Being both right-wing and populist, We are Family is not a Radical Right party. Like in the case of OĽaNO, it lacks the combination of nativism and authoritarianism at the core of its ideology. While the party leader in the past expressed sympathies for Austria’s FPÖ, Italy’s Lega, and France’s FN, currently, such alliances do not bring any political profits to the party’s project.

The People’s Party–Our Slovakia (ĽSNS)—nowadays officially known by its prefix Kotlebistas—ĽSNS (K-ĽSNS)—broke out on the regional level in 2013 and made it into the parliament in 2016. The party has been analysed in terms of both the Radical Right and political extremism. In fact, it is part of the family of Central European Far Right parties—such as Hungary’s Jobbik—which, from the point of view of traditional comparativist schemes, could best be described as a hybrid of Radical Right and extremist political programmes. While ĽSNS was established by extremist cadres, for the sake of public consumption, it has developed a political programme that is radical and vaguely anti-systemic, albeit carefully avoiding refutation of democracy. However, while placing extremist ideas on the back burner for the sake of smoother participation in the game of democratic politics, the party has offered a series of dog-whistle gestures aimed at its extremist supporters (and mocking the establishment). One such gesture—handing out checks to needy families in the amount of €1,488[3]—saw party leader Marián Kotleba accused of propagating extremism and put on trial. The pending threat of four years in prison caused tension within the party. Kotleba started preparing for eventual prison time by packing the party leadership with loyalists. This alienated the group around Milan Uhrík, MEP, who led a splinter group which left the party to establish the Far Right Republika party in 2020. The split resulted from purely personal and organizational disagreements rather than programmatic and tactical clashes. The new Republika adopted slightly more consensual stances while the rump ĽSNS embarked upon further radicalization, including a return to anti-Roma marches. As a result, Republika took over most of the electoral support of the old ĽSNS, and the rump party has since languished with low-single-digit support in opinion polls.

Both ĽSNS and Republika are Radical Right and populist parties. They also stand out notably from the rest of the political spectrum in terms of their attitude to the Russia–Ukraine war. Paradoxically, their closest ally in both the fight against “the system” and the positions taken on the war is the left-wing populist SMER, which bills itself as a social democratic party.

The once anti-establishment party SMER has undergone a series of transformations over the two decades. While continuing to identify as a social democratic party, SMER has lately come to rely on appeals that are both socially paternalistic (in a generally leftist vein) as well as culturally conservative. The latest addition to its ideological tool belt has been authoritarianism. Thus, the party, which started life with a younger, urban and educated voter base, has ended up as a radical actor with messages appealing to a historically paternalistic left-wing electorate (pensioners), conspiracists, and those who question Slovakia’s geopolitical orientation. In fact, SMER has become the functional equivalent of the Radical Right for members of these constituencies that identify as left-wing.

Like Mečiar in the 1990s, SMER’s malleability has been conditioned by the need to shield party cadres and external allies from the consequences of losing power. Over decades, the party has come to be dominated by a “cabal” of senior party politicians and external actors exhibiting all the signs of state capture. Politicians have thus traded protection to external “fixers” and oligarchs for material benefits. The whole extent of the captors’ activities was revealed following an extensive report published on the murder of the investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová in February 2018. A substantial part of the public concluded that SMER party elites were morally responsible for the murder by instituting the system of “our people” (the nickname given to the cabal) with the pervasive feeling of impunity provided by such cover, which encouraged one of the fixers to mastermind the murder. The change of public mood cost party leader Robert Fico the prime ministership when the popular (and less tainted) Peter Pellegrini preemptively replaced him as party leader.

Fico, a former prime minister, launched a campaign to undermine the integrity of investigations of high-profile corruption cases that evolved around himself, his party peers and their allies in business and the state administration. Such campaigns were primarily based on challenging the investigations as biased, politically motivated and infringing on the rule of law. It also included accusations of foreign interference in Slovak politics and in the investigations themselves.

The radicalism of Fico’s campaign increased in the aftermath of the February 2020 elections when the opposition alliance came to power on the back of electoral appeals for de-oligarchization, and ending systemic corruption and state capture—as symbolized by Fico’s circle. This estranged the wing of the party around Peter Pellegrini, which split from SMER in 2020 to establish the party Voice–Social Democracy (HLAS). HLAS leaders could plausibly claim to have been outside the “our people” cabal and therefore felt less exposed to the consequences of the anti-corruption investigations. They objected to the anti-systemic shift in SMER’s appeals, preferring to position themselves in the political centre and burnish their prospective governing credentials. HLAS quickly bested SMER in popularity ratings, and the breakaway soon took over a substantial part of the original organization. This only caused Fico to further radicalize his appeals, which have increasingly come to rely on the mobilization of a part of the anti-systemic and “alternative geopolitics” electorates.

The role of the Russia–Ukraine war in the radicalization of Slovak politics

First, the actors primarily responsible for the overall radicalization of the political discourse and the ruling OĽaNO have been SMER, Republika and ĽSNS. As noted, ĽSNS and Republika are Radical Right outfits, and the reasons for their extreme conduct are both ideological and tactical. For the failing ĽSNS, radicalization is seen as a way to bring former voters who now prefer Republika back into the fold. This is effectively a fight over the ownership of the Radical Right issue space in Slovak politics. For Republika, a slight moderation might be an advisable strategy, but they still need to retain the anti-system but non-extremist voters inherited from ĽSNS. The two Radical Right parties’ relationship with SMER is logical and paradoxical. In many respects, currently, they are tactical allies—particularly SMER and Republika. However, radicalized SMER represents a clear and present danger of poaching anti-systemic voters of Republika.

In the case of SMER, the reasons for the radical conduct are mainly tactical. Like ĽSNS, the party found itself bested by its splinter, HLAS. The polls, however, show that a significant part of HLAS’s support still considers SMER as the alternative regarding their voting choice. While SMER fights for its former voters, the party also seeks to complement them with the radicalized anti-systemic voters from the two Radical Right parties. These efforts are incredibly intense as their motivation is the return to power and undoing any possible damages resulting from the high-profile corruption cases against SMER’s cadres and allies. The strategy—characterized by an utter absence of inhibition combined with Fico’s considerable political skills—has worked. SMER has become the second-most popular party in Slovakia, lagging behind HLAS by a margin of only 3–4 percentage points.

Secondly, the primary motivations of the radicalization efforts regard domestic politics. The issues of geopolitics, the relations with Russia and taking sides in the Russia–Ukraine war play an important but secondary role in attempts to mobilize anti-systemic voters to engineer a return to power and a purging of those who currently occupy the offices of state. In one way or another—and with varying degrees of intensity—all three parties claim that Slovakia’s support for Ukraine in the current effort to face Russia’s aggression is against the national interest and threaten the country’s welfare.

The outbreak of the war did not bring any substantial shifts in the popular support for political parties, including the Radical Right. The polls also confirmed that supporters of SMER and Republika were the most inclined to prefer Russia’s victory in the conflict. Public opinion data collected in September 2022 by the polling organization Globsec suggest that 47% of Slovaks would prefer a Ukrainian victory as opposed to 19% who support Russia. This compares with 55% of Republika supporters backing Russia and 36% of SMES sympathizers. Of SMER’s constituency, 34% responded that they did not care either way.

While all the parties surveyed here condemn Russia’s act of aggression, this should not be read as a condemnation of the ideas behind the Kremlin’s move. Open support of the Kremlin has certainly been rare and mainly limited to individuals on social media. Among the politicians, ĽSNS MP Slavěna Vorobelová, who replaced Marián Kotleba after he lost his parliamentary seat, said to the press that “she would not go and fight” if Russia invaded Slovakia because, among other things, the conflict was not between Russia and Slovakia but between the United States and Russia. Most of the time, political actors siding with Russia have opted for various indirect and proxy expressions of pro-Russian sentiment, such as the second part of Vorobelová’s statement.

From among these, the most frequent were:

  1. Praise of geopolitical realism and arguments regarding the legitimate spheres of influence of players like Russia. This included references to various Western experts in the international relations field (such as John Mearsheimer) who advance this line of thinking in an attempt to look competent in foreign policy.
  2. Narratives shifting the responsibility for the war from Russia to Ukraine, the West, NATO and the United States. These included claims that Russia had a legitimate case for aggression or that it was provoked and manipulated to invade Ukraine by the West. The “proxy war” argument has also been used to assert that the conflict was between the United States and Russia and that Slovakia ought thus to stay out of the fray. All three parties in question referred to geopolitical realism in such a manner. Also, in January 2023, both MEPs elected on the ĽSNS ticket—one of them becoming, in the meantime, the leader of Republika—voted against the resolution of the European Parliament calling for the establishment of the international tribunal dealing with Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.
  3. Calls for ending the war and “unnecessary suffering”. This narrative was a euphemism for stopping the military support to Ukraine—thus facilitating Ukraine’s surrender and Russia’s victory. For example, SMER’s chair of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee criticized the Slovak mainstream political discourse as “having resigned on the language of peace and diplomatic solutions” and becoming “limited to hardening of the sanctions and supply of weapons to Ukraine”. Similarly, SMER’s chairman Robert Fico asserted that should his party become a part of the new government, “it would preclude a supply of a single cartridge to Ukraine” because such a policy would “only prolong the problem”.
  4. Related to this were arguments appealing to the economic interests of the country. These involved an open criticism of the Western sanctions targeting Russia. This was the official position of SMER and HLAS, who declared that the “solution of the impact of war required an active foreign policy emphasizing the enforcement of the national economic interests”. On other occasions, SMER and the Radical Right linked the sanctions to higher energy prices, as shown, for example, by Republika’s billboard campaign slogan, “We will rescind the sanctions and make energy cheaper”.

All the arguments contributed to the overall narrative of the betrayal of the national interest perpetrated by the ruling majority: According to ĽSNS and Republika, the “government did it all to prolong the war and involve Slovakia in it”, which was proof that the “government was serving foreign interests”. In contrast, ĽSNS praised the “neutral position of Hungary in the conflict” as an example to follow. In a similar vein, according to Republika, “the government involved Slovakia in global issues while it was better to take the neutral position”, described by the party as “a total failure to defend our sovereignty”.

Conclusion

In the last couple of years, the political discourse in Slovakia has notably radicalized. The topic of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, however, has not been the main reason for such radicalization in general or regarding the populist Radical Right parties in particular. Instead, the main reason was the conflict over the political and criminal consequences of investigating the high-profile corruption cases involving people linked to the previous government. However, the Russian aggression in Ukraine, to some degree, informed the radicalization process in the last year. Mostly, it has provided additional arguments for the “geopolitical” dimension of domestic political polarization. For SMER, ĽSNS and Republika, it has offered a means to distance themselves more convincingly from the post-2020 election majority. With the different motivations described above, SMER and the two Radical Right parties seek to enlarge and further encapsulate the estranged anti-systemic constituency and divide it among themselves. Their principal argument—taking the various forms described earlier—is that the current establishment’s geopolitical orientation, as best illustrated in supporting Ukraine in the current war, presents a grave danger to the national interest of Slovakia—a betrayal similar to the anti-national activities taking place in the domestic arena.

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(*) Peter Učeň studied political science in Bratislava (Comenius University), Budapest (the CEU) and Florence (the EUI), focusing on party politics and populism. He spent most of his career as a practitioner in international democracy assistance and political party aid. Currently, he is a freelance consultant and evaluator in democracy, governance, civil society capacity-building, the rule of law and anti-corruption.

Footnotes

[1] The author has contributed to this state of affairs by popularizing the term “centrist populism” with reference to these parties, the politics of which—he now contends—could certainly better be explained by a conceptual elaboration on the term “anti-establishment politics” rather than populism proper.

[2] In Slovakia, independent candidates are barred from running in parliamentary elections.

[3] The number 1,488 is seen as referencing the neo-Nazi slogan “14 Words and 88 Precepts” often abbreviated as “14/88”, part of coded language that is propagated by the late white supremacist David Eden Lane and his followers.

Santiago Abascal, leader of the extreme right Spanish party VOX at an election rally in Casetellon, Spain in October 2019. Photo: Aitor Serra Martin.

The Spanish Radical Right under the shadow of the invasion of Ukraine

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Marcos-Marne, Hugo. (2023). “The Spanish Radical Right under the shadow of the invasion of Ukraine.” In: The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-wing Populism in Europe. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). March 8, 2023. Brussels. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0030

 

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Abstract

Despite the geographical distance, the war in Ukraine has brought to the fore links between the Russian establishment and Radical Right forces in Spain. Both scholars and pundits have taken an interest in the question, which spread to party competition, quickly turning into a (discursive) race away from Putin as the consequences of war become more evident. Despite the war’s unquestioned relevance and previous links between Russia and the Radical Right in Spain (albeit less established than in other European countries), a systematic analysis of the effects of the invasion is missing. This report addresses this gap by focusing on the impact of the Ukraine invasion on party discourse and public opinion in Spain. It analyses records of proceedings from the Spanish Parliament, Twitter messages posted by the VOX party and its leader, and survey data gathered since February 2022 by the Spanish Center for Sociological Research (CIS). The main findings at the party level highlight the relatively weak associations between the Kremlin and The Radical Right in Spain (compared to other European countries), as well as efforts to separate from Putin after the invasion started. A more complex pattern of preferences is identified at the individual level.

Keywords: Radical Right; populism; Russia–Ukraine war; VOX party; Spain

 

 

By Hugo Marcos-Marne* (University of Salamanca, Spain)

Introduction

Located on opposite sides of the European continent from Spain, Russia has seldom exerted much economic and political influence on the country. Whatever influence Moscow had has only declined since European Union (EU) sanctions were introduced in 2014, which adversely affected bilateral trade (Dunaev, 2018; Féas, 2022). These changes have shaped connections between Russian political and economic elites and the Spanish Radical Right.

This report focuses on Russia’s links to VOX, the most electorally successful but certainly not the only party with a radical right-wing orientation in Spain.[1] Other relevant parties in the Spanish party system mentioned in this report are the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), the Partido Popular (PP), and Unidas Podemos (UP). The PSOE—a centre-left party that belongs to the group of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (EP)—received the most votes in the most recent national elections. The PP, currently the main opposition party in Spain, lies on the centre-right and belongs to the European People’s Party group in the EP. For its part, UP is a Radical Left party that belongs to the European United Left (GUE/NGL) in the EP and is part of the coalition government led by Pedro Sánchez (Bakker et al., 2020). The UP is itself an electoral coalition dominated by the parties Podemos and Izquierda Unida (IU), which have often been characterized as populist outfits (Ramiro & Gomez, 2016; Marcos-Marne et al., 2020). VOX is universally classified as a Radical Right party because it adheres to authoritarian and nativist ideas (Ferreira, 2019; Mudde, 2004). Populist ideas also appear less consistently in the discourses of the party (Marcos-Marne et al., 2021; Rooduijn et al., 2019).

For a long time, Spain was a European outlier in lacking an electorally successful Radical Right party (Alonso & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2015), but this ended in 2019 when VOX broke through in national elections (Turnbull-Dugarte et al., 2020).[2] VOX’s emergence confirmed the disintegration of Spain’s established two-party system, and while the 2019 elections saw a left-wing national government elected, VOX’s success quickly had institutional consequences at the subnational level. For example, the PP was only able to form a coalition government in Madrid after VOX was persuaded to abstain and the party’s votes were necessary to ensure the PP’s regional government in Murcia. In Castilla y León, VOX entered coalition government alongside the PP.

Analysis of relations between VOX and Russia before the invasion of Ukraine falls into several distinct categories. First, in organizational and financial terms, VOX and Russia share several international allies on the Far Right (e.g., Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, and Matteo Salvini), and organizations associated with VOX (i.e., Hazte Oir-CitizenGO) have received funding from Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin (Datta, 2021). Second, in ideological terms, there is a strong complementarity between the Kremlin and VOX primarily based on nationalism (with a strong emphasis on opposing the EU as a supranational project) and authoritarianism (including resolute opposition to gender equality). There is thus a strong ideological affinity between VOX and the Kremlin, which is not necessarily reflected in deep financial ties (especially when compared to Russia’s support for other Radical Right forces in Europe).

To be clear, voices that speak in favour of Putin have continued among VOX politicians even after the invasion of Ukraine started (Testa, 2022). Even before the invasion (and since), party leader Santiago Abascal has pointedly refrained from criticizing Putin in public interviews due to ideological connections (González, 2019, 2022). However, ties have never been as blatant and significant as in other European countries. So then, how has the invasion of Ukraine affected these relations?

The Radical Right parties and Russia after the invasion

At the level of party discourse, the invasion of Ukraine forced VOX to take a comparatively less ambiguous position towards Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. In this vein, Abascal largely supported both the arrival of refugees[3]and sending war supplies to Ukraine, a position that he combined with strong criticism against the EU (both for being too weak and too expansionist) and the Spanish government (blaming UP for having relations with the Russian government). In March 2022, alongside all the parliamentary groups except the Grupo Mixto[4], VOX supported an official statement supporting Ukraine and against the invasion by Vladimir Putin. In the same debate, Abascal directed robust discourse against members of the government, accusing them of supporting the invasion of Ukraine indirectly due to government links with Russia via “El Grupo de Puebla”, their critical positions towards NATO, and previous criticisms directed against the Ukrainian government for (allegedly) giving support to Radical Right groups (Congreso de los Diputados, 2022a).

In Spain’s “state of the nation” debate held in the Spanish Parliament in July 2022, VOX’s MPs avoided any positive statements about Russia, the Kremlin, or Vladimir Putin, even if they did accuse Prime Minister Sánchez of using the war in Ukraine to deflect responsibility for the economic crunch (“It is not Putin, it is not Franco, it is not the virus. It is you, Pedro Sánchez, the government, and the erratic economic policy that explains to a great extent the economic collapse suffered…”( Congreso de los Diputados, 2022b, p. 27). Although a systematic analysis of VOX discourse on Twitter is beyond the scope of the current report, there are also enough examples to support the view that the party turned (more) critical toward Russia after February 2022:

Putin’s arrogance progresses due to the silence of many cowardly leaders and the support of tyrants from all around the world, like those from the Grupo de Puebla, formed by socialists and communists from the Spanish government. (Abascal, 2022a)

Putin’s allies are sitting in the government, and Pedro Sánchez should expel them immediately. Spain must support Ukraine unanimously, and there is no room for half-measures. (VOX, 2022)

I celebrate the Spanish Parliament’s support for the Ukrainian president. Zelenskyy has exhibited heroic behaviour in front of the criminal and deadly attack led by Putin, which would have made most Western politicians flee by helicopter. That deserves our recognition. (Abascal, 2022b)

Overall, the invasion of Ukraine has been politicized in the Spanish political landscape, and repertoires of competition have included accusing political opponents of being allies of Putin and his government.[5] VOX took part in this trend despite its previously ambiguous discourses towards Russia and the Kremlin, mostly focusing its discursive efforts on criticizing UP. However, consistent with the ambiguous relations highlighted above, VOX did not concentrate its communication strategy on the war. Indeed, at the time of writing, only 11 mentions of Putin, 20 of Ukraine, and 8 of Russia have been posted by VOX’s official Twitter account since February 2022. Abascal’s Twitter account had posted ten mentions of Putin, six of Ukraine, and two of Russia in the same period.

Voters of the Radical Right and Russia after the invasion

Data gathered by the Spanish Center for Sociological Research (CIS) allows for a public opinion perspective on the effects of the war in Ukraine among voters of the Radical Right, focusing on two main topics: the degree of concern about the war in Ukraine and support for different measures to help Ukraine (sending humanitarian help, hosting refugees, putting pressure on Putin to withdraw the army, and advocating for direct NATO intervention).[6] To allow for comparisons, we grouped respondents in each survey of the CIS by vote recall (which party the respondent voted for) in the last national elections (held in November 2019), considering the four parties that garnered the highest vote share: the PSOE, the PP, VOX and UP.

The lines in Figure 1 represent the share of voters for each of the four main parties declaring little or no concern at all about the war. These values evidence that most of the respondents were at least somehow concerned about the war, as the percentage plotted never reaches 30% or even 15% for the two main parties. They further suggest an overall growing lack of concern about the war among voters of all parties, with comparatively higher values displayed by voters of VOX and UP. Last, they indicate that voters of VOX were the least concerned about the war in eight out of nine surveys conducted by the CIS between March and December 2022 (in May, voters of VOX and UP reported almost the same level of concern with the selected indicator).

Source: Author’s elaboration based on data from the Center for Sociological Research (Study 3355, 3359, 3363, 3366, 3371, 3375, 3380, 3384, and 3388).

Beyond levels of concern, a battery of questions referring to specific measures regarding the invasion of Ukraine were asked in four different surveys between March and June. Four of them were selected for this report and refer to sending humanitarian help to Ukraine, hosting refugees from Ukraine, putting pressure on Putin to withdraw the army from Ukraine, and supporting a NATO direct intervention on Ukrainian territory.

Figures 2 to 5 show the percentage of voters for each party that disagree or disagree strongly with each of these measures. It can be seen in Figure 2 that respondents who declared to have voted for VOX were the least disposed to sending humanitarian help to Ukraine (a trend particularly visible in May and June). Voters of VOX also opposed more clearly the hosting of refugees from Ukraine (Figure 3), but the evolution of preferences in this group seems to diverge from the others. Voters of PSOE, PP, and UP start with very low levels of disagreement that grow only marginally with time. The trend for voters of VOX is more U-shaped as it starts with much higher levels of disagreement in March and April, almost joins the three other parties in May, and deviates again in June with higher levels of debate. I speculate this trend could be explained because discourses of VOX towards Ukrainian refugees, comparatively much more positive than previous refugee crises, had an effect among its voters that vanished with time as the invasion went on in time, and less public attention was devoted to it.

VOX’s voters also express reluctance towards the notion the government should pressure Putin to withdraw Russian forces from Ukrainian territory (as do UP voters, albeit less so, see Figure 4). Last, the distribution of preferences vis-à-vis direct NATO intervention in Ukraine shows that UP voters most strongly disagreed with this proposal (Figure 5). This might be explained by the traditional negative relationship between NATO and the (radical) Left in Spain (Viñas, 1988).[7] In this case, the position of VOX voters was indistinguishable from that of PSOE and PP voters.

Source: Author’s elaboration with data from the Center for Sociological Research (Study 3355, 3359, 3363, and 3366).
Source: Author’s elaboration with data from the Center for Sociological Research (Study 3355, 3359, 3363, and 3366).
Source: Author’s elaboration with data from the Center for Sociological Research (Study 3355, 3359, 3363, and 3366).
Source: Author’s elaboration with data from the Center for Sociological Research (Study 3355, 3359, 3363, and 3366).

Final remarks

The weak and somewhat ambiguous links between VOX and the Kremlin transformed after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Although not very frequent, the main messages from VOX on the war have criticized Putin’s government, presented Ukraine in a positive light, and often accused members of the Spanish government of collaborating with Russia. Therefore, the invasion of Ukraine has been integrated into the discourse of VOX as a second-order element used to undermine the position of rival parties within a more integrated discourse, including nationalist and authoritarian elements. Although further analysis would be needed to test the proposition, we might speculate that the party’s limited public profile on the war reflects the fact that any pro-Ukraine message would not sit well with the party’s virulent anti-EU positioning, together with the ideological affinities between VOX and the Kremlin that persist despite the war.

At the individual level, VOX voters are comparatively less concerned about the war, which seems consistent with the low-profile strategy mentioned above. They are also comparatively more reluctant to help Ukraine by sending humanitarian help, hosting refugees, or calling on Putin to withdraw. Overall, the findings from this report suggest that the association between Russia and VOX can be better explained by focusing on the radical right-wing component of the party’s discourse (crucially, nationalism and authoritarianism) rather than the populist one.

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(*) Hugo Marcos-Marne is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Salamanca. Previously, he has been a postdoctoral research fellow at SUPSI-Lugano, the University of St. Gallen, and the National University of Distance Education (UNED Madrid). His research sits at the intersection between public opinion and electoral behaviour, political parties, and populism. He has published on these topics in many top-ranked international journals, including Political Communication, Political Behavior, West European Politics, Political Studies, Politics, Electoral Studies, the International Political Science Review, and Politics and Governance, among others. He is currently a researcher in the project entitled “Youth Political Socialization, Journalism & Social Media: Understanding Democracy in Contentious Times” and a member of the Democracy Research Unit (DRU) and Team Populism. 

References

Abascal, S. [@Santi_ABASCAL]. (2022a, February 27). La soberbia de Putin avanza gracias al silencio de muchos líderes cobardes y al apoyo de tiranos de todo el mundo [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/santi_abascal/status/
1498023264354025474?lang=es

Abascal, S. [@Santi_ABASCAL]. (2022b, April 6). Hilo: Celebro que el presidente ucraniano recibiera el apoyo de las Cortes Generales [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/santi_abascal/status/1511621442428940289

Albin, D. (2022, February 24). Así se posiciona la ultraderecha española en el conflicto entre Rusia y Ucrania. Publico. https://www.publico.es/internacional/posiciona-ultraderecha-espanola-conflicto-rusia-ucrania.html

Alonso, S., & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2015). Spain: No country for the populist Radical Right? South European Society and Politics, 20(1), 21–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/
13608746.2014.985448

Bakker, R., Hooghe, L., Jolly, S., Marks, G., Polk, J., Rovny, J., Steenbergen, M., & Vachudova, M. (2020). 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey. Version 2019.1.

Center for Sociological Research (n.d.). Barometers. Retrieved February 28, 2023, from https://www.cis.es/cis/opencm/ES/11_barometros/index.jsp

Congreso de los Diputados (2022a, March 2). Plenary Session 156. Cortes Generales. https://www.congreso.es/public_oficiales/L14/CONG/DS/PL/DSCD-14-PL-163.PDF

Congreso de los Diputados (2022b, July 14). Extraordinary Plenary Session 195. Cortes Generales. https://www.congreso.es/public_oficiales/L14/CONG/DS/PL/DSCD-14-PL-202.PDF

Datta, N. (2021). Tip of the iceberg: Religious extremist funders against human rights for sexuality and reproductive health in Europe 2009–2018. European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights.

Dunaev, A. (2018, March 5). Why Spain doesn’t fear the “Russian threat”. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/75698

Féas, E. (2022, March 2). Los efectos de la invasión de Ucrania sobre la economía española. Elcano Royal Institute. https://media.realinstitutoelcano.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/comentario-feas-los-efectos-de-la-invasion-de-ucrania-sobre-la-economia-espanola.pdf

Ferreira, C. (2019). Vox como representante de la derecha radical en España: un estudio sobre su ideología. Revista Española de Ciencia Política; Número 51, Noviembre 2019. https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/recp/article/view/72190

González, M. (2019, March 29). Abascal dice que rechazó reunirse con Putin “por prudencia”. El País. https://elpais.com/politica/2019/03/29/actualidad/
1553857495_047024.html

González, M. (2022, August 26). Los vínculos de Vox con Dugin, el ideólogo de cabecera de Putin. El País. https://elpais.com/espana/2022-08-26/los-vinculos-de-vox-con-dugin-el-ideologo-de-cabecera-de-putin.html

Marcos-Marne, H., Plaza-Colodro, C., & Hawkins, K. A. (2020). Is populism the third dimension? The quest for political alliances in post-crisis Spain. Electoral Studies, 63, 102–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2019.102112

Marcos-Marne, H., Plaza-Colodro, C., & O’Flynn, C. (2021). Populism and new Radical-Right parties: The case of VOX. Politics, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/
10.1177/02633957211019587

Morillo, I. (2022). Vox rechaza que Andalucía acoja refugiados o niños de la guerra de Ucrania. El Confidencial. https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/andalucia/2022-03-02/vox-rechaza-que-andalucia-acoja-refugiados-o-ninos-de-la-guerra-de-ucrania_3384598/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ECDiarioManual

Mudde, C. (2004). The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x

Ramiro, L., & Gomez, R. (2016). Radical-Left populism during the Great Recession: Podemos and its competition with the established Radical Left. Political Studies, 65(1_suppl), 108–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321716647400

Rooduijn, M., Van Kessel, S., Froio, C., Pirro, A., De Lange, S., Halikiopoulou, D., Lewis, P., Mudde, C., & Taggart, P. (2019). The PopuList: An Overview of Populist, Far Right, Far Left and Eurosceptic Parties in Europe. www.popu-list.org.

Testa, G. (2022). Los líderes de Vox en Ceuta, con Putin. El Faro de Ceuta. https://elfarodeceuta.es/lideres-vox-ceuta-putin/

Turnbull-Dugarte, S. J., Rama, J., & Santana, A. (2020). The Baskerville’s dog suddenly started barking: Voting for VOX in the 2019 Spanish general elections. Political Research Exchange, 2(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2020.1781543

Viñas, Á. (1988). Spain and NATO: Internal debate and external challenges. In J. Chipman (Ed.), NATO’s southern allies (pp. 152-206). Routledge.

VOX [@vox_es] (2022, February 25). Lastra, Enrique Santiago, Irene Montero… Los aliados de Putin están en el Gobierno y Pedro Sánchez debe expulsarlos inmediatamente [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/vox_es/status/
1497185372467568663

Footnotes

[1] For additional information on the complex relations between comparatively small groups of the Radical Right and Russia, see Albin (2022).

[2] To be clear, radical right-wing parties existed in Spain before VOX attained institutional representation following the regional elections in Andalucía in 2018. However, these were mainly marginal groups that never achieved the electoral success VOX attained nation-wide in April 2019.

[3] This measure was not supported by all members of VOX, as can be seen in statements issued by VOX Andalucía (Morillo, 2022).

[4] The Candidatura de Unidad Popular (CUP), which counts two MPs in Spain’s parliament, decided not to support the official statement as it failed to mention the role of NATO and the United States in the origins of the conflict. 

[5] Criticisms directed towards Russia have traditionally had traction among the Radical Right in Spain, and VOX emphasized links between Russia, as the successor to the USSR, and current members of the government belonging to the Spanish Communist Party. 

[6] The CIS surveys used in this section can be retrieved from the Center for Sociological Research (n.d.). 

[7] This position has been mainly based on anti-imperialism, anti-militarism and non-alignment infused with a critical view of the foreign action of the United States. PSOE’s turn from criticizing to supporting Spain’s participation in the NATO in 1986 was a major political issue that put to an end the overall agreement of left-wing forces in this regard. The radical left-wing IU was born in 1986 at the height of mobilization against NATO and has remained opposed to NATO since then.

Sweden Democrats' Square Meeting in Umeå. Jimmie Åkesson speaks to the people on the city square where opposition left-wingers have formed a chain and protest in Umeå, Sweden on August 14, 2018. Photo: Shutterstock.

The repercussions of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on the populist Radical Right in Sweden

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Bolin, Niklas. (2023). “The repercussions of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on the populist Radical Right in Sweden.” In: The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-wing Populism in Europe. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). March 8, 2023. Brussels https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0031

 

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Abstract

The populist Radical Right Sweden Democrats (SD) have long been excluded from cooperation with other parties. As other parties have moved closer to the party’s more restrictive migration policy, and as older party leaders from the extreme Far Right have departed, some of the arguments in support of isolating the SD have waned. However, the party is still criticized for its ambiguous attitude towards Russia. But although individual politicians have openly expressed pro-Russian views, the current SD leadership has repeatedly rejected such accusations. The party’s position became increasingly relevant in 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine coincided with the parliamentary elections. This article analyses the attitude of the SD towards the Putin regime and how this developed in response to the invasion of Ukraine. It also looks at how this has affected the public perception of the party and to what extent its position on Russia will continue to be important in the public debate.

Keywords: Radical Right; Sweden Democrats; Russia; Ukraine; elections.

 

By Niklas Bolin* (Mid Sweden University) 

Introduction

There has long been a debate about the stance of European populist Radical Right parties towards the Putin regime. Traditionally, many of them are described as pro-Russian parties and are often criticized for their admiration of the Kremlin. In Sweden, the picture has been mixed. Their political opponents have repeatedly criticized the populist Radical Right Sweden Democrats (SD) for their ambiguous attitude towards Russia. However, although individual politicians have openly expressed pro-Russia views, the leadership of the SD has repeatedly rejected such accusations.

The party’s position became increasingly relevant in 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine coincided with parliamentary elections. With mainstream parties on the Right having, in many ways, moved closer to the SD on immigration and law and order issues, the stance on Russia was potentially one of the key remaining obstacles to ending the party’s isolation. In this report, I analyse how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has affected the SD. More specifically, I describe the party’s stance towards the Kremlin and how this has developed in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Further, I discuss how the invasion has affected the public perception of the SD and how the party’s position on Russia will remain relevant in the public debate. The analysis is based on available research, media reports and official party documents.

The Radical Right scene in Sweden

With the partial exception of the short-lived populist New Democracy party in the early 1990s, Sweden, unlike many other European countries, had not experienced an electorally successful populist Radical Right party at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Rydgren, 2002). Since then, the story has changed drastically. The first SD members were elected to the national parliament in 2010, and their progress ever since has been remarkable, to say the least. In fact, the party has yet to experience an electoral loss and has increased its vote share at every election since it first ran in 1988. In terms of Radical Right electoral success, Sweden is no longer an exceptional case (Rydgren & van der Meiden, 2019).

Even though the SD have steadily increased their support in the electorate, the party has long been completely excluded from cooperation with other parties. An important reason for this cordon sanitaire can be found in the SD’s history. Unlike most other parties in the populist Radical Right family in Europe, the party was founded by outright racist groups with links to neo-Nazism (Larsson & Ekman, 2001). Although the party has worked hard to build a more respectable facade, the SD’s marginalization has remained. After the 2014 parliamentary elections, six parties concluded the so-called December Agreement to ensure that the SD would remain without influence while at the same time allowing a government to be formed without an explicit majority in the Riksdag (Aylott & Bolin, 2019; Bjereld et al., 2016).

Government formation was even more difficult after the 2018 election. The four parties of the centre-right Alliance could have formed a government if they had been willing to rely on the parliamentary support of the SD. However, two of them, the Centre Party and the Liberals, preferred the incumbent centre-left minority coalition to continue rather than make any kind of concession to the Radical Right (Teorell et al., 2020). The agreement between the Social Democrats and the two centrist liberal parties ended a decade of wide-ranging cooperation between the four parties of the Alliance. It also had implications of great importance because it was decisive in bringing the SD in from the cold. The Moderates and the Christian Democrats immediately began to initiate a policy of détente with SD. The cordon sanitaire that had prevailed until then was lifted. Later, the Liberals also decided to withdraw their support for the centre-left to reunite with their former Alliance partners.

Even though they all lost ground compared to the 2018 election, their joint election result in September 2022 with the SD was enough for a majority. Thus, they were able to form a government by the end of the year. Although the SD is not formally a member of the governing coalition, it has concluded a far-reaching agreement with the three centre-right parties, securing formal political influence for the first time (Aylott & Bolin, 2023).

The Sweden Democrats and Russia

As other parties have moved closer to the party’s more restrictive migration policy, and as older party leaders from the extreme Far Right have departed, some of the arguments in support of isolating the SD have waned somewhat. For example, in recent years, the SD’s stance on international cooperation and the European Union (EU) has come to the fore. Relatedly, there has been a recurring debate on the SD’s position towards the Kremlin. Critics argue that the party, or people associated with it, have shown sympathy for Putin’s government and have taken positions aligned with Russian interests. For example, a report on how the European Parliament voted on Russia-related matters in 2014 found that the SD were one of the most Russia-friendly parties (Bolin, 2015). Indeed, the two Sweden Democrats MEPs were the only Swedish representatives voting against ratification of an Association Agreement with Ukraine (Christodoulou, 2014).

Similarly, people closely associated with the SD, unlike politicians from other Swedish parties, have on several occasions participated in Russian state-supported media platforms such as Sputnik and Russia Today (RT). Researchers characterize the latter as “an opportunist channel that is used as an instrument of state defence policy to meddle in the politics of other states” (Elswah & Howard, 2020, p. 623). In addition, there are several examples of how leading SD politicians have expressed appreciation for Russia or participated in contexts that have been interpreted as indirect support of the Putin regime. On several occasions, both former and current MPs have expressed themselves in favourable terms about election processes in Russia after being invited by the regime to function as election observers or having participated in conferences arranged by the regime (Sundbom, 2018).

Those who harboured suspicions about the SD’s attitude towards the Russian regime were given further fuel when in an interview just a week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the party’s leader, Jimmie Åkesson, refused to say whether he preferred Joe Biden or Vladimir Putin as a political leader (Odmalm, 2022). The leadership of the SD has, however, denied all accusations of being a pro-Russian party. It is also hard to find Russia-friendly statements in official party documents. Russia was not mentioned in the early party programmes and election manifestos. However, in recent years, especially since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the party has become increasingly critical of Russian developments (e.g., Shekhovtsov, 2018, p. 238). For example, the latest election manifesto for 2022 states that “Sweden should advocate clear sanctions against […] Russia and other countries with negative development” (Sweden Democrats, 2022, p. 57).

There are also signs that the SD have become more critical of Russia in practical politics. In stark contrast to the report mentioned above, a recent assessment of the degree of “assertiveness towards Russia”, SD comes out as the most critical of Russia among all Swedish parties represented in the European Parliament (VoteWatch, 2022). The appreciative attitude towards the Kremlin among some of the other Radical Right parties has also been presented as a reason the SD chose not to join the same party group in the European Parliament as, for example, France’s National Rally and Italy’s Lega (McDonnell & Werner, 2019).

The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Swedish domestic politics

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 made it even more pressing to fend off any accusation of complicity towards Russia. Among other things, it significantly impacted the willingness to join NATO. Although Sweden became a member of the EU in 1995, it has maintained a policy of nonalignment and did not join NATO during the Cold War like neighbouring Nordic countries, Denmark and Norway. However, relations with NATO have developed considerably. In the 1990s, Sweden began cooperating more closely with NATO on peacekeeping missions and crisis management operations. Although Sweden is not a member of NATO, it has increasingly participated in the alliance’s activities and developed close relations with NATO countries (Wieslander, 2022).

Even though Sweden’s relations with NATO have become closer, there has always been a party-political divide, with centre-left parties opposing NATO membership and centre-right parties being more supportive of it. As late as November 2021, the Social Democratic defence minister assured its party congress that as long there was a Social Democratic government, an application for NATO membership was unthinkable. The SD have also been against NATO accession historically, and they have instead called for increased cooperation with other Nordic countries, including developing a joint Nordic defence force (Sweden Democrats, 2019). Despite the long-standing opposition to NATO, Åkesson declared in April 2022 that the party was ready to support a Swedish application for NATO membership if Finland applied simultaneously (Arenander & Nilsson, 2022). When the Social Democrats also made a ‘drastic U-turn’ (Hinnfors, 2022), the Swedish government took the same path as Finland and decided to apply for NATO membership (Aylott & Bolin, 2023).

Despite SD’s more openly critical stance towards the Russian regime and its new position on membership in NATO, political opponents still consider the party’s position untrustworthy. That this is still thought to have a deterrent effect on the electorate became apparent when the Social Democrats called a press conference just a week before the election to report on cases where the SD had acted in favour of Russian interests and thus posed a security risk. The Moderate prime ministerial candidate, Ulf Kristersson, was asked how he would prevent the SD’s links to Russia from affecting Swedish foreign and security policy if the election resulted in a parliamentary majority for the right-wing opposition. Åkesson unsurprisingly rejected this and tweeted that the statements were reminiscent of how the opposition would be dealt with in a dictatorship. More startling, however, was that Kristersson also came to the SD’s defence and argued that the Social Democratic stunt was unworthy, not least as it was the simultaneous positional changes in the Social Democrats and the SD that made a Swedish NATO application possible (Petersson, 2022). It was clear that alleged connections between SD and Russia were no longer seen as an obstacle to including the SD as part of a new political majority.

The demand for the Radical Right in the aftermath of the invasion

The last parliamentary term has been clearly marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This has meant that the main political issues of SD have been less salient in the public debate. These crises also seem to have affected support for political parties somewhat. A rally around the flag effect can be observed, where both the outbreak of the pandemic in the spring of 2020 and the Russian invasion in the spring of 2022 boosted the popularity of the governing Social Democrats (Esaiasson et al., 2021; Novus/SVT, 2022). Support for the SD also seemed to decrease somewhat in connection with the outbreak of the war, but the impact on the electoral outcome of 2022 was small. Some of the political issues that became important in the 2022 election campaign, partly because of the war, were favourable to the SD, and the party won 20.5% of the vote, becoming the second-largest party in parliament.

Despite the spectacular Swedish shift in attitude towards NATO membership and the fact that there were still parties that opposed this, the issue was absent from the election campaign. Other issues indirectly connected to the war, such as rising inflation and electricity prices, gained great importance (Aylott & Bolin, 2023). While the governing party blamed the war in Ukraine and chose to refer to it as “Putin’s price hikes”, the opposition argued that it was mainly about how the government had mismanaged Swedish fuel and energy policy for years. Judging by the exit polls, the opposition benefited the most from the salience of these issues in the campaign.

The Sweden Democrat’s traditional issue, immigration, came further down on the list of voters’ most important issues. A possible explanation is that several other parties have altered their policies in a more restrictive direction and, in this way, narrowed the distance of the mainstream to the SD’s position. In addition, it is noteworthy that the SD was positive about receiving Ukrainian refugees. According to the party, this was in line with its previous policy that Sweden should help countries in its nearby area. Åkesson (2022) also justified the position on both cultural and economic grounds as he argued that Ukraine is both religiously and culturally more similar to Sweden “compared to clan societies in the Horn of Africa” and that Ukrainian refugees differ from previous migration “of low-educated, or even completely uneducated, people”. As a result, Åkesson claimed, “the burden on society, economically, socially and culturally, will not be as devastating as with previous mass immigration from culturally distant countries” (ibid.).

Concluding remarks

Despite its continuous electoral progress, the Sweden Democrats have been in the political cold for a long time. Not until the two liberal centre parties chose to support a Social Democratic government in 2018 did the Moderates and the Christian Democrats approach the SD seeking to return to office. Previously, the SD’s history and attitude toward immigration had been the main reasons for excluding the party from cooperation. However, in the wake of the 2015 “refugee crisis” and the SD’s electoral progress, other parties have also moved towards a more restrictive immigration policy. The SD’s deviant approach to international cooperation and its ambivalent stance towards Russia have remained obstacles to it being fully accepted as a political cooperation partner.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine meant that the SD’s attitude towards the Kremlin was given further attention. Officially, the party has also taken a stand against Russia’s actions and for support and assistance to Ukraine. The party has even advocated a relatively generous reception of Ukrainian refugees. Given the party’s very restrictive immigration policy, this can be seen as a departure from its traditional line.

Despite the clear stance on Ukraine, the SD are not yet rid of their Russia-related problems. While the current parties in government no longer see the SD’s position towards Russia as problematic, both the opposition and political commentators continue to argue that the party’s murky connections to Russia are an acute security risk and that the leadership should more clearly uphold a red line against any actions that are in Russia’s interests (Johansson Heinö et al., 2023). The issue was given further attention again at the beginning of 2023 when a central figure in the alternative media environment around the SD, previously accused of Russian connections, helped the anti-Muslim activist Rasmus Paludan to get permission to burn a Qur’an near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. The incident worsened already strained relations between Turkey and Sweden, further frustrating Sweden’s NATO application (Rankin, 2023). In addition, political opponents criticized the SD for being “useful idiots” for the Kremlin (see, e.g., Lindberg, 2023) and not taking responsibility for people associated with the party, thus potentially serving the interests of Russia. However, the SD leadership rejected any responsibility for the incident and, more generally, any alternative media favouring Russian interests even though individuals associated with the party frequently appear in them.

Although there is much to suggest that the isolation of the SD is a thing of the past, it cannot be ruled out that the issue of NATO and, indirectly, the SD’s relationship with Russia will influence these relations. There is no evidence that the SD has direct links to Russia. Nevertheless, SD members and persons associated with the party appear from time to time in contexts that can be interpreted as pro-Russian. As a result, the SD leadership probably will be wary of any pro-Russian sentiments among its ranks and will continue to reject any accusation of acting in accordance with Russian interests. However, it is doubtful that this will prevent the opposition from criticizing the party’s connections to Russia.

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(*) Niklas Bolin is Associate Professor of Political Science at Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden. His main research interests are parties and elections, particularly organisation, leadership, intra-party democracy, Radical Right parties and Green parties. He is co-editor (with Nicholas Aylott) of the edited volume Managing Leader Selections in European Political Parties (Palgrave, 2021) and has published in high-ranking international journals, including Party Politics, The Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, Scandinavian Political Studies and West European Politic.

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burning-of-quran-in-stockholm-funded-by-journalist-with-kremlin-ties-sweden-nato-russia

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14702436.2021.1955619

Political leader Geert Wilders of the Dutch center right party PVV defending his plans during a radio interview on September 5, 2012 in the Netherlands.

Disagreement among populists in the Netherlands: The diverging rhetorical and policy positions of Dutch populist Radical Right parties following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

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Nijhuis, Chris; Verbeek, Bertjan & Zaslove, Andrej. (2023). “Disagreement among populists in the Netherlands: The diverging rhetorical and policy positions of Dutch populist Radical Right parties following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” In: The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-wing Populism in Europe. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). March 8, 2023. Brussels https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0032

 

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Abstract

The Netherlands boasts a wide array of populist Radical Right parties, from the Freedom Party (PVV) and Forum for Democracy (FvD) to Correct Alternative 2021 (JA21). To complicate matters further, the left-wing Socialist Party (SP) is also considered a populist party. Mirroring the diversity of responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the rest of Europe, Dutch populist parties have reacted in myriad ways. Whereas the PVV condemned the Russian invasion, the FvD remained highly supportive of Putin. Interestingly, while many European populist Radical Right leaders, following public opinion, pivoted away from support for Russia, the FvD has maintained its support for Putin’s regime throughout 2022. JA21, on the other hand, has followed the non-populist parties, calling for tougher sanctions on Russia. This report maps the diverse positions of the three populist Radical Right parties regarding Russia. However, we also seek to explain why they have chosen such diverse paths. The report focuses on supply-side considerations, such as the impact of the parties’ relative degree of populism, their attaching ideology, and their position in the highly fragmented party system.

Keywords: Populism, Foreign policy, the Netherlands, Russia–Ukraine war, Party for Freedom (PVV), Forum for Democracy (FvD).

 

 

By Chris Nijhuis*, Bertjan Verbeek** & Andrej Zaslove*** (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands)

Introduction

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has proven to be particularly problematic for the European populist Radical Right, challenging an alleged core feature of even the more moderate bedfellows: their desire to challenge the dominant liberal world order. This report focuses on the Dutch populist Radical Right’s response to the Russian-Ukrainian war. We map and account for the diverging responses of three parties: the Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom, PVV), Forum voor Democratie (Forum for Democracy, FvD), and Correct Alternative 2021, widely known as JA21. The puzzle that drives our report is the remarkable divergence in reaction to the war among these parties.

Our contribution is structured as follows. After a short description of the rise and the growth of the Dutch populist Radical Right, we argue why the Netherlands is a relevant case for tracking populists’ reactions to the war. Next, we present how these parties’ narratives regarding Russia developed in the 2010s. Third, we offer three possible explanations for the differences between these narratives, focusing on their degree of populism, their attaching ideology, and their position in the party system. Finally, we will discuss what effect the narratives have had on the official Dutch position towards the war as well as on the position of the three parties in the Dutch political system.

This contribution is positioned at the interface of comparative politics and International Relations theory (IR). Congruent with the approach within comparative politics that sees populism as a “thin ideology” (Mudde, 2004), we expect a populist party’s foreign policy preference to be a mix of its idea of the divide between elites and the people and the broader ideology from which it borrows. Similarly, we expect that the closer the party is to the corridors of power, the more likely its foreign policy preferences will be reflected in governmental policies (Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017). Congruent with the “second image reversed” approach in IR scholarship, we assume that international crises pose a challenge to political parties domestically (Verbeek & Zaslove, forthcoming). Especially when such events are perceived as threatening national survival, they may upset the dominant security narrative underlying a country’s political discourse, thus affecting initial threat management but usually dissipating after some time. It may also provoke a rally around the flag effect for the incumbent government (Lee, 1977). Such upheavals may impact politicians’ domestic positions. The Russia–Ukraine war may thus prove an advantage or disadvantage to populist parties.

Why the Netherlands?

From the perspective of comparative politics, the Netherlands is intriguing. On the demand side, since the mid-2000s, 18–22% of the electorate has consistently voted for a populist party (of the Left or the Right). However, on the supply side, the (right-wing) populist landscape is highly volatile, with a plethora of populist parties that pop up and then (often) disappear. At the time of writing in early 2023, right-wing populist parties hold 29 of the 150 seats in the lower house of the Dutch parliament. The largest is Geert Wilders’s PVV, with 17 seats. Thierry Baudet’s FvD lost three of its eight lower house seats to the breakaway Groep Van Haga in May 2021. In the Dutch Senate, the FvD lost 11 of its 12 senators to three breakaway groups despite its tremendous success in the 2019 regional elections, which defines the election of senators. The 2021 parliamentary elections ushered in JA21 (three seats) — itself another breakaway from the FvD — as well as the BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer Citizen Movement, BBB), which is less easy to classify as right-wing populist. Three months before the 2023 regional elections, scheduled for May 30, JA21 and the BBB were riding high in the polls, polling 7–9 and 11–13%, respectively (Louwerse, n.d.). The Netherlands is thus a political system where many right-wing populists compete for the same electorate (de Jonge, 2021). It also boasts a left-wing populist party, the Socialist Party (SP) (Meijers & Zaslove, 2021). However, since the report focuses on the populist Radical Right, we do not analyse the SP further.

The Netherlands is similarly intriguing from an IR perspective. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, as the United States sought to progressively limit its role in Europe, the country worked hard to improve its relationship with Russia, especially after the Obama Administration announced the “pivot to Asia”. The climax of these efforts should have been the celebration of 400 years of Dutch–Russian relations in 2013. However, 2013 ended awry due to unease over the Kremlin’s anti-LGBT+ policies, Russia’s jailing of Dutch environmentalists, and the Dutch arrest of a Russian diplomat over domestic violence (Walker, 2013). Nevertheless, the 2014 annexation of Crimea did not alter the broadly shared desire for better relations between Russia and the West.

This fundamentally changed with the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, almost certainly shot down by Russian-controlled forces in the area. More than 190 Dutch citizens were killed. The Dutch narrative of Russia quickly soured when Russia proved unwilling to cooperate with the official inquiry. The Dutch official reaction to the 2022 war was very outspoken, calling for tough sanctions against Russia. This call came despite the Dutch government’s decision to end gas production in the Groningen gas field in the country’s earthquake-prone north, making the Netherlands somewhat more dependent on gas imports from Russia (Sterling, 2022). However, Dutch dependence on Russian gas is low compared to other European countries. The new dominant narrative on Russia, which changed from (coveted) friend to (potential) enemy, was problematic to right-wing populists. The rally around the flag caused by the MH17 tragedy and, later, the war has made it more difficult for right-wing populists to claim that the elites were neglecting the people’s interests. Also, the reliance on international cooperation in NATO, the European Union (EU) and the International Energy Agency (IAE) made it more challenging to sustain the criticism of global liberal institutions as a “corrupt elite”.

Dutch right-wing populist narratives of Russia

The three major right-wing populist parties in the Dutch parliament (FvD, JA21, PVV) differ substantively in their narratives of engagement with Russia. Newcomer JA21 sticks closest to the Dutch government’s line. Wilders’s PVV explicitly condemns Russian aggression and accepts the temporary hosting of limited numbers of Ukrainian refugees. Overall, however, it remains more concerned with the consequences of Dutch foreign policy for the Dutch people rather than with direct involvement in the Ukrainian war effort. Baudet’s FvD, although never formally endorsing the Russian attack, has shied away from condemning Moscow. Instead, it seeks to paint a broader picture of geopolitical change (“the great reset”) in which the EU’s support for “colour revolutions” in the post-Soviet sphere has prepared the ground for this war. Before describing the narratives in more detail, we emphasize that for the FvD and the PVV, resistance against the EU–Ukrainian association treaty through a non-binding referendum in 2016 was important in mobilizing domestic electoral support. The 2022 war poses the populist Radical Right with a dilemma: either support a country they previously called corrupt and not worthy of European support or continue to be critical of Ukrainian at the risk of ending up in the pro-Russia camp (see Coticchia & Verbeek, in press).

The PVV, being the oldest of the three, had consistently criticized the EU’s opening to Ukraine in the 2010s. It did not condemn the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 (only a parliamentary minority of the CDA, D66, and the Greens supported a condemnation of Russia). The downing of MH17 made the PVV more critical of Russia, but the party argued that EU support for Ukraine had contributed to further escalation in the Donbas. In 2016, Wilders strongly opposed the association treaty with Ukraine and moved closer to Russia by describing Putin as a “true patriot” and depicting Russia as an ally in fighting terrorism and immigration (de Jong, 2018). Nevertheless, in its electoral manifesto, the PVV insisted that the perpetrators of the MH17 shooting be brought to justice (Partij voor de Vrijheid, 2020, p. 48). Wilders condemned Russian aggression in 2022 but considered the earlier prospect of Ukraine’s NATO membership an escalatory step.

In Wilders’s tweets and the PVV’s contributions to parliamentary debate, the war itself was seldom addressed but rather instrumentalized through the prism of the needs of the Dutch people. Wilders tweeted on March 18 2022: “I have sympathy for Ukrainians, but I represent the one million Dutch citizens who have elected me” (Wilders, 2022). During parliamentary debates, the PVV emphasizes the cost of the war for the Dutch people, linking high inflation and gas prices to sanctions on Russia. This is consistent with the PVV’s welfare chauvinist economic positions. Regarding parliamentary actions, the PVV and the FvD supported an unsuccessful motion to declare Dutch neutrality in the conflict in late February and an unsuccessful motion to stop sanctions against Russia in early June, while JA21 opposed both motions (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2022a, 2022c). The PVV hinted at a willingness to house a limited number of Ukrainian refugees (preferably in the region or by expelling other refugees). Furthermore, the party leverages sympathy with Ukrainian refugees rhetorically (by labelling them “real refugees”) as a counterpoint to other refugees (which they label “the wrong kind of foreigners”) (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2022b).

The FvD has never formally approved Russia’s actions but has consistently argued that prior EU and NATO offers of (eventual) membership to Ukraine, including the association treaty, were conducive to the war. Starting from the notion that morality in international relations is absent, Baudet invests considerably in communicating a perspective that, he claims, qualifies the dominant story on the war in the West. Through blogs, tweets, and the organization of a conference in Amsterdam to present an alternative perspective, he presents arguments that align with the Russian narrative, including the demand for the protection of the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine. Positioning his view within a warning against the so-called “great reset”, Baudet presents NATO expansion, the colour revolutions, and the Arab Spring as part of an American ambition to achieve regime change across the globe (Baudet, 2022). Whereas Wilders thus downplays the war and focuses on the needs of the Dutch people, Baudet frequently engages with the events and interprets the war from the perspective of his view on world politics. Unlike many populist Radical Right parties, the Forum is not welfare chauvinist but rather market liberal. The cultural dimension and the larger global narrative are much more important for Forum’s justification of its support of Putin than is its market liberalism.

In its inaugural manifesto, JA21 did not address the Russian annexation of Crimea and Donbas or its involvement in the MH17 crash (JA21, 2021). In response to the 2022 invasion, the party called for tougher sanctions on Russia, increased defence spending, and using the funds appropriated from Russian oligarchs to rebuild Ukraine. Interestingly, since the start of the invasion, the party has adjusted some of its stances towards Ukraine. Early on, JA21 opposed the supply of weapons to Ukraine, a position they abandoned shortly after the start of the invasion. While the party opposed a parliamentary motion before February 2022 calling for unconditional support for Ukrainian sovereignty, it holds Russia (and Putin personally) solely responsible for the invasion (unlike the PVV and the FvD). However, JA21 remains opposed to Ukrainian membership of the EU, in line with their general opposition to EU enlargement. Like the PVV, JA21 rhetorically links the housing of Ukrainian refugees with other refugees (labelling the current situation as an asylum crisis). It further argues that Ukrainians should stay in neighbouring countries. The Dutch government should do more to support these countries and impose a cap on Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands, thereby preventing Ukrainians from seeking help on Dutch soil (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2022b).

Explaining position diversity on the Dutch populist Radical Right

Three factors help account for the diverse positions of the populist Radical Right vis-à-vis the Russian invasion of Ukraine: we focus on the combination of the party’s degree of populism and its attaching ideology and the nature of the party system.

Anti-elitism is an essential component of populism. A populist party’s anti-elitism emanates, in part, from its location within the party system. In other words, the more populist a party is, the more likely it will set itself against the established parties. The most reliable indicators of populism suggest that both the PVV and the FvD score high on the populist dimension (above 8 on a 0–10 point scale) (Meijers & Zaslove, 2021). At present, no existing measure of JA21’s populism exists. However, JA21’s actions within parliament, its conduct during the electoral campaign, and its party programme show that JA21 is less populist than its right-wing companions (references to the “pure people” and the “corrupt elite” are less prevalent).

The higher levels of populism displayed by the PVV and the FvD partly explain why these parties remain critical of the Dutch government’s handling of the situation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The fact that JA21 has not opposed the Dutch government’s policies is consistent with its lower level of populism. Nevertheless, it remains puzzling why the PVV mostly followed the government and condemned the Russian invasion, whereas FvD remained aloof and even came close to accepting Russia’s legitimization of the war. Understanding the difference requires insight into each party’s attaching ideology.

Regarding its attaching ideology, the PVV is a classical populist Radical Right party. It demonstrates a nativist nationalism, arguing that the Netherlands should prioritize native Dutch people over (especially non-Western) immigrants. This dovetails with its law and order orientation and welfare chauvinism. Foreign policy concerns, generally, are less important to the party’s identity. Its war narrative is congruent with this: in debates about the war, the PVV emphasizes the protection of the people’s material interests. It is neither essential for the PVV’s identity nor attractive to its voters to sit outside the mainstream by fully supporting the Russian invasion.

Similarly, the FvD is nativist and favours strict law and order policies. However, it voices a larger critique of the state of Western civilization, arguing that the West is decadent and in decline, endorsing Russia’s illiberal democracy as a viable alternative. The FvD’s positions regarding immigration and EU membership, for example, are couched in a broader story of the decline of the West, Europe, and the Netherlands. It pleads for a new global world order and sees Vladimir Putin as a pivotal player in this regard. The Forum’s steadfast defence of Russian foreign policy concerns is crucial for its identity. Forum, unlike the PVV, steers clear of economic arguments in its opposition to the Dutch government’s position regarding the war and Russia.

JA21’s more moderate position regarding the war emanates, in part, from its liberal-conservative ideology and the timing of its entry into the Dutch party system. JA21 was created by ex-FvD members who left the party, feeling that its leader Thierry Baudet had become too radical. Being a latecomer (the third populist Radical Right party on the block), JA21 had to find a space within an overcrowded system. As a result, JA21 chose a more moderate line than the PVV and the FvD, fitting its desire to present a more moderate identity and position itself as an eligible partner in a future centre-right governing coalition. JA21 is more moderate regarding its degree of populism, and its opposition to immigration, while its economic positions resemble more those of the governing VVD.

Public opinion research shows that the positions taken by the three parties largely reflect their respective voters’ positions. For example, fewer than 10% of the FvD supporters see Russia as a threat to Dutch national security, compared to roughly 50% of the PVV supporters and some 60% of JA21 voters. Similar trends hold regarding the support for Russian gas imports and sanctions on Russia (Houtkamp et al., 2022).

Lastly, the Dutch party system is open and fragmented. The system boasts a large number of relevant political parties producing a myriad of possible government coalitions, complicating government formation (Mair, 2008). Given the, albeit slight, possibility of the PVV joining a governing coalition, strategically, the PVV cannot situate itself too far from the mainstream. Consequently, the PVV places itself both inside and outside the party system. It threads the needle between being critical of the Dutch government’s policies following the Russian invasion without ostracizing itself from the positions of the mainstream parties. The FvD, on the other hand, has chosen to be an anti-system force. This is apparent in its parliamentary behaviour and its radical stances vis-à-vis, for example, COVID-19 and the war. Its recent efforts to create an alternative social space for its supporters is another expression of its anti-system approach. The FvD’s position directly contrasts with JA21, which presents itself as a comparatively moderate force within the party system, and as a potential coalition partner. Therefore, a radical stance regarding the war would harm JA21’s future ambitions, both in terms of its attempt to appeal to a broader electorate and its ambition to cooperate with mainstream parties.

Consequences

The Dutch government has been steadfast in its opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this regard, the populist Radical Right has not affected the government’s position. Although public opinion research (I&O Research/NOS, 2022) demonstrates that there is a (sizeable) market for a more critical position regarding the Russian invasion, support for Ukraine remains high. We observe a rally around the flag effect regarding Ukraine, contributing to the Dutch government having the leeway to support Ukraine. Although this effect generally tends to be transient, support for Ukraine within the Netherlands has remained comparatively strong (Houtkamp et al., 2022).

If the conflict were to continue for a prolonged period of time, this might change. The Netherlands is somewhat insulated from higher gas prices (in comparison with other countries) due to its own supply of natural gas. However, if the war were to continue, high energy costs and inflation might create a situation in which the more critical position of the populist Radical Right could become more influential, especially during an electoral campaign. Nevertheless, we do not expect the influence of the populist parties to dramatically change the government’s position. This does not imply, however, that the more critical positions of the PVV and the FvD have not been important for party politics in the Netherlands. On the contrary, their critical positions have served to solidify their position as populist challengers, demonstrated by what appears to be continued support among their constituents (Houtkamp et al., 2022).

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(*) Chris Nijhuis is a PhD candidate and instructor in the Department of Political Science at Radboud University, Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. His research concentrates on the impact of populist parties on the foreign policy of states, with a particular focus on the link between national identity and foreign policy.

(**) Bertjan Verbeek is Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at Radboud University, Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. He researches decision-making in foreign policy, including during crises, and the link between populism and foreign policy.

(***) Andrej Zaslove is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Political Science at Radboud University, Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. He conducts research on populism and political parties. He measures populist attitudes among voters and within political parties and examines the links between populism and democracy, foreign policy and gender. His publications can be found in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, West European Politics, Political Studies and the European Political Science Review.

References

Baudet, T. (2022). Tom-Jan Meeus (NRC): Columnist van de onderbuik. Forum voor Democratie. https://fvd.nl/nieuws/tom-jan-meeus-columnist-van-de-onderbuik

Coticchia, F. & Verbeek, B. (in press). When populist friends abroad hurt you at home: How populist leaders in Italy and the Netherlands coped with the Russo-Ukrainian war. In C. Lacatus, G. Löfflmann, & G. Meibauer (Eds.), Vox populi: Populism, political communication and performative leadership in international politics. Palgrave.

de Jong, P. H. (2018, March 2). Wilders herkent in Putin een ‘echte patriot.’ Nederlands Dagblad. https://www.nd.nl/nieuws/politiek/580031/wilders-herkent-in-putin-een-echte-patriot-

de Jonge, L. (2021). Is the (mass) party really over? The case of the Dutch Forum for Democracy. Politics and Governance, 9(4), 286–295. https://doi.org/10.17645/
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JA21. (2021). Het Juiste Antwoord. JA21 Verkiezingsprogramma 2021–2025. https://dnpprepo.ub.rug.nl/86186/1/JA21%20verkiezingsprogramma%20TK%202021%20definitief.pdf

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Sterling, T. (2022, July 7). Energy minister says Dutch braced for Russian gas cutoff, Groningen is last resort. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/energy-minister-says-dutch-braced-russian-gas-cutoff-groningen-is-last-resort-2022-07-07/

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Verbeek, B., & Zaslove, A. (2017). Populism and foreign policy. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. O. Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), Oxford handbook of populism (Vol. 1, pp. 384–405). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the opening of the Natural Gas Pipeline (Turkstream) in Istanbul, Turkey on November 19, 2018.

A foreign policy litmus test: How the war in Ukraine has fuelled populist rhetoric in Erdoğan’s Turkey

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Erdoğan, Emre. (2023). “A foreign policy litmus test: How the war in Ukraine has fuelled populist rhetoric in Erdoğan’s Turkey.” In: The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-wing Populism in Europe. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). March 8, 2023. Brussels. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0033

 

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Abstract

The war in Ukraine is a defining historical moment that demonstrates the limitations of contemporary politics. Even the most pessimistic scholars did not conceive of a direct military conflict in the heart of the Eurasian landmass. Moreover, this conflict has exposed the limitations of populism in foreign policy. Despite rare instances of rhetorical cooperation with Russia, the populist politicians of Europe remained committed to Atlanticist foreign policies. Turkey, a textbook example of populist governance, offers a superb illustration of how the international zeitgeist constrains populist politicians’ goals. The “balanced” approach of Turkey’s foreign policy, which is dictated by its asymmetrical interdependence with Russia, aims to strengthen Turkey’s role as a regional force through mediation. In the meantime, the pressure of upcoming presidential elections and the country’s economic position are additional obstacles. An examination of Erdoğan’s speeches over the past year reveals that he has replicated this balanced approach in his discourse as the leader of Turkey.

Keywords: Turkey; Ukraine–Russia war; foreign policy; populism.

 

 

By Emre Erdoğan* (Istanbul Bilgi University)

Introduction

The war in Ukraine has become a litmus test for European politicians. The unexpected conflict in Europe has prompted a revaluation of the capabilities of nation-states and international organizations. The same war has also served as a stage on which political leaders from several nations can perform for various audiences, domestic and international. Contrary to expectations, the Russians did not conquer Kyiv in a few days, and Ukraine’s resistance to unprovoked aggression has become a model for the world. The swift and decisive response of NATO and the European Union (EU) was equally unexpected, transforming the situation into a battle of attrition.

Among the numerous unanswered questions the war has brought to the fore, the responses of populist leaders’ have received significant attention. First, the working assumption has been that all populist leaders at least sympathized with Putin’s regime, if not directly under Russian influence. Second, the war has been framed and presented as a conflict between autocracy and democracy and between East and West, forcing us to consider which camp populists would favour. Third, the war generated an influx of refugees into parts of Europe that have exhibited fiercely anti-immigrant sentiments for some time. The question has thus been whether populist leaders would take advantage of this opportunity to garner support. Lastly, it is unknown whether the economic challenges caused by rising energy costs and the disruption to global trade will favour populist parties at the polls. A series of crucial elections in 2023 will shed light on these unanswered questions and the effects of the Ukraine conflict as it enters its second year.

Turkey, like Ukraine, a Black Sea country, now enters its second decade with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the helm. Erdoğan—a textbook example of a twenty-first-century populist politician—has been characterized as Russia’s “Trojan Horse” in NATO. Turkey’s leadership has strong authoritarian tendencies, and the country hosts more than 4 million refugees, contributing to social tension. In addition, the Ukraine conflict erupted as Turkey confronts two roiling crises — a war against militants along its long border with Syria and an ongoing economic crisis. As a NATO member, Turkey is central to the Western response to the war.

In this report, I will detail the reaction of Turkey’s populist leadership to the crisis, beginning with a brief review of populist foreign policy and concluding with a summary of Turkish foreign policy throughout the war. I will conclude by discussing Erdoğan’s speeches about the war and demonstrating how he has leveraged the conflict to reinforce his position as a strong leader.

Populist foreign policy

The global rise of populist leaders attracted the attention of experts to policy differences. Although there is no consensus on the definition of populism, Mudde’s minimalist definition is the most widely accepted. According to Mudde (2004), populism is

an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the “volonté Générale” (general will) of the people. (p. 543)

 Another group of scholars define populism as a style that includes “an appeal to ‘the people’ as both the audience and the subject embodied; a resort to ‘bad manners’ and coarsened political rhetoric; and a representation and performance of crisis, breakdown, and threat” (Moffitt, 2016, p. 46). Populism has also been perceived as a strategy, a set of methods or instruments mobilized by politicians in political competition. Weyland defines this strategy as “direct, unmediated, uninstitutionalized support from large numbers of mostly unorganised followers” (Weyland, 2001, p. 14). A newly developed synthesis presents populism in an ideational form integrating ideological and discursive approaches and excluding strategy or tactics. This approach’s essential set of ideas or beliefs is defined as the belief in the sovereignty and the moral superiority of people, presented as a homogenous unit.

All of these definitions share similarities that provide hints about the foreign policy populists pursue when they attain power. Nonetheless, I must emphasize that the influence of populists on foreign policy may be limited. If a nation’s foreign policy is institutionalized and based on the consensus of several societal actors, the influence of politicians may be somewhat constrained. Foreign policy provides politicians with less space for flexibility than other policy sectors. Ideology is another aspect that influences the foreign policy practices of populist parties in government. Several studies demonstrated that the standing of populist political parties is determined by whether they are right- or left-wing (Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017). Finally, we must consider the structural aspects of a country that influence the foreign policy practices of populists, such as geography, economic development, and established commitments or alliances (Destradi et al., 2021).

Due to populists’ Manichean worldview, which sets the people and elite at opposite ends of the spectrum, their foreign policy preferences are expected, in the first instance, to reflect their anti-elite orientation. This elite may be identified at the national level as capitalists, bankers, and bureaucrats, while foreign elites, such as international organizations and bureaucrats, may serve as useful scapegoats. Consequently, we expect populist leaders to be opposed to international institutions and counter-majoritarian entities (such as courts) at home or abroad.

Second, the notion of the “pure people” may influence populist international policies. A homogenous “us” is always positioned against “them” in populist discourse. Consistent with the nationalist perspective, the nation is the primary component of “us”. In the context of foreign policy, however, “the people” may encompass or draw on transnational elements such as religion, race, ethnicity, and social class. Populists thus define “the Other” automatically in contradistinction to the “pure people”.

As populist leaders position themselves as the authentic representation of the will of the people, this strategy will contribute to the concentration of governance in the hands of the populist leader. In conjunction with an antipathy to national elites, populist politicians favour de-institutionalizing and politicizing foreign policy. The ontological grounds of populist policies are incompatible with the notion that foreign policy is a technocratic arena ideally administered by a rational bureaucracy. Thus, a desire to displace foreign policy bureaucracies and personalize foreign policy decisions under populist governance is foreseeable (Destradi et al., 2021).

Scholars have posited that the individual characteristics of populist leaders may influence their foreign policy orientations in office. For example, it is often pointed out that populist leaders exhibit a very direct style of communication, eagerly assuming the role of “drunken dinner guest” in global forums and “agent provocateur” when confronting the distant policy prescriptions of international bureaucrats. Certainly, quantitative and qualitative studies have demonstrated that populists have distinct personality traits. However, it remains difficult to connect these traits directly to the foreign policies of countries led by populists (Nai & Martnez i Coma, 2019; Özdamar & Ceydilek, 2020).

In sum, researchers have concluded that the foreign policies of populist leaders are characterized by anti-elitism, the supremacy of the “pure people”, and the de-institutionalization and personalization of foreign policy-making. In addition, the discourse of populist politicians tends to emphasize victimization and nostalgia for an imagined glorious national past (Elçi, 2022).

Turkish foreign policy during the Ukraine war

During the Ukraine–Russia war, Turkey has adopted a “balanced” foreign policy approach to the conflict. In a broader context, this can be interpreted as a turning point in Turkey’s shifting foreign policy priorities. Since the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) assumed office in 2002, Turkey has favoured a “transactional”, “active”, and “assertive” foreign policy, eschewing the more cautious approach of earlier eras (Mankoff, 2022). The country’s urgent need for export markets and energy dependence pushed the government to establish close ties with the Arab and Turkic worlds. Meanwhile, the ruling elite’s ideological orientation fostered a desire to take a leading role in the Muslim world and serve as a bridge between East and West. This “assertive” policy’s short-term success ended with the Arab Spring and the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

According to observers, 2016 marks a turning point in the Turkish government’s foreign policy. After the departure of Ahmet Davudoğlu, the architect of the new foreign policy, and the government’s growing security worries, the ruling class embraced more realistic foreign policy objectives. The soft power strategy that aimed to engage Arab societies in the region has been cancelled. Instead, the government envisioned an autonomous foreign policy based on the country’s military capabilities. Prior to the epidemic, Turkey supported the rebels in Syria’s civil war, while relations with Egypt and Israel were nearly frozen due to support for Hamas and the Muslim Brothers. Tensions remained with Greece over disputes in the Aegean Sea.

These shifts split the Arab world nearly in two. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were unequivocally opposed to Turkey’s aggressive participation in the domestic affairs of Arab countries and its aspirations for leadership. Turkey’s close relations with Qatar were insufficient to compensate for sour relations with the other Arab powers. In the meantime, Turkey and the United States were at odds due to Ankara’s conflict with the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG), the United States’ closest partner in the region (Keating, 2022; Pierini, 2022; Tapia, 2022).

However, after the epidemic, Turkey followed a more “realistic” approach due to the changing international situation. First, the Biden administration was less tolerant of Ankara’s foreign policy adventurism in the Middle East. Second, the economic and political challenges in Turkey compelled the government to seek international backing and increase financial inflows. Turkey reached out to mend fences with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, initiated discussions with Armenia and restored diplomatic relations with Israel. Third, Ankara’s preoccupation was keeping the Kurdish insurgent PKK and ISIS at bay and constructing a secure oil pipeline to offset rising energy expenses. Fourth, the approaching presidential elections have heightened economic and trade policy, not least the significance of Europe as Turkey’s principal export market (Tapia, 2022; Pierini, 2022).

The Ukraine–Russia war coincided with this “U-turn” in Turkey’s foreign policy, and Turkey sought to execute a “hedging” strategy navigating between Russia and the United States. Throughout history, Turkey’s ties with Russia have fluctuated between frigid antagonism (as in the Cold War), rivalry (mostly in Central Asia and the Caucasus), as well as indirect confrontation and forced cooperation (as in Syria since 2013). After 2016, Turkey was compelled to keep Moscow on side, as Ankara’s role in the conflict in Syria deepened and reliance on Russian energy (and tourism) grew. Despite being on the opposite side to Russia in crises in Libya, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh (not to mention being a NATO member for seven decades), the Turkish government has not hesitated in playing the role of back channel to Moscow (Lesage et al., 2022).

On the other hand, relations between Turkey and Ukraine have traditionally been very close. After Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Turkey supported Kyiv and called on Moscow to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Turkey and Ukraine inked a strategic partnership agreement in 2020 and established free trade arrangements in 2021. Turkey has also provided Bayraktar TB2 drones (used by Ukraine’s armed forces against several high-profile targets since the invasion) and established solid military ties with Ukraine while signalling its support for Ukraine’s eventual NATO membership. At the same time, Erdoğan has slow-walked approving the Finnish and Swedish applications to join the alliance in order to extract political concessions in the lead-up to elections in May. Despite Russia’s reservations, Turkey continues to send Ukraine military assistance, including the Bayraktar TB2 drones, which have become an emblem of resistance. As these drones are manufactured by the company owned by President Erdoğan’s son-in-law, this circumstance has caught the attention of experts and become a highly contentious subject in Turkey.

Ankara’s unique positioning “between” NATO and Russia and its middle power foreign policy aspirations have driven the Turkish government’s desire to act as a mediator (Üstün, 2022). At the beginning of the war, Turkey urged both sides to find a peaceful resolution and attempted to act as a regional peace broker by utilizing its links to both sides. Ankara initiated indirect communication between Ukraine and Russia and planned formal talks with relevant parties in Antalya and Istanbul in March 2022. President Erdoğan has also dispatched special envoys to facilitate a peaceful resolution. Notably, Turkey voted in favour of the UN Security Council condemning the invasion while choosing not to join sanctions against Russia, which caused some trepidation among Western allies.

Turkey has also provided humanitarian aid to Ukraine and accepted refugees while accepting thousands of Russian nationals fleeing to Turkey after the Kremlin cracked down on media and dissent after February 2022 and sought to call up reserves to fight in Ukraine. Erdoğan also brokered the deal permitting Ukraine to export grain via the Black Sea under the supervision of the United Nations in July 2020. Ankara pushed several times to prevent Russia from reneging on the agreement. Turkey is one of the arrangement’s most significant beneficiaries of the deal. The Montreux Convention of 1936 handed Turkey control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, which connect the Mediterranean and Black Seas. This allows Turkey to limit the passage of naval warships and seal the straits to foreign warships during warfare or when threatened. Except for a few instances, Turkey has restricted the passage of all foreign warships since the war broke out.

Erdoğan’s rhetoric about the war

The aforementioned survey of Turkey’s recent foreign policy should not be read as a rationally planned sequence of actions aimed at leveraging the war’s gains and utilizing foreign policy to strengthen Erdoğan’s political fortunes. The most pressing challenge for Erdoğan is to win the upcoming elections, and his foreign policy of late reflects this imperative. He is an expert in winning tight elections against significant opposition, but his electoral “Midas touch” may no longer suffice against the backdrop of a deteriorating economy. The government has increasingly turned to populist boondoggles and “cash splashes” to stimulate economic growth, but it is unclear how these programmes will be supported. According to official estimates, inflation is running at 83% annually, and rising prices threaten Erdoğan’s chances of being elected because of the government’s unwillingness to hike interest rates. This is only exacerbated by rising energy costs during the war (Erlanger, 2022).

These concerns have a substantial international component, and it is impossible to distinguish clearly between domestic and international drivers when it comes to policy responses. Still, it is possible to analyse Erdoğan’s views regarding the war in Ukraine through the lens of his public pronouncements and discursive strategies. In order to do so, I have examined his speeches from January to December 2022, published on the Turkish presidency’s website and in various media reports across this period. I have calculated that in 123 of 224 public speeches during this period, Erdoğan discussed the war in Ukraine, although some references were brief and did not elaborate on the conflict in any great detail.

It is crucial to note that Erdoğan has a distinctive outlook on global politics and Turkey’s place in the world, which he sees as full of danger and knotty challenges. He has, paradoxically, long subscribed to the Turkish sense of “encirclement”, which sees Turkey as surrounded by hostile forces, whether it is Greece, Russia (and the Soviet Union before it), the United States, Kurdish separatists, or neighbouring states in the Middle East and North Africa. As a result, Erdoğan places stock in ensuring the Turkish government is sufficiently strong in military and economic terms to meet these threats (Euronews, 2022).

In Erdoğan’s discourse, clear divisions between “us” and “them” are manifest. This can be the “us” of Turkey set against corrupt “global elites” (he often criticizes the “Big Five” countries that control the United Nations and render it ineffectual; “the globe is more than five” is a frequent refrain). At other times, his discourse employs an “us versus them” dichotomy regarding the Muslim ummah versus the Islamophobic rest. And on occasion, Erdoğan foregrounds Turkey as a champion of the world’s “forgotten” peoples and the need for solidarity among the “silent majority” of poor and downtrodden nations (Batrawy, 2022).

President Erdoğan’s discourse vis-à-vis the war in Ukraine has typically reflected his general outlook. First, in the early days of the war, Erdoğan emphasized the legitimacy of Ukraine and reiterated Turkey’s support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. He framed the Ukrainian struggle as an issue of honour and independence. Over time, Erdoğan stopped repeating the same point in his presentations and adopted a more balanced stance.

Erdoğan has stated numerous times that peace is the final solution. However, the fighting parties were not to blame for the failure. The United Nations and the West hypocritically prevented the reestablishment of peace between the two countries, first due to their inability and secondly because there were actors who did not desire peace between them. In this speech, Erdoğan criticized the UN Security Council and repeated his slogan. Using this paradigm, Erdoğan pitted the West, the United Nations, and the permanent United Nations Security Council members against the world’s populace and legitimized his anti-establishment rhetoric (Batrawy, 2022).

As the West and big countries were hypocritical, Erdoğan argued that Turkey might be a facilitator (he emphasized that he did not prefer the term “mediator” for Turkey’s role). According to him, Turkey had deep historical ties with both nations, and his close relationships with their respective governments might help foster peace. He reiterated multiple times that he had direct conversations with President Zelenskyy or Vladimir Putin, as well as personal contacts. Using this story, Erdoğan portrayed himself as a world leader capable of resolving a significant catastrophe. In addition, he believed that the world’s leaders admired his efforts. Following the historical ties and his personal connections, Erdoğan emphasized Turkey’s diplomatic capacity and projected it as a regional force and the only nation capable of adopting a balanced approach (A-News, 2022).

Erdoğan emphasized his accomplishment in negotiating the grain deal. He argued that the balanced approach and friendly relations with Turkey made this agreement feasible, while Turkey’s presence fostered a climate of trust between the two parties. He represented the underprivileged by stating they had an immediate need for the food produced in Ukraine and Russia. He positioned himself as the ally of the impoverished Africans. Moreover, he emphasized that the General Secretary of the United Nations has praised this action (Batrawy, 2022).

Public opinion polls reflected Erdoğan’s balanced stance. In the early days of the conflict, surveys indicated that the Turkish public strongly supported Ukraine, with two-thirds of respondents deeming Russia’s action unjust and 78% favouring a neutral stance during the conflict. The majority of participants were concerned about the harmful effects of the war (Tahiroğlu, 2022). Some 44% of respondents supported Turkey’s role as a mediator in the war, while only 13% favoured an active engagement in the conflict. The remaining 40% of respondents favoured keeping neutral (Ünlühisarcıklı et al., 2022). Furthermore, 61% of Turkish residents were satisfied with the government’s response to the war in Ukraine, according to a study done in the summer of 2022; however, just 40% of respondents were satisfied with Brussels’ response, compared to the EU average of 57%. (European Commission, 2022). Transatlantic Trends of the German Marshall Fund revealed that just 43% of respondents supported sanctioning Russia, 30% advocated prohibiting gas and oil imports from Russia, and only 33% supported Ukraine’s NATO membership (Weber et al., 2022). In a study performed in the autumn of 2022, respondents expressed opposition to the sanctions against Russia (Henley, 2022).

Given the government’s low popularity, these numbers indicate that the Turkish public supported Erdoğan’s “balanced approach” to the Ukraine conflict. Of course, there may be cultural reasons for this favourable view of Russia, such as its historical legacy. Nonetheless, it appears that Turkish citizens are more pragmatic and that asymmetrical reliance benefits Russia. However, whether Erdoğan can convert this acceptance into electoral support is questionable, as economic hardships weigh more than foreign policy opinions.

Conclusion

The experience of Turkey during the war in Ukraine provides insight into populist politicians’ freedom for manoeuvre. The conflict has coincided with a U-turn after a period of “aggressive” foreign policy positioning and has given Erdoğan a chance to play the role of “bridge” and “mediator” once again. As a country with strong economic, political, and historical ties to both the West and Russia, Turkey nominated itself as a mediator in the conflict, aiming for a speedy restoration of peace in the region. To establish a back channel of communication between the warring parties and NATO, balanced activism of the Turkish government was needed. These efforts have been rewarded by praise from Western friends who have been increasingly dissatisfied with its democratic track record. Thus, Turkey strengthened its status as a bridge between East and West.

In the meantime, as presidential elections draw near, Erdoğan has not hesitated to utilize this changing role in the region. A seasoned politician, he has characterized the war as a result of the current global order. He has also preferred to place himself and Turkey in opposition to the West as the advocate and champion of impoverished non-Western countries. He has also used the opportunity to emphasize Turkey’s military, diplomatic, economic, and political strengths. For Erdoğan, Turkey’s success in maintaining a balance between the conflicting sides has been a distinguishing trait closely tied to his vision of the country’s role in the world.

Turkey’s experience demonstrated that populists in power have some leeway for flexibility in foreign policy but not enough to act as they like. However, these limits do not inhibit their determination to maximize the war’s opportunities.

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(*) Emre Erdoğan is a member of the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. With a doctoral degree in Political Science from Boğaziçi University, he has served as a researcher and senior consultant in various projects in academia and civil society. His research focuses on political participation, foreign policy and public opinion, child and youth well-being, methodology and statistics. He extensively studies and publishes about youth in Turkey, integration of Syrian refugee youth in Turkey, othering, polarisation and populism.

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Thousands of people attended a peaceful protest march at Independence Square for constitutional change of power in Minsk, Belarus on August 23, 2020. Photo: Dmitry Kalinovsky.

Mapping European Populism – Panel 7: Populist parties/actors and far-right movements in the Baltic countries and Belarus 

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Tusor, Anita & Escobar Fernández, Iván. (2023). “Mapping European Populism – Panel 7: Populist parties/actors and far-right movements in the Baltic countries and Belarus.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 19, 2023. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0009

 

This report is based on the seventh panel of ECPS’s monthly panel series called “Mapping European Populism,” which was held online in Brussels on December 15, 2022. The panel brought together top-notch populism scholars from three Baltic countries, namely Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Belarus. As a by-product of this fruitful panel, the report consists of summaries of the speeches delivered by the speakers.

By Anita Tusor & Iván Escobar Fernández

This report is based on the seventh panel of ECPS’s monthly panel series called “Mapping European Populism,” which was held online in Brussels on December 15, 2022. The panel brought together top-notch populism scholars from three Baltic countries, namely Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Belarus. As a by-product of this fruitful panel, the report consists of summaries of the speeches delivered by the speakers.

The panel was moderated by Professor Andres Kasekamp, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and included the following speakers: Dr Jogilė Ulinskaitė, Researcher at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science; Dr Mari-Liis Jakobson, Associate Professor of Political Sociology at Tallinn University; Dr Aleksandra Kuczyńska-Zonik, Head of the Baltic Department at the Institute of Central Europe/the Catholic University of Lublin; Dr Tatsiana Kulakevich, Assistant Professor at the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, University of South Florida.

Prof Kasekamp started his introduction with a brief overview of the four countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus. He pointed out the collapse of the USSR in 1991 as crucial for the four countries: While Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania already existed independently during the inter-war period (1918-1939) and gained their independence back when the Soviet Union collapsed, Belarus, on the other hand, emerged as a new-born state from the USSR. In addition, whilst the three Baltic states moved decisively to an alignment with the Western world, Belarus, ruled by the dictator Alexander Lukashenko, became a dictatorship associated with Moscow. The strategic alliance between Moscow and Minsk has lasted for decades; however, we have witnessed an intensification during the War in Ukraine. 

However, the Baltic countries have followed a different path. In 2004, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the European Union and NATO, and a few years later, they also joined the Eurozone, adopting the common currency. Nonetheless, their domestic politics have been conditioned by the fact that these states host ethnic Russian minorities, resulting in an ethnic cleavage for their home affairs. Prof Kasekamp highlighted that such ethnic composition is crucial in the current geopolitical situation since it reflects the popular opinion regarding the war in Ukraine. In other words, the Baltic states have regarded themselves as frontline states and have become the biggest supporters of Ukraine, measured according to the percentage of GDP per capita that they are currently spending on military and humanitarian assistance.

Prof Kasekamp followed his introduction by providing a brief overview of the current situation of populism in the aforementioned countries. He first stressed the importance of the well-known Cas Mudde’s (2007) framework, which identifies three main features of the populist radical right: nativism, populism, and authoritarianism. 

The moderator then provided the audience with a brief overview of each state. First, he addressed Latvia, a state characterized by new political parties doing well in elections. In fact, according to Kasekamp, in 2006, a political party that had not existed until that year won the elections, and ever since then, it has won each of the successive elections in Latvia. In this same line, the scholar also pointed out that new parties have performed well in recent elections. Thus, besides its volatility, the Latvian system has been opened for new populist challengers, namely the populist radical right. For instance, the National Alliance, the equivalent of the Latvian populist radical right party, has been in government for a long time as a junior member of the coalition that has been running the country since 2011. 

The case of Estonia is quite particular since there had not been any significant far-right or populist radical right party until 2015. In that year, a political party founded in 2012, known as EKRE, managed to cross the 5 percent threshold, thus entering the Parliament, and has grown since then. Nowadays, EKRE is the third most popular political party in Estonia. 

Prof Kasekamp also briefly tackled the case of Lithuania among the Baltic states highlighting that Lithuania has several populist parties from both the right and the left in the political spectrum. Moreover, he also quickly remembered that Lithuania already had a populist president that was impeached and removed from office in 2004. 

Lastly, Prof Kasekamp addressed the contemporary situation of populism in Belarus. He first indicated that, due to the authoritarian administration that is currently reigning in Belarus, there is not much political space that allows organized political activities and parties to emerge and thrive without being repressed. 

Dr Jogilė Ulinskaitė: “The Legacy of the post-communist transformation in the agenda of Lithuanian populist parties”

Lithuania lacks the so-called cordon sanitaire against populist political parties and most populist political parties, when elected, have frequently joined the government in a coalition. Bearing this in mind, Dr Ulinskaitė identified two interesting elements: she claimed that such populist parties, after having been in the governing coalition, tend to lose their outsiders’ appeal; as a second point, she argued that a distinctive feature of Lithuanian politics that differentiates Lithuanian populism from other Central and Eastern European countries is that the impact on democracies usually stems from populist parties taking over mainstream political parties.

Dr Jogilė Ulinskaitė started her presentation by highlighting that the findings and conclusions extracted from classic model countries where populism has succeeded, such as Hungary and Poland, should not be extrapolated entirely to other states simply because they share a post-communist background. By showing a time series obtained from the Liberal Democracy Index, she demonstrated that the effect of populism on Poland and Hungary has differed from the effects of populism undergone in both Estonia and Lithuania, for instance. 

Nonetheless, although the impact of populism has varied across different countries, the researcher argued that Lithuania started experiencing populism quite soon. More specifically, she referred to the case concerning Rolandas Paksas, former Lithuanian President, who was impeached in 2004. Dr Jogilė Ulinskaitė then showed the evolution of populist parties’ success since the early 2000s, pointing out that, in 2004 and 2016, they won more seats in the Parliament than the other principal competing political parties. 

Having said this, the researcher then wondered why, despite their success, populist parties have not been able to control state institutions in Lithuania. She identified two main reasons: the ongoing domination of the two main political blocks -the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania and the Homeland Union- due to the historical cleavage set during the post-communist transformation. And second, the inability of populist parties to maintain their voters’ support resulting in an impressive initial success that progressively ends up fading away. Regarding the latter, Dr Ulinskaitė highlighted two possible explanations for the fact that populist parties cannot maintain voters’ support: this could be because such populist parties usually build their electoral campaigns upon a particular project or community, thus failing to develop a comprehensive political program. Another explanation could be the complexity of the Lithuanian parliamentary electoral system, which consists of two rounds; to win in both rounds of the election, a political party has to have a strong political organization and a high number of members. However, populist parties do not meet these requirements and face several challenges when trying to attract new members. Further in this line, the regulations passed and implemented on extensive private funding in electoral campaigns have also limited their campaigns’ potential since political parties now receive public funding for their electoral campaigns according to their share of the vote in previous elections, thus reducing the funds at their disposal.

Nevertheless, Dr Ulinskaitė reminded the audience that Lithuania lacks the so-called cordon sanitaire against populist political parties. The researcher pointed out that most populist political parties, when elected, have frequently joined the government in a coalition. Bearing this in mind, Dr Ulinskaitė identified two interesting elements: she claimed that such populist parties, after having been in the governing coalition, tend to lose their outsiders’ appeal; as a second point, she argued that a distinctive feature of Lithuanian politics that differentiates Lithuanian populism from other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries is that the impact on democracies usually stems from populist parties taking over mainstream political parties. 

The researcher then focused her presentation on the recent victory of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union in 2016, which, through the combination of credibility and the reinvention of their project, became more similar to a social movement than to a traditional political party. The party’s campaign aimed to attract those who did not identify with either the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania or the Homeland Union. Furthermore, in terms of their ideology, the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union combined both right-wing and left-wing values, emphasizing, for instance, the role of traditional family and Christian values as the base of the society, the importance of public health, as well as the ongoing moral decay of contemporary societies. Dr Ulinskaitė then explained that although the party’s voters do not differ significantly in their ideological preferences from voters of other traditional parties, they can be described as citizens who are dissatisfied with the economic situation.

The researcher concluded her presentation by arguing that despite the decline in 2020 of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union, their legacy is still noticeable in Lithuanian society, as can be observed in their attempts to create a strong leadership, as well as represent the losers of contemporary times.  

Dr Mari-Liis Jakobson: “A Blossoming tree: The origins and present-day of the Estonian populist radical right”

Due to the economic and social progress experienced in Estonia, it was believed that there was no room for radical right parties and the far-right upon the electoral margin; however, this belief changed about a decade ago with the foundation of EKRE. Furthermore, it is also worth noting the existence of Blue Awakening, EKRE’s youth branch, which has a more radical and far-right ideology than EKRE itself.

The second presentation was carried out by Dr Mari-Liis Jakobson, Associate Professor at Tallinn University. She tackled the Estonian populist radical right, namely the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE), founded in March 2012. After obtaining 19 seats in the Estonian Parliament in the 2019 national elections, EKRE became the third most important political party in Estonian politics, though as of early 2021, it has clearly become the second most popular party in Estonia. 

Due to the recent economic and social progress experienced in Estonia, it was believed that there was no room for radical parties and the far-right upon the electoral margin. However, this belief changed about a decade ago with the foundation of EKRE. Furthermore, it is also worth noting the existence of Blue Awakening, EKRE’s youth branch, which has a more radical and far-right ideology than EKRE itself. Moreover, the Associate Professor also pointed out as part of the contextualization of the Estonian case the discontinuation of the Estonian Independence Party, the creation of the Foundation for the Protection of Family and Tradition, and the transnational “import” of the Nordic right-wing extremist group “Soldiers of Odin”, which can be considered as an informal movement of people whose aim is to “protect” the streets from immigrants. This extremist group surfaced in 2016, during the peak of the migration crisis. 

Nonetheless, Dr Jakobson stressed the long ethno-nationalist and anti-establishment tradition in Estonian politics, which can be traced back to 1988. This ethno-nationalist and anti-establishment tradition could be observed in the Estonian National Independence Party, founded in 1988, which aimed at the so-called liberation of Estonia and the re-establishment of the Estonian situation in the 1940s. Moreover, she also underlined other political parties, such as the Pro Patria Union and all its successors, which were part of mainstream Estonian politics. The countermovement to the aforementioned parties was the Popular Front of Estonia, which proposed a non-nationalist non-ethnocentric alternative. More recently, the Associate Professor also mentioned the Estonian Centre Party, which was founded in 1991 and with clear populist sentiments as well. Finally, to conclude the background of Estonian politics, Dr Jakobson explained the overall dissatisfaction in Estonia in 2011, resulting in several protests and demonstrations against the political elites for a variety of reasons of different nature; something that was quite rare in Estonia. 

Dr Mari-Liis Jakobson resumed her lecture on the populist radical right. She emphasised that -in addition to all the key features of populist radical parties -namely opposition to multiculturalism, defence of cultural nationalism, anti-establishment rhetoric, defence of traditional family values, anti-immigration stances, Euroscepticism, opposition to the US Green Deal, among others-, what made EKRE succeed in Estonian politics was its ability to manage to be on the opposing side alone, which means that no more political parties were embracing the above-mentioned stances as they were. 

Furthermore, the Associate Professor also pointed out the bad manners of the Estonian Populist Radical Right, which, for instance, during their participation in the government, they underwent 33 different political crises that were somehow created by themselves. Half of the aforementioned crises were scandals, which were outrageous expressions quite contested that ended up occupying the public discussion. More specifically, they managed to verbally attack the president, the leaders of other countries, the intellectuals, the minorities, as well as domestic policies from third countries, such as the US. 

Following her lecture, Dr Mari-Liis Jakobson also highlighted the organisation of EKRE. She said that, although being inherited in parts from the People’s Union, EKRE built up a well-functioning mass organisation that is based on ideology and conviction. Further in this line, the Associate Professor also mentioned that EKRE has notably democratic internal procedures, in which, for instance, candidates are elected according to popular vote on the district and local level and even their slogans are created by the people. This is why EKRE resembles a social movement as well. 

Dr Jakobson concluded her presentation by showing some of the outcomes of the participation of EKRE in politics, such as the platform they created against the Gender-Neutral Civil Partnership Act, their meetings and events during the migration crisis, as well as their institutionalisation in the government. The Associate Professor remarked on the imminent elections Estonia is about to undergo, which will indeed pave the way for the future of EKRE. 

Dr Aleksandra Kuczyńska-Zonik: “What attracts people to populism in Latvia?”

“Although populism is a very attractive ideology in Latvia as for a European Union member state, it is less effective than in other parts of Europe. The reason for this is partly the fragmented and unstable nature of the Latvian political system, as well as the fact that these parties have gained huge support relatively fast, but they have lost this support even faster.”

The third presentation was carried out by Dr Aleksandra Kuczyńska-Zonik, who showed Latvia as a more extraordinary case among the three Baltic states despite the many similarities between the mentioned countries. Her lecture asked the question, “What attracts people to populism in Latvia?” and outlined the statement that populism is indeed an ideology which attracts Latvians due to several features of the society which make this phenomenon work.

First of all, there have been high and quite unrealistic expectations about the new democratic regime following 1991. However, after a couple of years, economic problems, and issues with the implementation of democracy pushed society towards an apolitical state, where people were less and less involved in democracy itself. Economic development and gains were expected to be achieved quickly after the democratic transformation, but it proved to be inapproachable during such a short time span. This realization came at a time when social and economic inequalities became more visible. We can interpret this situation in alignment with the disenchantment theory, according to which relatively high social enthusiasm at the beginning of the 1990s became lower and lower because of the poor economic and political performance of state institutions. This “discrepancy between the expected advantages of the new system and the experience with real democracy” (Reykowski, 2020: 155) led to frustration and disillusion among people who experienced worsening economic difficulties, unemployment, political scandals, and corruption. People withdrew from political participation, became apathetic and had little confidence in democratic institutions. We can find several such elements in the political environment of Latvia throughout the 1990s. 

Furthermore, Dr Kuczyńska-Zonik highlighted that the country’s demographic situation is another notable feature of Latvian society, making it receptive to populism. The Baltic state is divided into two main ethnic groups: Latvians and Russians. The latter constitute more than 30 percent of the Latvian population, creating another major cleavage, division and form of inequality in the country. Due to this political environment and social inequality, a basis for the attractiveness of populist ideology was created. 

Dr Kuczyńska-Zonik then moved on to describe the current populist landscape in Latvia: One of the parties in the current government, National Alliance, established in 2010, is a party which can also be described as a right-wing populist party. It holds a far-right ideology, and it is a conservative, anti-immigrant, and Eurosceptic party. In 2018, the party won 13 seats, which it could also maintain during the 2022 Latvian parliamentary elections. The researcher mentioned two other populist parties, one of which, ‘Who owns the State?’, ran in the 2018 elections and quickly gained 7 percent of support, which was relatively promptly lost. This phenomenon, according to Dr Kuczyńska-Zonik, is significant and typical for Latvia: in a political environment described by an unstable government, a new party appears, which then disappears in a short time.

The other young populist party is Latvia First, which appeared on the scene only in August 2021 and shows similarities with another conservative newcomer party, For Stability! The latter was founded in February 2021 and gained support through its Eurosceptic and anti-vaccination rhetoric. The quick establishment of these parties happened just one year before the parliamentary elections, which is a requirement for running parties according to Latvian law to have the ability to participate in the elections. Both populist parties promote Christian and traditional values and include social integration into their programs. Together, the two smaller parties gained around 13 percent of the votes exemplifying the relatively big support for populist ideology in Latvian society. As a result, it is no surprise that populism is viewed as the biggest threat to democracy, according to the newly elected Latvian President, Egils Levits. Since 1993, 10 to 20 percent of voters have voted for populist parties in the parliamentary elections.

In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic has made populists more and more vocal and visual as populist leaders have decided to organize and/or participate in mass demonstrations and rallies against the government, mandatory vaccination and restrictions. In fact, their activity has succeeded since society got frustrated with the pandemic situation in the country. Although Dr Kuczyńska-Zonik reminds us that among the Baltic states, Latvia had the highest rate of covid cases, and the vaccination rate was less effective than in Lithuania or Estonia. In this sense, Latvian populist anti-vaccination and anti-governmental narratives have worked.

Finally, Dr Kuczyńska-Zonik emphasized that although populism is a very attractive ideology in Latvia, as for a European Union member state, – in the long term -; it is less effective than in other parts of the continent. The reason for this is partly the fragmented and unstable nature of the Latvian political system, as well as the fact that these parties have gained huge support relatively fast, but they have lost this support even faster. In her lecture, the researcher mentioned several factors which are boosting the populist rhetoric in the country. For example, crisis situations like the pandemic have made people more and more vulnerable to such narratives, especially the elderly, the Russian-speaking minority, and people with low social status. Generally speaking, those dissatisfied with their economic situation, social status and politics in the country will present unfavorable attitudes towards the government. If we look at the social trust and support in the government in Latvia, we can realize that it is among the lowest in the EU – scoring around 20 percent (Kuczyńska-Zonik, 2021). This number steadily declines over time, coinciding with the growing support for populist parties. 

Dr Tatsiana Kulakevich: “Is populism in decline in Belarus?”

The first pillar of Lukashenko’s populism has been crumbling since 2020: the proximity to the people did not stand anymore as people could see the brutal repression and violence against the protesters. People started to question Lukashenko’s image. Moving on to the second pillar, the guarantor of peace, this image was shattered when the war in Ukraine began. Belarus appeared in the news as the other aggressor in Putin’s war. Finally, as a guarantor of stability, stability of the economy, Lukashenko’s image is also crumbling.

Dr Tatsiana Kulakevich presented the Belarusian case and started by emphasizing that, in the case of Belarusian populism, we do not talk about the far right or the left; we focus on Lukashenko himself. Secondly, to clarify the term, populism is not an ideology but a very ambiguous term, and it can be adopted by the left or the right. In Belarus, there are 15 officially registered political parties, and there are also officially not registered political parties in opposition. The key point here is that because the election process in Belarus is merely an administrative formality, political parties are largely irrelevant. 

Dr Kulakevich discussed populism as a strategy and a type of politics that claims to represent the opinions and wishes of ordinary people. This was Lukashenko’s strategy and worked for him for over two decades. He came to power after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1994 and has been in power ever since. His populism has three components: The first is creating a feeling of proximity between the people and the leader. This is exemplified by videos and images of Lukashenko doing agricultural work, meeting people in factories, speaking the informal language of the working people, and all the other actions to show he is a regular man like everybody else. Therefore, it is not surprising that he became known as ‘Batka’, the ‘father of the nation,’ which has only changed after 2020.

The second one was that he is a guarantor of peace. Plenty of books have been written about the strategy and the importance of the Great Patriotic War as a narrative in Belarusian politics which accentuates how much the people have suffered during the Second World War and why this should not be repeated because the Belarusian nation is a peaceful one. Even the national anthem starts with a phrase which asserts this peace-loving image of the nation. This line, “We, Belarusians, are peaceful people,” was adopted and accepted by Lukashenko himself in 2002. 

Finally, the third ingredient was stability, that Lukashenko is the guarantor of economic stability. Nonetheless, the Belarusian economy has never been transformed into a market economy, and it is surviving based on Russian subsidies and Lukashenko’s ability to balance the East and the West. So, as Dr Kulakevich stressed, when he did not like what Putin was saying, he released political prisoners in exchange for financial support from the European Union. This balancing policy saw a big challenge in 2019 when the Russian government decided to introduce a tax maneuver and gave an ultimatum during the price negotiations on the upcoming years’ natural gas and oil imports to the Belarusian leader, which resulted in Belarusians saying “that’s enough.” This dispute over oil and gas prices affected the Belarusian economy and pushed Lukashenko to diversify away from the reliance on Russian energy supplies (Kubiak, 2020). 

Expanding on her analysis of Belarusian populism, Dr Kulakevich pointed out that populism in Belarus worked because Lukashenko made people believe that the political elite was doing its best for them. However, his image of “not being a good guy” was exposed in 2020. This has not been sudden but gradual and is an ongoing process. What triggered this process? When Covid-19 struck, Lukashenko and his government had already been experiencing economic difficulties due to the Russian introduction of a tax maneuver. Ultimately, the Belarusian government could not handle the pandemic and left people alone. They had to find a way to take care of themselves since the government had abandoned them and did not deliver its promises.

People’s disappointment in their leadership has been reflected in the results of the 2020 presidential elections. Even after Lukashenko tried to suppress these figures, it became clear to everyone that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya emerged as the new leader partly because no one else was able to run. She could gather large support despite, for instance, the surprising choice of not embracing the historic white-red-white symbols. In her lecture, Dr Kulakevich explained that the Belarusian flag is red and green, but historical symbols are white-red-white. Tsikhanouskaya only embraced these historic colors later on. 

Demand for change has become visible; nonetheless, Lukashenko claimed to have won the elections with 80.1 percent of the votes (Belarusian Central Election Commission, 2020). He claimed a landslide victory for the 6th time in a row, and although there have been protests before, this time, it was different. People started to question the three pillars of his populism: guarantor of stability, the man of the people and guarantor of peace. The months-long protest broke out, but protesters met with brutality, suppression, physical violence, and torture, which were internationally documented. The researcher highlighted that Belarus currently has more than 1000 political prisoners (EEAS, 2022), which is unprecedentedly high.

The second half of Dr Kulakevich’s lecture described how the above-mentioned components of Lukashenko’s populism started to crack. The first pillar of Lukashenko’s populism has been crumbling since 2020: the proximity to the people did not stand anymore as people could see the brutal repression and violence against the protesters. People started to question Lukashenko’s image. Moving on to the second pillar, the guarantor of peace, this image was shattered when the war in Ukraine began. Belarus appeared in the news as the other aggressor in Putin’s war. So, Lukashenko lost the delicate balance between the East and the West.

Finally, as a guarantor of stability, stability of the economy, Lukashenko’s image is also crumbling. He has lost his ability to negotiate with the West, completely relies on Russia, the economy is still not transformed into a market-based economy, and he does not receive any external loans. In addition, along with Russia, Belarus is under a number of sanctions. Consequently, IT companies left the country, and no new businesses are coming to Belarus, leaving the economy in a troubled state.

Conclusively, Belarusian people are signaling a need for change. People were protesting the Belarusian regime before but not in this number. They embraced white-red-white symbols, different from the official red and green symbols observed as the ones covered in blood. Dr Kulakevich observed slow changes inside Lukashenko’s regime, which gave hope for change. These changes are also visible to the government, which is maintaining its repressive policies. Nonetheless, the three pillars of Lukashenko’s previously successful populism are crumbling. 

References

— (2020). “Lukashenko sworn in as Belarus president.” Belarusian Central Election Commission. September 23, 2020. https://www.belarus.by/en/press-center/news/lukashenko-sworn-in-as-belarus-president_i_119131.html (accessed on December 28, 2022).

— (2022). “Belarus: Statement by the Spokesperson on the political prisoners.”  EEAS. January 27, 2022. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/belarus-statement-spokesperson-political-prisoners_en (accessed on December 28, 2022).

Kubiak, Mateusz. (2020). “Belarus and Russian Oil: All Is Not as It Seems.” RUSI. July 7, 2020. https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/belarus-and-russian-oil-all-not-it-seems (accessed on December 27, 2022).

Kuczyńska-Zonik, Aleksandra. (2021). “Latvia: Social Discontent and a Decline in Trust in the Government.” Instytut Europy Środkowej. Oktober 2, 2021. https://ies.lublin.pl/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ies-commentaries-330-27-2021-1.pdf  (accessed on December 20, 2022).

Mudde, C. (2007). Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Reykowski, Janusz. (2020). ‘The Sources of Disenchantment with Democracy.’ In: Disenchantment with Democracy: A Psychological Perspective, Series in Political Psychology. New York; online edn, Oxford Academic, April 23, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190078584.003.0006

Far-right supporters clash with riot police during a protest against Marrakesh Migration Pact in Brussels, Belgium on December 16, 2018. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis.

Mapping European Populism: Panel 6 — Populist radical right/left parties and far-right movements in Benelux countries and Switzerland

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Devreese, Margaux & Galland, Martin. (2022). “Mapping European Populism: Panel 6 -Populist radical right/left parties and far-right movements in Benelux countries and Switzerland” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). December 23, 2022. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0008

 

This report is based on the sixth panel of ECPS’s monthly panel series called “Mapping European Populism” which was held online in Brussels on November 24, 2022. The panel brought together expert populism scholars from three Benelux countries and Switzerland. As a by-product of this fruitful panel the report consists of brief summaries of the speeches delivered by the panelists.

By Margaux Devreese & Martin Galland

This report is based on the sixth panel of ECPS’s monthly panel series called “Mapping European Populism,” which was held online in Brussels on November 24, 2022. ECPS organizes a panel series composed of 10 monthly sessions to map European populism, bringing scholars together every month to discuss the state of political populism in a different region of Europe. On November 24, the panel brought together expert populism scholars studying the evolution of political populism in the Benelux countries and Switzerland. As a by-product of this fruitful panel, this report consists of brief summaries of the speeches delivered by the speakers.

The panel was moderated by Professor Hans-Georg Betz, Professor of Political Science, University of Zurich and included the following speakers: Dr Paul Carls, Researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research; Dr Benjamin Biard, Researcher at the Center for Socio-Political Research & Information (CRISP) and guest lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain; Dr Carola Schoor, Programme Leader for Public Affairs at the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL), Leiden University; Dr Alina Dolea, Associate Professor in Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy, Bournemouth University.

 

Dr Paul Carls: “Right-wing populism in Luxembourg: An exception to the rule?”

Dr Carls highlighted the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR) as the only party which fits the profile of right-wing populism in the case of Luxembourg, as there is no other party which corresponds. However, even the party’s designation as ‘populist’ could be seen as potentially problematic or, at the very least, as needing some level of nuance.

The first presentation was carried out by Dr Paul Carls, who sought to elaborate on the particularities of right-wing populism in Luxembourg and its curious context-dependent characteristics. Recognizing that Luxembourg is a comparatively small country, there has been relatively little scholarly attention regarding its right-wing populism. Dr Carls cites some of the more notable existing literature, including Lucien Blau’s Histoire de l’extrême droite au Grand-Duché du Luxembourg au XXe siècle (2005), Philippe Poirier’s L’ADR: de la recherche de l’équité à la construction inachevée d’un mouvement conservateur et souverainiste (2012), and more recently Leonie de Jonge’s The success and failure of right-wing populist parties in the Benelux countries (2021), as well as Dr Carls’ own work in an article titled Approaching right-wing populism in the context of transnational economic integration: lessons from Luxembourg,published in 2021.

Dr Carls highlighted the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR) as the only party which fits the profile of right-wing populism in the case of Luxembourg, as there is no other party which corresponds. However, even the party’s designation as ‘populist’ could be seen as potentially problematic or, at the very least, as needing some level of nuance. The ADR, Dr Carls explains, was founded in 1987 as a single-issue pension-reform party. It gained traction in the 1990s, helping in getting its proposed reforms passed, and transitioned into a fully-fledged party by 2006 by incorporating other talking points and core issues. Electorally, the ADR has always been present, though never in great numbers. In 2018, they acquired 8.3 percent of the vote, translating into four seats out of 60 in the Luxembourgish parliament.

Following this brief history of the ADR, Dr Carls addresses the perspective he adopts when looking at this party within the scope of the existing definitions of right-wing populism. In his view, there are two meanings of right-wing populism: right-wing populism as ‘proto-fascistic,’ which is the definition which applies to parties and phenomena in most countries, as well as the way that the secondary literature and the mainstream media perceive right-wing populism to be. Right-wing populism, in its ‘literal’ definition, is a political group and/or party that distinguishes between the people and the elite, adopting a discourse that unequivocally separates these two groups. 

Dr Carls places the ADR firmly in the second camp, stating that the party has undeniably conservative positions but without the extremisms and xenophobic tendencies of traditional right-wing populist parties. While it maintains a certain distance from far-right parties in neighboring countries, like the Rassemblement National (RN) in France and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, the ADR still has the basic features of a right-wing populist party; namely, that, at its core, has both horizontal (Luxembourg as a nation against outgroups like Muslims, feminists, and multiculturalists) and vertical societal exclusions (people versus the elite). As such, in terms of its discourse, the ADR presents itself as a right-wing populist party in a literal sense and not in a proto-fascistic way and does not actively seek to undermine Luxembourgish democracy.

Exploring the specificities of the ADR’s discourse, Dr Carls takes up two cases as examples. The first was the constitutional reform debate in 2015, which included three amendment measures to the Luxembourgish constitution. One of these measures included incorporating the right for foreigners to vote in Luxembourgish elections if they followed a number of conditions. In a speech at the parliament, Gaston Giberyen of the ADR accused the present government of going against the wishes of the Luxembourgish people and no longer having their trust, using the term ‘Vollek’ (similar to the German ‘Volk’) to reinforce his argument further. In the ensuing referendum, over 78 percent of voters voted against the measure to grant foreigners the right to vote. For Dr Carls, this is a fairly clear example of the vertical exclusion espoused by the ADR, of a power-hungry elite which makes decisions against the will of the people.

The second example used was the burqa debate which occurred in Luxembourg over the course of four years (2014-2018), and the comments made by Fernand Kartheiser, member of parliament for the ADR, in response to a proposed burqa law which would outlaw the wearing of the burqa in the public sphere, which ended up passing. In the right-wing populist’s speech, there is a clear appeal to certain Judeo-Christian values of a humanistic heritage held by the Luxembourgish and other civilizational elements held by most right-wing parties around Europe. Nevertheless, in the same speech, Fernand Kartheiser mentions the need for immigrants to integrate “into a society that is multicultural, in the sense that many different cultures are found here.” Here, for Dr Carls, we see the unique aspect of the ADR’s discourse which sets it apart from other right-wing populist parties. The ADR appears to embrace immigration and multiculturalism, or at least a certain version of multiculturalism which corresponds to their conservative values. As a party, while the ADR does not exhibit strong xenophobic tendencies, it still contains the horizontal exclusions typical with right-wing populist parties around Europe.

For Dr Carls, this can be potentially explained through Luxembourg’s socio-economic structures. Luxembourgers have a privileged position in government, with many being able to work in government and the civil service, where the wages are very high. These jobs are generally reserved for people that are able to speak Luxembourgish, with much of the foreign and commuter labor doing most of the manual work (in construction, the service industry, etc.). With half of the country’s workforce being from commuters and recognizing that Luxembourg as a country profits a lot from immigration, it is difficult for a party to be strongly positioned against immigration. 

Additionally, it is generally accepted that the Luxembourgish language holds a preeminent role at a national level. In this instance, Dr Carls remarks, it is interesting that the ADR mobilizes itself quite strongly to defend the status of Luxembourgish, with the people that speak it (including regular people) as an elite, against a non-elite of foreigners and commuters. In sum, this multifaceted view of Luxembourg highlights why the ADR appears the way it does.

Dr Benjamin Biard: “The state of the far right in Belgium: A contrasted situation”

Despite its electoral success, Vlaams Belang, the right-wing party has never been in government due to the strict cordon sanitaire upheld by other political parties in Belgian politics. Without the cooperation of other parties, Vlaams Belang is not able to enact its policies, yet the party still holds a significant impact on the political process. Vlaams Belang’s popular discourse has an effect on the agenda-setting phase of the policymaking process, and their party member’s presence on the board of public structures affects the political norms of institutions.

Our second speaker, Dr Benjamin Biard, presented his insights on the manifestation of the far-right parties in Belgium, institutional mechanisms like the cordon sanitaire, and why far-right party support appears to be limited to the confines of Belgium’s federal divisions. Far-right parties have not had universal success across the country; in Flanders, we find that far-right parties, such as Vlaams Belang, have captured electoral support, while in Wallonia, Brussels, or the German-speaking region, similar parties fail to gain mainstream appeal. Dr Biard points out, however, that despite the varied success of the far-right in Belgium, none of these parties has been successful in joining the government, presenting us with a paradoxical situation. 

Before he continued, Dr Biard clarified his use of the term ‘far-right’ throughout the presentation. He utilizes a definition stating that the far-right is an umbrella concept that captures both the populist radical right and extremist variants of right-wing politics. The main difference between these two variants is their stance toward democracy; while the populist radical right parties challenge the foundations of liberal democracy, the extreme right rejects the constitutional order outright and aims at subverting the existing democratic norms. In using the term ‘far-right’, Dr Biard aimed at encompassing both of these political phenomena. 

The far-right movement in Flanders has been championed by mainly one party, a separatist right-wing party founded in 1979 under the name of Vlaams Blok. The party first experienced electoral success in the 1991 election when the party passed the symbolic threshold of 10 percent. Dr Biard noted that up until today, this day of Vlaams Blok’s electoral success is known as Black Sunday. Yet, the party’s success only grew in the following years in federal, provincial, and regional elections. The party reached its electoral peak in 2004 when it received 24 percent of the vote but was convicted of racial hate speech in a court of law soon after and forced to change its name. The party was renamed Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) but maintained many of the same positions as its predecessors. 

Under the leadership of Filip de Winter, the far-right party expanded its political profile beyond Flemish separatism and started promoting anti-immigration and Islamophobic positions. Their slogan, “Eigen Volk Eerst” (our own people first), incorporates this policy evolution and mirrors the positions of the French far-right party Front National. This anti-immigration position remained a central theme in the party even after it was rebranded as Vlaams Belang. The party’s position on Flemish identity, neoliberalism, and immigration has secured support in current Flemish society. This became evident in the 2019 election when the party received an 18.7 percent vote, second only to the right-wing party NVA. Since that election, polls have posited Vlaams Belang as the leading party in Flemish politics. 

Despite this electoral success, the right-wing party has never been in government due to the strict cordon sanitaire upheld by other political parties in Belgian politics. Without the cooperation of other parties, Vlaams Belang is not able to enact its policies, yet according to Dr Biard’s research, the party still holds a significant impact on the political process. Vlaams Belang’s popular discourse has an effect on the agenda-setting phase of the policymaking process, and their party member’s presence on the board of public structures affects the political norms of institutions. 

In Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium, far-right parties do not enjoy the same success. While in Flanders, Vlaams Belang is expected to accumulate over 20 percent of the vote in the following election, Wallonian far-right parties have historically not even reached 10 percent, and this is not due to a lack of trying. The Belgian Front National had achieved some success in Wallonia, consequently gaining a number of seats at the local, regional, and even European levels. However, the party later disappeared after losing a court case against the French Front National over the use of their shared name and imagery. Today, Wallonia is still home to far-right parties such as Nation and Chez Nous, but these parties remain marginal. The former conducts militant far-right, and Islamophobic activism that does not attract widespread electoral support, while the latter is a new party that is politically and socially isolated from the Wallonian citizens. 

The Belgian case holds a paradox where on one side of the country, far-right parties are finding widespread popular support, whereas on the other side, far-right parties are struggling to maintain their relevance and popularity. How can we explain this?

Dr Biard answered this question by arguing that it is not a difference in demands amongst Flemish and Wallonian citizens but a difference in supply. He presents that Belgian citizens hold similar demands for anti-immigration politics; According to surveys, a similar number of Flemish and Wallonian citizens believe that increased immigration leads to more criminality and employment issues. Dr Biard suggests we turn to look at the supply-side factors instead. 

Far-right parties face certain obstacles in Wallonia that limit their ability to cater to citizens’ far-right sentiments. First, extreme right parties in Wallonia compete with one another for electoral support, thus impairing their ability to grow relevant. Second, these parties have lacked strong charismatic leaders that pull voters towards them and mobilize crowds. While this is not a requirement for successful far-right parties, it is a noticeable difference to Vlaams Belang, which features Filip de Winter and Tom van Grieken as well-known party figureheads. Next, the civil society organization in the two regions operate in different capacities. According to Dr Biard, there are more civil society organizations in Wallonia focused on unmasking and physically protesting these far-right activities. Fourth, Wallonia maintains a formalized media cordon sanitaire, effectively barring far-right speakers and politicians’ access to media outlets like TV and radio. Finally, Dr Biard posits that Wallonian politicians lack the ideology and regional lore to stir up the Wallonian nationalism necessary for their parties. 

Dr Carola Schoor: “The mainstreaming of populism in the Netherlands”

“The development of populism in the Dutch parliament has grown in proportion in the last decade (from 21 percent to 30 percent), with recent polling showing an even greater rise (up to 45 percent), which highlights a particularly volatile political landscape with populist voices on both the left and the right.”

The following topic was presented by Dr Carola Schoor, who spoke on the ‘Mainstreaming of populism in the Netherlands.’ Dr Schoor first addressed her presentation’s definition of populism, pointing out that there exists considerable discussion on what populism is and the confusion about the relationship between populism and the far-right. Dr Schoor takes populism as a discourse style, as per the definition by Ernesto Laclau (2005), and she expands on it by following the notion of Teun van Dijk, whose theory on discourse and ideology identifies three discourse dimensions: discourse structures (ideas); discourse use (presentation); and the social dimension of discourse (social relations). Populism, as such, is in close connection to elitism and pluralism and is, therefore, a relative definition, meaning that it is context-dependent. For Dr Schoor, nothing is populist in itself, though one could assert that a given statement or politician is “more populist than elitist or pluralist.”

Before exploring the state of populism in the Netherlands, Dr Schoor first explains her method of analysis in her study. To fully explore the relationship between populism, elitism, and pluralism, Dr Schoor analysed the language structure beneath political language, in brief, all the way the word populism is used in political discourse. In her research, principally examining politicians from the United States and the United Kingdom as well as others, Dr Schoor highlights the existence of six political styles and how politicians relate to these styles. These styles include elitism, pluralism, and populism, as well as anti-elitism, anti-pluralism, and anti-populism, with the relationship between the styles bound together by the discourse structures of ideas, presentation, and social relations. The ideational dimension is whether politicians see the people as diverse or as one; the presentational dimension is whether they present themselves as ordinary voters or politicians; and finally, the social dimension highlights whether the politicians are part of the elite or the people. Through these connections, one can assess the performance of global leaders and their relationship to populism, and Dr Schoor’s research generally found that right-wing populists mostly combine populism with elitism, whereas left-wing populists combine populism with pluralism. Finally, centrist politics exists as a combination of elitism and pluralism.

Before addressing populism in the Netherlands, Dr Schoor stressed that radical left/right politics does not immediately equate to populism and that every political style has democratic and undemocratic expressions. Populism appears as a reaction to undemocratic expressions of pluralism and elitism, and as such, it is important to study variants of populism, elitism, and pluralism to see where democratic boundaries are crossed.

The state of populism in Dutch politics is addressed in a ten-year frame between 2012 and 2022. The Netherlands exists as a multi-party system, almost always with coalition governments as a ‘polderen’ tradition which enshrines the notion of (political) cooperation. However, today’s politics appears increasingly fragmented and polarized. Historically speaking, populism, as it is understood, was never truly in the tradition of Dutch politics. In the 1970s, there was a small populist and pluralist wave, which was followed by the appearance of two small populist parties, on the left (the Socialist Party) and on the right (Centrum Party) in the 1980s and 1990s, though these two were not very influential and kept marginal on the political landscape. 

The second and far more substantial populist wave came in the 2000s, with figures like Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders of the PVV on the right, as well as Thierry Baudet, more recently for the FvD. The latest parliamentary elections also saw the rise of smaller-scale populist figures, most notably Caroline van der Plas (BoerBurgerBeweging) standing as a form of farmers populism, and Sylvana Simons (Bij1), an example of left-wing populism in the tradition of Black Lives Matter. The development of populism in the Dutch parliament has grown in proportion in the last decade (from 21 percent to 30 percent), with recent polling showing an even greater rise (up to 45 percent), which highlights a particularly volatile political landscape with populist voices on both the left and the right.   

Expanding on her analysis of the politics of style of these leaders, Dr Schoor points out five populist leaders in the current political landscape of the Netherlands. Geerts Wilders of the Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom) is the mainstay figure of Dutch radical politics, whom Dr Schoor qualifies Wilders as a true populist in terms of discourse, taking on characteristics from the left and right in terms of policy, but being thoroughly anti-elitist and anti-pluralist. A figure of the radical right in the Netherlands was Thierry Baudet of the Forum voor Democratie (Forum for Democracy), who rose to prominence during the referendum in the Netherlands over Ukraine in 2015 as being ardently anti-EU. The more recent addition to right-wing populism in the Netherlands is Caroline van der Plas of the BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer-Citizen Movement), who now stands as the voice of the people in the regions against those in the cities and appears to be dominating the political debate as things stand. To the left, a strong and emerging populist voice is Sylvana Simons of Bij1, taking an important pluralist and anti-elitist stand. Dr Schoor also points out the politician Pieter Omtzigt, formerly of the Christian Democratic Party, who has now become an independent following a fracture in his former party and is interesting for appearing to be driven into a populist discourse to demarcate himself in the fractured political landscape. 

Dr Schoor concludes her presentation by going over the reaction of ‘mainstream’ politics towards populism, stating that centrist politics appears to be reacting in two ways. The first is the anti-populism stance taken by politicians like Sigrid Kaag of D66, and the second is the discourse that there is ‘good’ populism as opposed to ‘bad’ populism, taken by the current Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the VVD. Generally speaking, mainstream politics appears to be taking in the criticisms of the populism opposition, with the general climate being one of uncertainty and confusion.

Dr Alina Dolea: “Populist discourses in Switzerland”

Switzerland boasts direct democracy through initiatives and referenda as one of the special features of its political system. Dr Dolea notes that this direct democracy is said to provide an ideal opportunity structure for the emergence of populist political communication because it allows political actors to push issues that resonate well with ‘the people’ to the top of the political agenda. As a consequence, Switzerland encountered a large number of referenda centered around the divisive topic of migration.

Our fourth and final panel speaker was Dr Alina Dolea, who presented her findings on ‘Populist discourses in Switzerland’ from a media and communication perspective. In her presentation, she presented the increased instrumentalization of country images and identities in debates beyond strategic promotional practices, such as debates on elections, referenda, or migration. More specifically, she analyzed how Swiss media constructed Switzerland’s image and identity in the debate following a 2014 referendum on migration quotas. 

Dr Dolea contextualized the Swiss case by briefly presenting the background and beliefs of the Swiss People’s Party. While the Swiss People’s Party (SPP) is not the only populist party in Switzerland, it is the most significant. The SPP originated through a merger of small farmer parties in 1971 that has grown into the largest party in Switzerland since the 1990s. Dr Dolea even says that the SPP can be considered one of the strongest right-wing populist parties in Europe. They have gained electoral success running on an anti-immigration, anti-EU, and anti-political elites’ platform, even maintaining these positions when in government. 

Scholars have noted that the Swiss People’s Party pulls from a specific type of Alpine populism. The ideology centers around the idealization of small-scale agriculture and the pure nature of the countryside, which contrasts with the impure urban and industrial environments. This idealization is also reflected in the people; the party promotes the idea that these communities champion values like being hardworking, honest, civic-minded, clean, and orderly, which allows them to successfully run a voluntary system of unpaid self-administration that does not require interference from Bern. This Alpine populism promotes a narrative of Swiss independence, neutrality, and exceptionalism which ought to be protected from cultural and identity shifts within the country.

Dr Dolea highlights that this branch of populism leverages the real fear of Swiss citizens of ‘losing their homes’ to incoming migrants. Migration to Switzerland can be traced to the time of industrialization in the 19th century when German and Italian migrants travelled searching for work. As Switzerland was in the process of conducting large railway projects that required a high level of workforce, many of these migrants ended up staying for a period. Between the 1880s and the 1920s, the number of Italian and German migrants nearly doubled, causing alarm for Swiss nationals who dubbed this the ‘over-foreignization’ of Switzerland. Dr Dolea aimed to show that this distaste for immigration has a long history within Switzerland, which can explain the country’s heated debates and referenda around the topic today. 

Switzerland boasts direct democracy through initiatives and referenda as one of the special features of its political system. Dr Dolea notes that this direct democracy is said to provide an ideal opportunity structure for the emergence of populist political communication because it allows political actors to push issues that resonate well with ‘the people’ to the top of the political agenda. As a consequence, Switzerland encountered a large number of referenda centered around the divisive topic of migration. Dr Dolea provided an overview of these referenda that ranged from 1970 to 2020, their background, and whether they were adopted. While policies like the deportation of migrant criminals, the banning of minarets, and migration quotas were adopted, a number were still rejected. For each of these referenda, SPP played a role in promoting anti-immigration policies through inflammatory poster designs.

To illustrate the role Swiss media played in constructing a country identity through facilitating these referenda debates, Dr Dolea mentioned the 2014 initiative ‘against mass immigration.’ The initiative was launched by the SPP and received support from just over half of the Swiss referendum voters. Dr Dolea found that media actors were able to leverage their powerful and visible position to (re)produce populist discourse around immigration as well as the Swiss national image and identity. 

Over the course of the month following the referendum’s passing, Dr Dolea studied the output of two journals, NZZ and Le Temps. The researchers studied the content from two angles. First, they analyzed the explicit content of the media discourse, namely the topics being mentioned, and how this operationalized the country’s image. They noted the frequency of references made to different dimensions of the country’s image and how it contributed to dominant descriptors attributed to Switzerland. Second, the researchers studied the implicit content of media discourse. More specifically, they looked at strategies and topoi the media outlets applied to construct, re-construct, and mobilize these representations of Switzerland. This angle aims to uncover the dynamics, interactions, and interplay between the different facets of Switzerland’s country image. 

The results discovered that media coverage focused extensively on the consequences of the vote and how it held normative implications for the country’s image and identity. In limiting migration to Switzerland through quotas, the referendum helped define who the Swiss people are, what defines them, and what Swiss values, principles, and norms are. Furthermore, the researchers identified three different types of discourses: (1) an institutional type of discourse, (2) an expert type of discourse, and (3) a political populist type of discourse. The researchers also discovered the strategic use of storytelling by the media to give voice to ordinary citizens who represent and symbolize a multicultural and diverse Switzerland. However, as a whole, the debate around the referendum perpetuated the idea of a threatened national Swiss image and identity using terms like the end of Switzerland and migrant malaise. 

Populist discourse through the Swiss media following the 2014 migrant referendum exhibited itself on two levels. On the international level, it reflected how others see Switzerland in an advantageous or inferior position, while on the national level, it reflected internal divides within the country. While before these internal divides were understood as “Us versus Them,” the media has shifted to discuss the difference between Us versus Us. The media discourse further delineates divisions in Swiss society, for example, the economic, cultural, and linguistic divide between the German, Italian, and French parts, the division between French Swiss and the rest of the Swiss, the class divide in Switzerland, and the factions of Swiss who seek unity while others seek independence.

Members and supporters of nationalist organizations participate in Lukovmarch procession - a march in commemoration of general Hristo Lukov in Sofia, Bulgaria on February 16, 2019. Photo: Shutterstock.

Mapping European Populism: Panel 5 — Populist radical right/left parties and far-right movements in the Balkan countries

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Tusor, Anita & Fernández, Iván Escobar. (2022). “Mapping European Populism: Panel 5 — Populist radical right/left parties and far-right movements in the Balkan countries.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). November 28, 2022. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0007

 

This report is based on the fifth panel of ECPS’s monthly panel series called “Mapping European Populism” which was held online in Brussels on October 27, 2022. The panel brought together top-notch populism scholars from four Balkan countries, namely Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. As a by-product of this fruitful panel the report consists of brief summaries of the speeches delivered by the panelists.

By Anita Tusor & Iván Escobar Fernández

This report is based on the fifth panel of ECPS’s monthly panel series called “Mapping European Populism” which was held online in Brussels on October 27, 2022. ECPS organises a panel series composed of 10 monthly sessions to map European populism, bringing scholars together every month to discuss the state of political populism in a different region of Europe. On October 27, the panel brought together expert populism scholars studying the evolution of political populism in the countries of Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. As a by-product of this fruitful panel, this report consists of brief summaries of the speeches delivered by the speakers.

The panel was moderated by Dr Emilia Zankina, Dean of Temple University, Rome, and included the following speakers; Dr Evelina Staikova-Mileva, Associate Professor of political science at the New Bulgarian University; Dr Sorina Soare, Researcher at the University of Florence; Dr Nedžma Džananović Miraščija, Professor and Researcher at the University of Sarajevo’s Faculty of Political Science; Dr Avdi Smajljaj, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Sciences and International Relations at Epoka University in Tirana.

Moderator Dr Emilia Zankina introduced the panel discussion by providing an overall framework in which she stressed the global nature of the populist phenomenon. Dr Zankina went on to highlight the current lack of conceptual clarity in delineating the exact boundaries of whether a political movement meets the criteria to be considered populist or not, which can be observed in the different approaches used in populism studies. In this overall framework, Dr Zankina laid out the three main ways of addressing populism.

The first and most utilized approach she referred to was Cas Mudde’s ideational approach (2004), where he coined the “thin ideology” concept. According to Mudde, populism is not necessarily a dominant ideology in itself but rather an ideology that encompasses different features from the left to the right in the political spectrum. According to Dr Zankina, the second major approach is to tackle populism as a discourse. This involves the analysis of the populist narrative and discourse employed by such parties in order to receive votes, as well as their relation with voters (see Poblete, 2015; Moffitt & Tormey, 2014). The third way is the strategic approach, which considers populism a political strategy adopted to gain power and votes, thus building parties’ political behaviour upon an electoral return that can be achieved through different ways, such as implementing policies or exerting influence on other parties’ policies (see Moffitt & Tormey, 2014). 

Although they have some differences, these three approaches share notions of the populist parties’ alleged proximity to the people and the common discourse of “us versus them.” In other words, according to Dr Zankina, these three approaches claim that populist parties share the ideas of the unnecessary role of political parties as intermediaries between the ruling power and the people, as well as a Manichean and anti-establishment narrative.

Moreover, several studies have also focused on the relationship between populism and democracy, leading to the conclusion that despite being authoritarian – following Mudde’s (2007: 15-23) framework – populist parties are not necessarily anti-democratic per se, since they actually benefit from democratic structures and institutions when pursuing and promoting anti-pluralist policies, which ultimately aim at denying rights to minorities and engaging in some sort of welfare chauvinism.

Her introduction concluded with reference to the case of the Balkan countries, where, in addition to the fact that Balkan populist parties somehow resemble Danish or Swedish populist parties, they have also integrated an ethnic component due to the multiethnic nature of most of the Balkan states. This has resulted in a type of ethnic nationalism more directed towards domestic minorities rather than external migrants. 

 

Dr Evelina Staikova-Mileva: “Normalization and radicalisation: the paradoxes of populism in Bulgaria”

“It can be observed that there is a clear tendency towards the normalisation of national populism in Bulgarian political life. This normalisation has occurred due to the cooperation between different populist actors who used to be marginal in Bulgarian politics and has resulted in the transformation of populism into a dominant factor in Bulgaria.”

The first presentation was carried out by Dr Evelina Staikova-Mileva, who aimed to conceptualise the dynamics among the different populist actors in Bulgaria. She began her presentation by distinguishing between Laclau’s (2005) definition of populism and Cas Mudde’s (2007) populist radical right framework. Dr Staikova-Mileva has chosen to use the term populism due to its broader scope, understanding it not as a political object per se but as a supporter of political practices. 

In the particular case of Bulgaria, populism emerged at a later stage when the Bulgarian democratic system could already be considered consolidated. According to Dr Staikova-Mileva, the Bulgarian democratic system currently hosts different types of populism. As such, her presentation strove to provide a nuanced categorisation of the different types of populism present in Bulgaria. She points to two main forms of populism in Bulgaria: first, those populist parties that, despite showing anti-elitist stances, support European political projects, and second, the minor national populist political parties, which are an important factor to consider regarding the 2005 emergence of the nationalist political party ‘Attack or Ataka.’ 

Nonetheless, in addition to the above-mentioned types of populism in Bulgaria, Dr Staikova-Mileva also distinguished between two other forms of populism, bearing in mind what is currently being researched by her academic colleagues. These two other forms of populism are soft populism and hard populism. Soft populism, on the one hand, would involve those actors that generate general appeals to the people through demagogic discourses. On the other hand, hard populism refers to those nationalist and xenophobic parties that have put an emphasis on narratives that boost “othering” in society. 

Having categorised the different types of populism, Dr Staikova-Mileva continued her presentation with a brief explanation on the normalisation of populism in Bulgaria. According to her, populist and radical actors have, over the past decades, mobilised through electoral and protest channels, succeeding in the radicalisation of the population. This happens to be an international phenomenon, as we have already witnessed it around Europe, the Americas, and other parts of the world; thus, it is not surprising that Bulgaria has undergone the same political phenomenon. 

Nonetheless, by looking closely at the Bulgarian case, it can be observed that there is a clear tendency towards the normalisation of national populism in Bulgarian political life. This normalisation has occurred due to the cooperation between different populist actors who used to be marginal in Bulgarian politics and has resulted in the transformation of populism into a dominant factor in Bulgaria. Besides boosting populism from the margins of society to the core of the Bulgarian political arena, this practice, according to Dr Staikova-Mileva, has also served to legitimise and propel smaller and more extreme populist parties, making them into an essential component in Bulgarian politics. This has been observed through their role as kingmakers in order to ensure the stability of different governments. This has forced mainstream parties to adopt some of their extreme nationalist narratives in order to stay in power. 

However, cooperation between populist parties alone does not fully explain this normalisation of populism in Bulgarian politics. This is why Dr Staikova-Mileva also stressed the role of the media in this normalisation process. It is known that the media has played a key role in spreading populist ideas to the population, serving as a platform for populist parties to gain greater visibility and popularity. 

The media, and television in particular, is responsible for producing a lot of populist leaders across European countries. As stated above, Bulgaria is not an exception in this case. As a matter of fact, Bulgarian media and journalism, instead of fighting populism, have served as a platform to spread their ideas, misinformation and fake claims across Bulgaria. 

Dr Staikova-Mileva concluded her presentation by overviewing the contemporary situation in Bulgaria. The ongoing Bulgarian political crisis has been exacerbated by the economic and health crisis that stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of the war in Ukraine. Populism can no longer be considered marginal in Bulgaria since it is represented not only by political figures but also by policies and practices that have already entered into force, thus shaping and exerting influence on Bulgarian politics, as well as affecting the lives of millions of Bulgarians (see Pirro, 2015: 197-200). 

To sum up, Dr Staikova-Mileva stressed that populism has already become both an adopted norm in Bulgarian politics and a suitable ground for the rise of even more radical movements, jeopardising the whole Bulgarian democratic system.

 

Dr Sorina Soare: “Speaking for the transnational people: the Alliance for the Union of Romanians” 

Dr Soare examined the three different layers that conform to the AUR’s definition of the Romanian people. The first layer refers to those Romanians who are within Romania. The second layer addresses the kin communities of Romanians. The third layer refers to the Romanian diaspora. Having seen this, Dr Soare stressed that the innovation that the AUR has brought along is its self-description as a transnational representative of the Romanian people within and beyond the Romanian state.

The second presentation was carried out by Dr Sorina Soare, who tackled a new populist party that emerged in Romania after the 2020 election: the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), founded in Romania in 2019. The researcher highlighted the fact that, although Romania seemed exempt from populism in their parliament in comparison to other European countries, populist sentiments had already infiltrated the mainstream discourse.

Carrying on with her presentation, Dr Soare pointed out that the turning point in Romanian politics occurred in 2020, when the AUR obtained 9.1 percent of the vote share, becoming the fourth-largest parliamentary party in Romania. It is worth noting that, before 2020, the AUR was a marginal and unknown political party, so their 2020 electoral success was somehow unexpected by both population and experts. According to Dr Soare, the AUR perfectly meets Cas Muddes’ (2004: 543) definition of populism, for whom populism is nothing but a thin-centred ideology that understands society as divided into two antagonistic and homogenous groups and that argues that politics should ultimately be an expression of the general will of the people. In Soare’s words, the AUR can be considered populist due to all the challenges the AUR constantly poses to liberal-constitutional democracy as well as due to its strong emphasis on nativism. 

Regarding the party’s name, it should be noted that AUR highlights the union of all Romanians, which is a direct reference to the unification project with the Republic of Moldova. Consequently, their nativist discourse refers to a multi-layered definition of their Romanian people, both within and outside Romania. AUR’s transnational definition of “demos” is one of their most innovative features as it contrasts with the traditional national view of this element. 

Looking closely at this multi-layered definition of the Romanian people, Dr Soare examined the three different layers that conform to the AUR’s definition of the Romanian people. The first layer refers to those Romanians who are within Romania and that are, in their view, at risk of not being properly represented by the cosmopolitan elites that have already lost the capacity to address the particular Romanian needs. The second layer addresses the kin communities of Romanians. In particular, these communities refer to co-ethnic communities in neighbouring countries, such as Serbia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the specific case of Moldova, where the Romanian communities constitute an ethnic majority within the Republic. Lastly, the third layer refers to the Romanian diaspora: those Romanians who have been somehow forced to leave the country due to economic reasons and that are perceived to be discriminated against in Western countries. Having seen this, Dr Soare stressed that the innovation that the AUR has brought along is its self-description as a transnational representative of the Romanian people within and beyond the Romanian state.

Nonetheless, instead of focusing on the reasons behind the AUR’s success, Dr Soare chose to tackle how the party’s redefinition of people impacted the electoral mobilisation of Romanians abroad. Consequently, she suggested that networks of Romanian migrants in Spain and Italy might have amplified the potential of the AUR at the national level. Moreover, the AUR had such an impact due to its institutional origins and its well-established and well-represented image abroad through the presence of around 22 branches of the party across different countries. This was considered to be one of the key factors that explained the electoral mobilization and support the political party achieved in the 2020 elections. 

Another key aspect of the AUR is its dual leadership. Thus, far from being a personal party like other populist parties across European countries, the AUR valorised, diversified, and routed a network of associations later brought into the party and diversified its leadership into different branches. 

Dr Sorina Soare concluded her presentation by pointing out that there is still some space in the literature to address populism from a transnational perspective, where differences are conceived between the ethnic people, the majority of Romanians within the state, and the co-ethnic Romanian communities in neighbouring countries. 

Dr Nedžma Džananović Miraščija: “The trends of the radical right in Bosnia and Herzegovina”

Dr Džananović Miraščija warns that the major danger of far-right parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina is their narrative, which should not be underestimated. Although they are marginalised and do not participate too directly in political life, it does not mean that they do not have a considerable influence on the ethno-nationalist parties that dominate the political stage. Moreover, unfortunately, these mainstream parties have normalized both hate speech and far-right rhetoric.

The third presentation was carried out by Dr Nedžma Džananović Miraščija, who presented the trends of the radical right in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her lecture sought to provide an analytical framework to review radical right populism not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina but also to compare similar trends in the region and across Europe by addressing some of the repetitive and authentic narratives present among radical groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

Populism did not skip Bosnia and Herzegovina, in fact, it is omnipresent and has been one of the major features of local political life in the last three decades. Yet, for decades, it was dealt with as nationalism or ethnic nationalism and was not necessarily labelled as populism or ethnic populism. Analyses of populist rhetorics show that it is a kind of populism which heavily leans on nationalistic ideology, yet, in the particular case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it best fits the model of ethnic populism as defined by Laclau (1977). 

The populist phenomenon in Bosnia and Herzegovina is also somewhat specific compared to more general regional trends, considering the recent turbulent history and the political, economic, and social context of its democratic tradition. Its populism strongly corresponds with the theoretical framework and contemporary interpretations of populism not only as ideology, but also as a discourse and strategy. As such, it is present in all these three shapes. The key definition of this specific ethnonationalist form of populism is given by Mujkič (2007: 22): 

“some kind of a melting pot for various bits and pieces of political doctrines and principles; socialism, liberal democracy, fascism, romantic nationalism, religious nationalism, but also a melting pot of various cultural pieces; historical narratives, mythologies, literature, religion, tradition, or other events that are considered of vital importance to the identity of one particular ethnic group […] Unlike most other political practices, ethnopolitics is a non-doctrine; it has no goal, vision, or hope other than remaining in power. Neither the well-being of any particular ethnic group nor ‘vital national-ethnic interests’ is the final goal of ethnopolitics. Its raison d’être is crisis, a constant appeal to the existential danger faced by the group. A permanent condition of threat is the only effective way for politicians to remain in power.”

Dr Džananović Miraščija added that fear-mongering is the backbone of political life and the main platform of the three ruling ethno-nationalist blocs. Thus, in a post-conflict country, this is beyond what can be described either as toxic or somehow attached to democratic development. In addition, policymaking exclusively depends on the agreement between the ethnonational political elites and representatives of the three constituent people. This is why it is crucial to understand the ethnic-nationalist nature of populism in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dr Džananović Miraščija continued with the explanation of the vertical division of populism between the ‘us,’ people, common men, and ‘them,’ the elite. However, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the political elites have skillfully transformed populism and placed it primarily into horizontal antagonism between the ‘us.’ In other words, they have united the people and their ethnic political elite against the ‘other people,’ referring to ethnically different people. Consequently, the populism of these right-wing parties in the opposition is very often propagandistic and nationalistic, with a strong claim for justice, a change of the regime, a fight against corruption, moral purity, and so on. Moreover, depending on the level of government in which a certain party holds power, it is not unusual to witness a fight between two different populist parties. If this division appears vertical, then it takes place within one ethnic political group.

Moving on to the trend of the radical right, Dr Džananović Miraščija pointed out that the distinction between the white nationalist mainstream and far-right is very thin and blurred among some of their actors. Far-right actors still mainly operate under the authority of the leading ethno-nationalist party with close coordination with the mainstream political right parties since they can provide financial support or even public funds. Those who are not related to the mainstream parties and seek to be authentic are the ones who often do not take part in the elections because they do not have enough funds to run campaigns or even register for campaigning in the first place. 

Another point where the far-right and the mainstream meet is the fact that for the last three decades, politicians and policymakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina have rather transparently manifested their nationalism in hate speech and bigotry, targeting the outgroups and reinforcing the victimization narrative of the ingroups. Some of what political and military actors have said in this vein has proven to be a later inspiration for international far-right terrorism.

The far-right extremism we see today in the region extends not just from the 90s and the war and atrocities that took place in that period. It also stems from the late 80s when the former Yugoslavia began a process of democratisation and liberalisation. The wars that followed in the 90s were, in actuality, the catalyst for these far-right ideologies. 

Further, Bosnia and Herzegovina faces another paradoxical situation where the official radical right-wing organisations are very small, marginal, and almost invisible. Yet, their radical right ideas feature prominently and have a strong presence in the discourse of the mainstream political parties. In other words, there are no right-wing or far-right parties in the Bosnian Parliament or the regional assemblies. However, the propaganda of the ruling political parties – its rhetoric, hate speech and their entire political agenda – are rooted in the far-right discourse. The ideology is also not only related to the Yugoslavian war but also the Second World War from a revisionist perspective. 

Dr Džananović Miraščija concluded her presentation by warning that the major danger of far-right parties is their narrative, which should not be underestimated. Although they are marginalised and do not participate too directly in political life, it does not mean that they do not have a considerable influence on the ethno-nationalist parties that dominate the political stage. Moreover, unfortunately, these mainstream parties have normalized both hate speech and far-right rhetoric. The conservative, patriarchal discourse prevailing in Bosnian society and politics underpins their ideologies and narratives, making the far-right agenda again part of the media and political discourse.

Dr Avdi Smajljaj: “Populists in government in young democracies, normalising the defects of the young establishment: the case of Kosovo” 

The main takeaway from the history of Vetëvendosje is that young, not yet established democracies like Kosovo create favourable conditions for the rise of ethno-populism. There has been some level of state capture during the previous administrations, however, the incumbent government is staffing the national institutions with party supporters at a much larger scale. Furthermore, there is no alternative provided by the elected government to the weak institutions, the rule of law and the constitutional structure of Kosovo.

Dr Avdi Smajljaj detailed the case of populism in Kosovo. By way of introduction, he reflected on the day of the 2021 Kosovan presidential election when the Kosovan diaspora flew home to ‘save Kosovo,’ which was part of a dominant discourse at the time. 

The elections were won by Vetëvendosje, led by Albin Kurti, whose party presents a clear case of hard populism. Nonetheless, soft populism is also found in many other Kosovan political parties, as many leaders of political parties do not follow democratic traditions. This trend may be explained by Kosovo, as a whole, having limited experience with democratic processes. In all political parties, we can find traces of populist narratives, but none of them can be easily considered an anti-establishment party. 

To showcase the rise of populism in Kosovo, Dr Smajljaj chronologically presented how Vetëvendosje came to power. It started as a civic activism movement in 2005, and to this day, the organisation refrains from labelling itself as a political party; rather, it considers itself a popular movement. The substance of their ideology is ethno-nationalism which becomes discernible when one reads the party’s manifesto, a clear reflection of the party’s Albanian nationalism. Among the party’s main objectives is the unification of Kosovo with Albania, which is passively promoted by the party’s leadership. This positions the party against the establishment of Kosovo, as they are against the symbols of Kosovan independence and its statehood aiming to create a Greater Albania.

Continuing with the history of the ruling party and how its populism has changed over time, Dr Smajljaj pointed out that initially, the party of Vetëvendosje did not participate in the elections as they considered them to be fraudulent. This changed, however, in 2010, when they started to participate in political competition with minimal success (12.66 percent). By expanding their cause and program, they eventually gained 13.59 percent of the votes in 2014, 27.49 percent in 2017, and finally 49.95 percent in 2021. 

Constructing Vetëvendosje’s anti-establishment narrative was a turning point for their success in the 2021 elections. The party had divided Kosovan society into two sections (1) the old regime, which consists of all previous parties that ruled until 2021; and (2) the new regime, Vetëvendosje. In the face of their rhetoric, an increasing segment of society regarded established political actors as corrupt and engaged in nepotism. As Vetëvendosje expanded its platform to include both ethnonationalism and anti-corruption rhetoric, they saw their support rise. 

The party depicted itself as a fighter against state capture by other parties, yet today they are capturing the state themselves. This kind of one-party rule in Kosovo was unexpected as voters and other political parties counted on a multi-party system backed by the proportional electoral system of the country. The defeat of traditional political parties came as a surprise. According to Dr Smajljaj, this shows how populism is a self-destroying machinery: populism rises within a democracy and then destroys it. “Genuine grievances and demands of the disillusioned people end up being represented by populist and anti-democratic forces, eventually becoming hostages of authoritarian institutional dynamics” (Stavrakakis, 2018). 

Dr Smajljaj attributed the party’s latest electoral victory to the successful mobilisation of two groups: (1) The mobilisation of the diaspora proved to be impactful, as the diaspora communities significantly contribute to the local economy. Since families still continue to be very strong institutions in Kosovo, family ties mobilized the migrated Kosovans to come home and ‘save the nation.’ (2) Another important group was the youth, who felt themselves more represented by the 47-year-old Kurti than by previous Prime Ministers, which demonstrates how the ruling party has managed to gather more than 50 percent of the votes.

According to Dr Smajljaj, Vetëvendosje presents what Müller’s (2016) book on populism describes; namely, how populism in power reproduces patterns of state capture, clientelism and attacks on civil society. The Kosovan government is replicating all three of these patterns. 

The main takeaway from the history of Vetëvendosje is that young, not yet established democracies like Kosovo create favourable conditions for the rise of ethno-populism. There has been some level of state capture during the previous administrations, however, the incumbent government is staffing the national institutions with party supporters at a much larger scale. Furthermore, there is no alternative provided by the elected government to the weak institutions, the rule of law and the constitutional structure of Kosovo. Weak governing performance is justified through comparison to the old regime, emphasizing that the former government’s failures are blocking the new regime from moving forward. This populist message has proved to be efficient in Kosovo. 

In his concluding notes, Dr Smajljaj stated that when looking at populism in power in Kosovo, we have to understand that “The leader means the party and the party means the leader”, and he attributes this to the electoral behaviour and Kosovo’s lack of experience with pluralism, a multi-party system and democracy. In a grim conclusion, it can be said that populist promises of good governance and democracy have failed in Kosovo. Although general dissatisfaction with Vetëvendosje is growing, its emphasis on the deficiencies of previous governments proves to substitute the weariness of its voting base.

References

Laclau, Ernest. (2005). On Populist Reason. London: Verso. 

Laclau, Ernest. (1977). Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism. London: Verso.

Moffitt, Benjamin & Tormey, Simon. (2014). “Rethinking Populism: Politics, Mediatisation and Political Style.” Political Studies. 62 (2): 381–397

Mudde, Cas. (2007). Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Mudde, Cas. (2004). “The Populist Zeitgeist.” Government and Opposition 39 (4): 541-563.

Mujkic, Asim. (2007). “We, the Citizens of Ethnopolis.” Constellations 14 (1):112-128.

Müller, Jan-Werner. (2016). What Is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812293784

Pirro, Andrea L.P. (2015). The populist radical right in Central and Eastern Europe: ideology, impact, and electoral performance. London & New York: Routledge. 

Poblete, Mario E. (2015). “How to assess populist discourse through three current approaches.” Journal of Political Ideologies 20 (2): 201-218

Stavrakakis, Yannis. (2018). “Three challenges in contemporary populism research.” Europp, May 14, 2018. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/05/14/three-challenges-in-contemporary-populism-research/ “accessed on November 1, 2022).

Taguieff, Pierre-André. (1995). “Political Science Confronts Populism: From a Conceptual Mirage to a Real Problem.” Telos 103: 9–43.

MEP-Panel3

Mapping European Populism: Panel 3 — Scandinavia Under Magnifier: Populist Radical Right Parties and the End of Nordic Exceptionalism?

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeReports

Grueso, Gadea Mendez & Sezer, Julide (2022). “Mapping European Populism: Panel 3 – Scandinavia Under Magnifier: Populist Radical Right Parties and the End of Nordic Exceptionalism?” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS).June 17, 2022. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0006

 

This report is based on the third panel of ECPS’s monthly panel series called “Mapping European Populism” which was held online in Brussels on April 28, 2022. The panel brought together top-notch populism scholars from four Scandinavian countries, namely Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark. As a by-product of this fruitful panel the report consists of brief summaries of the speeches delivered by the speakers.

ECPS organizes a panel series composed of 10 monthly sessions to map European populism, bringing scholars together every month to discuss the state of political populism in a different region of Europe. This report is prepared based on the third panel of the series focusing on Scandinavian countries on the theme of “Scandinavia under magnifier: Populist radical right parties and the end of Nordic exceptionalism” which was held online on April 28, 2022.

The panel is moderated by Dr Liv Sunnercrantz, Department of Media and Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, Norway, and included the following speakers; Dr Anders Hellström, Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University, Sweden; Marie Cazes, Doctoral Researcher, University of Jyväskylä, Finland; Dr Lise Lund Bjånesøy, Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, Norway; Dr Susi Meret, Department of Politics and Society, University of Aalborg, Denmark.

Dr Anders Hellström: “The Sweden Democrats in Swedish politics – The Mainstreaming of Extremism”

“In general, there has been a ‘mainstreaming of extremism’ (in Sweden) as theorised by Ruth Wodak: What was depicted as extreme to say in the area of immigration one decade ago is considered normal today. The difference between the mainstream right and the populist right has, in that sense, vaporised.”

Dr Anders Hellström introduced how extremism has been mainstreamed in Swedish politics with the case of Sweden Democrats (SD). The main themes he addressed are: the nine stages in the development of the Sweden Democrats (SD) within Swedish politics, the ‘mainstreaming of extremism,’ the discussion about going ‘beyond’ Swedish exceptionalism, and what ‘the new normal’ may come to mean in Swedish politics.

According to Dr Hellström, there have been nine stages in the development of the Sweden Democrats. Before 2006 (1), the SD received very little media exposure, and when they were mentioned in the press, they were, at best, referred to as ‘devils in disguise’ or as ‘fascists in uniforms.’ Between 2006 and 2010 (2), the media interest in the SD escalated, and the other parties gradually abandoned their ‘cordon sanitaire’ approach to the party; but, even if these other parties wanted to attract SD voters, SD politicians were still referred to, in the political debate and the media, as either racists or ‘political clowns,’ sometimes both. In the third stage, between 2010 and 2014 (3), the SD got into the national parliament, and the national debate on Swedish identity issues, as a result, became highly polarised; the party gained a lot of media attention, and the public debate was rife with discussions around this ‘new’ political party. Between 2014 and 2018 (4), the party space in Sweden became significantly more multi-dimensional: instead of just a left-right socio-economic-political divide, there was now also a socio-cultural divide. Before this period, it was ‘the SD against the rest,’ in terms of political parties, but afterwards, the SD’s positions on certain topics like immigration became more eligible. In 2019 (5), the SD was getting increasingly tamed, and their policy positions thus came to be seen as normal by other political actors, and it became less shameful among the electorate to vote for the SD. Before the pandemic, the SD had, in fact, become the largest party in the Swedish national parliament.

However, the 2020 pandemic marked a sixth stage (6) in the SD’s development, and the SD lost voting support (the SD is now approximately 10% behind the Social Democrats). The theme of how Sweden handled (or mishandled) the pandemic was seen as something exceptional, not only by the SD but by many others in the public debate. For instance, Ebba Busch Thor, the leader of the Christian Democrats (KD), declared that the government had “with relieved courage” allowed a high spread of infection, which had severely negatively affected the old people in Sweden; at the same time, Jimmie Åkesson, the leader of the SD, had said that the government had conducted a “massacre” on the elders. Many other political actors besides the SD thus verbalised a similar criticism against the government.

In 2021-2022 (7), the SD became part of a bloc, together with the Christian Democrats, the Moderate Party (M) (which are mainstream right parties), and the Liberal Party (L), to pursue an anti-liberal agenda (the presence of the Liberal Party, in that sense, may seem ironic). The idea was to form a new conservative government to replace the Social Democratic government. But after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (8), far-right parties in Sweden (and elsewhere) suffered from their previous admiration of Putin. The Social Democrats benefitted from this and are now getting very high poll figures. Whereas before, immigration was their only relevant political issue, their rhetoric has shifted significantly when compared to their view of the topic of Syria in 2015, and the SD now speaks of the need to protect and allow Ukrainian refugees into Sweden (which was not the case for Syrian refugees). The national elections that will take place in September 2022 (9) will tell whether the political debate will foremost be on defense (and the issue of NATO membership), the climate or gang violence.

Dr Hellström interpreted the rise of the SD as an end to ‘Swedish exceptionalism.’ Indeed, he referred to the work by Jens Rydgren[1], who said that his explanations as to why Sweden did not have a leading anti-immigration party (like Denmark and Norway had) no longer apply. Working-class voters (and voters in the southern parts of Sweden and middle-aged men) have turned to the SD; and the salience of the socio-economic policy dimension in political competition is no longer hegemonic, as the political is now also about culture and identity. Moreover, there is today a growing consensus between the Left and the Right, as there has been a ‘moralisation of politics.’

In general, there has been a ‘mainstreaming of extremism’ as theorised by Ruth Wodak[2]: what was depicted as extreme to say in the area of immigration one decade ago is considered normal today. The difference between the mainstream right and the populist right has, in that sense, vaporised.

According to Dr Hellström, there was, a decade ago, a meta-debate in Swedish politics, in which all the mainstream parties agreed that they should debate with the SD (even if they were deplorable). The consequence was that the average voter, who probably had not heard of the party, suddenly became aware of its existence thanks to the exposure awarded by that debate. Thus, Hellström remarked, such parties benefit from the truth contained in Oscar Wilde’s aphorism that “There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

But all is not lost yet, Dr Hellström reminds us: to understand what is happening around us, we need to understand both regressive and progressive sentiments. When we build toward a new normality, we should remember that “the future points in both progressive and regressive directions simultaneously”—and it is up to us to decide which comes to fruition.

Reported by Gadea Mendez Grueso

 

Marie Cazes: “From Rural to Radical Right: A Brief Perspective on Finnish Populism”

Despite populism has always been present in the Finnish Parliament ever since the 1960s the support for the Finns Party seems to be dropping. Several reasons may be cited: their new leader seems to not be as charismatic and attractive to voters, the coronavirus crisis has negatively impacted voter’s trust in the party, and the Russia-Ukraine war has had a huge impact on the party, which has been forced to completely review its position on NATO adhesion.

Marie Cazes presented a historical approach to populism in Finland, a country with a long relationship to the topic. She presented the main Finnish populist parties: the Finnish Rural Party (Suomen Maaseudun Puolue, SMP), which was created by Veikko Vennamo in 1959 under the name of Suomen Pientalonpoikien Puolue (Finnish Party of Small Peasants), came into the government in the 1980s and became bankrupt in the 1990s; and the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), which was created in 1995 after the bankruptcy of the Finnish Rural Party and became very successful, winning its first major electoral victory in 2011 (from 4,1 percent to 19,1 percent of the vote), and taking part in the Sipilä government (Centre, National coalition) in 2015. In June 2017, the Finns Party split after the election of Jussi Halla-aho, who was considered too radical and even condemned for hate speech, as chairperson; thus, ‘Blue Reform’ was created.

As Cazes explained, the origins of Finnish populism were very rural, and it was a form of agrarian populism. The Finnish Rural Party was itself created in 1959 by Veikko Vennamo as a split from the Agrarian Union, due to divergences of opinion with then-president Urho Kaleva Kekkonen regarding the countryside: Kekkonen had a more conservative idea in favour of preserving traditional social rurality ‘as it was before,’ even though Finland was facing a deep rural/agricultural crisis in the 1950s-60s.

Thus, Finnish populism, linked to ancient agrarianism ideology, rose by presenting itself as the ‘defender of the forgotten people’ from the countryside, who had supposedly been neglected by the ‘elites’ in Helsinki. As such, it was constructed in opposition to other parties (and to Kekkonen, who had been president for 24 years), with a very strong anti-communist rhetoric. Some researchers have talked about these parties as “hegemony challengers” (see Palonen & Sunnercrantz[3]).

Cazes then described the rise and fall of the Finnish Rural Party (SMP): after having some electoral success in the 1970s, it collapsed, and rose again in the 1980s, when, in 1983, it got a second breakthrough in the parliamentary elections. That time, its narrative had changed, and the party presented itself as a critic of corruption, as its main concern became less focused on rurality, and its electorate changed too, becoming a bit more urban (as there were cases of corruption in several big cities, for instance concerning the construction of the subway in Helsinki). Because Kekkonen was no longer president, and because the image of the party changed, so that Finnish politicians no longer considered the SMP as an extreme-right party, it ended up being part of two governments, from 1983 to 1987, and from 1987 to 1991, which fomented tensions within the party. In the end, the Finnish Rural Party only had 1 MP in the 1995 election, and finally went bankrupt.

Four members of the SMP decided to create a new party, and thus, the Perussuomalaiset, or Finns Party, was born. Until the 2000s, the party was following the heritage of the Finnish Rural Party, and its agenda of the critique of elites. In 2003, the party had 3 MPs, including Tony Halme (a former famous wrestler and actor), a charismatic character with ‘colourful’ rhetoric who opened the door to critiquing immigration, making homophobic statements, etc. This ‘turning point’ led to the incorporation of new members affiliated with nationalist associations, and to the prominent critique of immigration.

But the real breakthrough of the Finns Party was in the parliamentary elections of 2011 when they gained 15 percent of the vote (from 4 percent previously). One of the main reasons for this success was not only the criticism of immigration but also a deep Euroscepticism (with a strong reticence to helping countries like Greece through the EU). They accessed the government in 2015, which resulted in a dramatic loss of voter support, as they could no longer credibly criticise the policy of the government regarding the migration crisis. The split of 2017 and the election of Halla-aho as the leader showed the radicality of the party, which had undergone a steady radicalisation process through the 2010s decade: after this turning point, the party could no longer be characterised as a moderate populist party, and it truly became the anti-immigration, nationalist, nativist, welfare chauvinist party that we know today.

Currently, the support for the Finns Party in view of next year’s parliamentary elections seems to be dropping. Several reasons may be cited: their new leader seems to not be as charismatic and attractive to voters, the coronavirus crisis has negatively impacted voter’s trust in the party, and the Russia-Ukraine war has had a huge impact on the party, which has been forced to completely review its position on NATO adhesion (of which they had been very critical in the past). Finally, Marie Cazes reviewed the main features of Finnish populism: its strong rural roots (which is still prevalent in Finnish nationalism), and the fact that populism (Finns Party and Finnish Rural Party) has always been present in the national parliament, ever since the 1960s.                                                                                               

Reported by Gadea Mendez Grueso

 

Dr Lise Bjånesøy: “Public perceptions of the populist radical right in Norway”

The Progress Party is considered a borderline case in terms of classification that there is no scholarly agreement on defining it as a populist radical right party. The data from Norwegian Election Studies shows that voters consistently associate the party with exclusionary policies against immigration and immigrants in Norway while the party has a large portfolio including many different issues beyond immigration.

Dr Lise Bjånesøy presented public perceptions of the populist radical right in Norway with a case study of the Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, FRP). Bjånesøy started with a brief history of FRP stating that the party was established in 1973 by Anders Lange and in the late 1980s, it made strong anti-immigration policies part of its program and then started gaining more support. The party entered government for the first time in the fall of 2013 as the junior partner of the Conservative Party, stayed in the government coalition until 2020 and chose to leave the coalition just before the pandemic.

Dr Bjånesøy noted that the Progress Party is considered a borderline case in terms of classification that there is no scholarly agreement on defining it as a populist radical right party. The data from Norwegian Election Studies shows that voters consistently associate the party with exclusionary policies against immigration and immigrants in Norway while the party has a large portfolio including many different issues beyond immigration. They have political candidates who are primarily concerned with other issues than immigration and minorities although policies for immigration and minorities remain very important for the party. What is interesting about the Progress Party, according to Dr Bjånesøy, is that there are two different wings in the party; one is a more libertarian wing, and the other is a clear populist radical right-wing, a situation which makes it difficult to label the party as populist radical right.

In the second part of her speech, Bjånesøy presented some results from two different studies in which Progress Party is included. Both studies using different concepts focus on different aspects of public perceptions of the populist radical right. One is political tolerance and the other one is negative partisanship. Political tolerance implies the willingness to put up with things that one rejects or opposes, and in this study, whether or not people allow the expression of opinions that they dislike is taken as the test for tolerance. The second study is related to negative partisanship, and this is concerned with negative effects or repulsion towards a political party. Negative partisanship reflects voting behaviour that one would never consider voting for that party.

As Dr Bjånesøy explained, the first study is designed to put political tolerance to the test in five different countries, inspired by a real-life scenario from 2010 related to the populist radical right party in Sweden; Sweden Democrats faced difficulty to find a venue for their election night gathering and they had to lie about the purpose of the event to secure the venue. In the experimental setting, they asked people about four different groups (mainstream right party, populist radical right party, one anti-Islamic group, and one neo-Nazi group) from five countries (Norway, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Sweden). They told people to imagine that one of these four groups has asked to rent a community centre to host a meeting for its members and asked how much they agree or disagree to rent it to these groups. The results show that everyone wills to rent the centre to centre-right parties, for the two extra-parliamentary groups; 80 percent of people disagree renting the centre to neo-Nazi groups and 50 percent disagree to rent it to an anti-Islamic group. The study included Progress Party in Norway, PPV in the Netherlands, FN in France, AfD in Germany and SD in Sweden to the list as populist radical right parties. The results show that there are large variations in public political tolerance of the populist radical right in European democracies and that tolerance does not only depend on the far-right in terms of ideology but also the party institutionalization matters; for example, the inclusion of populist radical right in the government brings in higher tolerance as is the case in Norway. 

In the second study, Dr Bjånesøy investigates why many people would not consider voting for the populist radical right. The studies have found that populist radical right parties have a particularly high negative share of partisanship, and it seems that negative partisanship is an interesting tool to look at concerning populist radical right. Bjånesøy says, in her study, she takes Norwegian Progress Party as the case study and reminds us of the results of the first study she explained before (political tolerance) that Progress Party is the populist radical right party with the highest political tolerance. Using the data from Norwegian Citizen Panel, Dr Bjånesøy asked people if they would vote for Progress Party, and more than 50 percent said they would never consider voting for this party. While voters are asked to explain their reasons in their own words, four different categories have emerged: blank rejection; they strongly disagree with the party without stating a particular reason for it, immigration policy issues; they describe the party as prejudiced to migrants and racist, other policy issues; the voters pointed at the party’s stance on environmental issue and economic issues, political style; they expressed their dislike of the behaviour of the candidates and the tone used in the political debates.

Bjånesøy concludes her presentation by pinpointing that the Progress Party can be considered a borderline case in terms of being a member of the populist radical right party family. The voters strongly and consistently associate the party with exclusionary policies towards immigration and immigrants, but the policy issues it highlights are beyond the area of immigration. The party is fully tolerated by the public and, at the same time, it is the most disliked party with a high share of negative partisanship.

                                                                                                 Reported by Julide Sezer

 

Dr Susi Meret: “From success to failure? The recent developments of the radical and populist right in Denmark” 

“Denmark has female leaders for the far-right populist parties which seems contractionary concerning the power structures. Voters’ profiles show that the higher the education level the less likely it is to vote for the Danish People’s Party (DF) and that the rate of white people with manual skills and unskilled is high among the supporters of the party. Statistics show that the voters of right-wing populist parties and radical left-wing parties earn less than the ones who vote for centre-right and liberals. In terms of geographical distribution, electoral support for DF is high in non-urban southern Denmark.”

Dr Susi Meret started her presentation by highlighting four points to explain why the Danish case is particularly important in terms of the populist radical right. In this line, Dr Meret mentioned: 1) Denmark is an established liberal post-war democracy with a developed welfare state system and with higher levels of wealth and wellbeing in comparison to the rest of Europe and is also known for high levels of trust and happiness. 2) Populist radical right parties fared well since 2000 and until recently, with the Danish People’s Party (DF), the main radical right-wing populist (RRWP) party in Denmark, consolidating its position within the parliament. 3) Electoral support for DF is rising in the years 2001-2015, reaching average levels between 15-20 percent. 3) DF has considerable political influence; it acted as a support for the minority cabinet (DK) between 2001-2011 and between 2015-2019, and now they are in opposition. 4) The issues on the agenda of DF are similar to the ones on the agenda of other RRWP parties in other Scandinavian countries; welfare-nationalism, anti-immigration and anti-Islam politics, Euroscepticism and pro-NATO. 

Dr Meret continued by pinpointing sentences from DF’s principal program which reflect the party’s populist radical right views; “The party’s overall goal is to re-establish Denmark’s sovereignty and freedom and to secure the Danish nation and the monarchy’s existence.” The program also has a strong anti-immigration stance; “Denmark is not and has never been an immigration country and DF is against the development of Denmark into a multicultural society. (…) to the extent immigrants can maintain themselves and their families, they can get a temporary permit to stay and to work (…) Refugees must not be turned into immigrants.” As seen from the party program, Dr Meret explains, DF is against immigration and holds an anti-Islam position for which the party’s strong opposition to the Syrian refugees’ permanent stay in Denmark is an example. DF was pushing hard for sending them back to Syria but met with resistance from civil society organisations. Per economic policy, it maintains a welfare-nationalist chauvinist approach and holds a critical position towards European politics, in particular against Schengen, free movement and the monetary union.

Then, Dr Meret focused on the question of what explains the rise and the consolidation of DF. In this regard, she pointed to the growing salience of value politics in the form of the old and new left and right, and particularly national identity, migration and recently climate change. Since the 1980s, electoral volatility/fluctuation has increased, and loyalty to political parties has diminished, which increased support for DF. Also, socio-economic and other divides are exacerbated and attention towards social cohesion and welfare nationalism has risen vis-à-vis increasing migration flows. From the 1990s onwards, as a consequence of bloc politics, the proportional electoral system has donated small parties with relatively strong power in the political structure, which also prepared a convenient context for the rise of DF. Dr Meret highlighted that the legitimization of populist radical right by Liberals in 2001 and by Social Democrats from 2015 onwards also helped in the increase of support for DF.

Dr Meret also discussed voting trends for populist radical right examining voters in terms of gender, education, class and income. While populist radical right gains more votes from white male voters and women are still left-wing leaning; the gap is closing between the two as RRWP has become more mainstreamed and normalized. Meret added that Denmark has female leaders for the far-right populist parties which seems contractionary concerning the power structures. Voters’ profiles show that the higher the education level the less likely it is to vote for DF and that the rate of white people with manual skills and unskilled is high among the supporters of the party. Statistics show that the voters of right-wing populist parties and radical left-wing parties earn less than the ones who vote for centre-right and liberals. In terms of geographical distribution, electoral support for DF is high in non-urban southern Denmark.

Dr Meret indicated that radical right-wing populists in Denmark perform exclusionary populism; they stand against the elite, against the establishment and for “the people,” which are considered common denominators of populism, and the anti-immigration approach is coming as an additional denominator from the polls in the country. The definition of “the people” comes from an ethno-nationalist understanding of community and the people with a narrative of common roots encompassing belonging, shared history, and the same values with an emphasis on Christian values lately. The idea of “our Denmark,” in their understanding, refers to whites, which gets criticism from the civil society organizations. RRWP describes Denmark as a homogenous community whose grounds are challenged by globalization, Europeanization and migration flows and refugees. The anti-gender aspect of RRWP, Dr Meret argues, is an interesting and concerning development in Denmark and it has an emphasis on the Muslim veil. Concerning the LGBTQ issues, DF does not hold a contrasting position, but it expresses that the issue should have a limit and must not dictate the agenda.

Dr Meret says that DF’s new leader Morten Messerschmidt who held the office in January 2022 is internally challenged by the party members on the ground that he is not a good fit for the party, particularly in these times when the party is in crisis. The other right-wing populist party, New Right has also a female leader and follows a very conservative approach such that they present a hard-line anti-immigration agenda wanting to stop asylum altogether, on the other hand, they pursue an ultra-liberal economic agenda which is different from DF. Dr Meret also mentions the extra-parliamentary radical right-wing party “Hard Line” led by Rasmus Paludan, which run for the 2019 elections but could not get enough votes to enter the parliament. The party’s worldview is ethno-nationalist, racist and strongly Islamophobic defending the prohibition of Islam in Denmark. The party often uses social media and has a social media channel named “the Voice of Freedom” to mobilize the youth, they live-stream their demonstrations on online channels to get more attention, for example, they encouraged people to burn Quran in public spaces, which happened in Denmark before Sweden.

As another form of the populist radical right, Dr Meret talked about a transnational movement “Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordfront)” which derives from Sweden in 1997 and is represented in most of the Nordic countries. Their worldview encompasses racism, neo-Nazism, antisemitism, and rallying for a ‘racially pure’ Nordic region against the extinction of the white autochthonous population. The movement, as it is written on their website, organizes “revolutionary national socialist combat organization.” They use vandalism and violent attacks as forms of their action repertoire for which bomb attacks on refugee housing and vandalism against Jewish graveyards are examples.

Dr Meret concluded her presentation by underlining the main takeaways from the case of RRWP in Denmark. The rise and electoral consolidation of RRWP (especially DF) should be considered in the long durée and in the light of the mainstream reactions. The current wave of RRWP emphasizes ethnic homogeneity and assimilationist models, and ethnic and religious groups are increasingly racialized, also by government policies. Extra parliamentary far-right milieus have proliferated in recent years but seem still weaker than in other countries. Far-right repertoires of action and organization are different, inspired by groups and organizations outside Denmark but also exporting their own products.

                                                                                                   Reported by Julide Sezer

 

[1] Jens Rydgren, and Sara van der Meiden,“The Radical Right and the End of Swedish Exceptionalism,” European Political Science 18, no. 3 (2019): 439–455

[2] Ruth Wodak, “‘The Boundaries of What Can Be Said Have Shifted’: An Expert Interview with Ruth Wodak (Questions posed by Andreas Schulz),” Discourse & Society 31, no. 2 (2020): 235–244, doi:10.1177/0957926519889109.

[3] Ruth Wodak, “‘The Boundaries of What Can Be Said Have Shifted’: An Expert Interview with Ruth Wodak (Questions posed by Andreas Schulz),” Discourse & Society 31, no. 2 (2020): 235–244, doi:10.1177/0957926519889109.

Marine Le Pen, from the Front National, a national-conservative political party in France in meeting for the presidential election of 2017 at the Zenith of Paris on April 17, 2017. Photo: Frederic Legrand.

Report on Panel #4 / Mapping European Populism: Populist Radical Right in Europe’s Heartland and the UK

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Blink, Melissa & Robinson, Tom. (2022). “Report on Panel #4 / Mapping European Populism: Populist Radical Right in Europe’s Heartland and the UK.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). June 9, 2022. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0005

 

This report is based on the fourth panel of ECPS’s monthly panel series called “Mapping European Populism” which was held online in Brussels on May 26, 2022. The panel brought together top-notch populism scholars from three countries in Europe’s heartland, namely Germany, Austria, France, and the UK. As a by-product of this fruitful panel the report consists of brief summaries of the speeches delivered by the speakers.

By Melissa Blink & Tom Robinson

ECPS organizes a panel series composed of 10 monthly sessions to map European populism, bringing scholars together every month to discuss the state of political populism in a different region of Europe. This report is prepared based on the fourth panel of the series focusing on heartland Europe and the UK, on the theme of “Populist radical right in Europe’s heartland (Germany, Austria, France) and the UK,” which was held online on May 26, 2022.

The panel is moderated by Dr Luke Cooper, Member of the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit at LSE, and included the following speakers; Dr Ralf Havertz, Associate Professor of International Relations at Keimyung University in South Korea; Dr Karin Liebhart, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, the University of Vienna; Dr Gilles Ivaldi, CNRS Researcher in Political Science at the Centre for Political Research at Sciences-Po, Paris; Dr William Allchorn, Postdoctoral Researcher and Associate Director at the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right, University of Leeds.

Dr Cooper, in his introductory remarks, noted that the case studies of the panel demonstrate the unevenness of the rise of the radical right in this century, which Cas Mudde has referred to as the fourth, and arguably most successful wave of the post-WW2 radical right. What distinguishes this wave, he says, is the degree of convergence between the mainstream centre-right and the new radical right. Also notable is the radical right’s success in taking over governments around the world and emerging as a formidable political force. Dr Cooper explained that he would be employing Cas Mudde’s distinction between the radical right and the extreme right. The former accepts the basic principles of democracy but launches a slow, steady incursion on its basic foundations, like the rule of law and constitutionalism. The extreme right rejects democratic principles altogether.

According to Dr. Cooper, one of the countries under discussion in this panel plays a special role in Mudde’s account of the fourth wave: Austria. After all, it was the rise of the Austrian Freedom Party (the FPÖ) and its entry into Austrian government that was met by diplomatic sanctions in the EU at the time. The attempted but failed cordon sanitaire was accompanied by sustained protests and demonstrations within Austria itself. It was, in other words, the moment the dam burst. Over the next two decades, we witnessed a gradual but uneven centre-right and radical right convergence. Mudde’s characterization is also valuable, according to Dr Cooper, because it avoids excessive focus on the 2008 financial crisis, reminding us that the origins of the rise of the radical right in this century extend further back than just 2008.

Germany’s radical right populism, in contrast, may look like a rapid response to the financial crisis. The AfD burst onto the scene, initially, as a Eurosceptic party, becoming increasingly extremist and white nationalist through gradual purges of its more moderate members. In many current discussions, Dr Cooper notes, the fall of the AfD is emphasized. After all, the story goes, Germany has demonstrated the strength and reserves of its democratic character, as well as the societal depth underlying its democratic institutions. He wonders how this prospect is seen by the panellists, especially in the context of the global shocks we might soon expect to see; inflation, for example, is a phenomenon often identified with the previous collapse of German democracy. That historic episode naturally haunts discussions of the far-right in Germany today, he notes.

The other two cases, Britain and France, also reflect the unevenness and complexity of the rise of the European radical right. Dr Cooper in his account of Britain’s current government, highlighted that the government is increasingly authoritarian but also appears to be in a state of genuine subjective confusion, he says. It sees itself as continuous with Thatcherism, although its main pitch to the electorate underlined the damage her government did to Britain and the damage that regional deindustrialization left behind. It has also committed to sharing Britain’s wealth across towns and regions more evenly. Dr Cooper points out another contradiction: the government sees itself as part of a great British tradition of liberty but has launched an attack on the human rights agenda, including, most prominently, the Human Rights Act, which brings the European Convention of Human Rights into British law. Furthermore, he notes, the British government seems to reject the foundational elements of international refugee law. Its most recent piece of legislation, the Nationality and Borders Bill, and the high-profile proposal to summarily deport refugees who arrive in the UK by irregular or informal means to Rwanda are both examples of this attitude. The current British government has, in sum, a “viciously authoritarian, very ethno-nationalist agenda”, although its political elites are nevertheless confused.

In his remarks on France, Dr Cooper pointed at Marine Le Pen and the Front National National Rally as the central focus of those studying French populism. However, he thinks the Macron project is also a curious case for students of populism and authoritarianism. After all, he says, Macron’s initial pitch to the French electorate had many elements, in terms of style, language, and appeal, of a ‘populist insurgency’ in the first round of 2017’s French presidential elections. Macron adjusted his language quite significantly in the second round, making a more unifying pitch to the electorate instead. Another interesting subject is the way that the radical right’s key priority, namely the alleged ‘Islamization’ of Western societies by non-white Muslim immigrants, is taken in France’s national political debate. French centrists, as well as France’s left and centre-left, seem to pitch themselves in very uncertain times when confronted with the topic. The French state has also recently been accused of repressing human rights organizations advocating for the rights of the French Muslim community, by levying defamation laws against them in an attempt to close them down.

Dr Cooper concludes the opening remarks by highlighting that in each of the cases, a series of ‘meanings and un-meanings’ seem to complicate the already complex and uneven picture of the radical right’s rise in Europe. 

Reported by Melissa Blink

 

Dr Ralf Havertz: “The Rise of Radical Right Populism in Germany”

Dr Havertz describes Germany as a latecomer regarding the development of radical right populism. When the AfD was founded in 2013, most neighbouring countries had already had some experience with such parties, where they had already participated in government or been tolerated or supported by minority governments. It is now firmly established as a radical right populist party in Germany’s party system. It poses a challenge to Germany’s democratic system because it is located somewhere between right-wing populism and right-wing extremism, and it will remain an opposition party for the foreseeable future.

Dr Ralf Havertz detailed the rise of radical right populism in Germany in his lecture at the panel. He starts by describing Germany as a latecomer regarding the development of radical right populism. When the AfD was founded in 2013, most neighbouring countries had already had some experience with such parties, where they had already participated in government (as in Austria) or been tolerated or supported by minority governments (as was the case with the Danish People’s Party in Denmark). This has not, to date, happened in Germany: no party on this side of the political spectrum has participated in government, nor has it supported governments so far. The cordon sanitaire had held up so far, although, Dr Havertz notes, talks take place behind the scenes between the CDU (Christian Democrats), the Free Democrats, and the AfD – especially in the east of Germany.

Currently, the AfD is a strong opposition party in Germany’s Bundestag, and movements such as Pegida and the Identitarian Movement have attracted many participants with their various organized activities. Dr Havertz notes one might almost speak of a division of labour between these groups: Pegida and the Identitarians are the organized movement side, whereas the AfD supports the radical-right populist agenda in the parliament. The current state of affairs shows that something in Germany has changed – for a long time voting and expressing support for the populist radical right (PRR) was stigmatized due to Germany’s experiences with the Nazi regime and its atrocities. It has, however, become much more common to voice radical right opinions in public, and people are less inhibited in voicing their rage against governments, policies, and ‘othered’ groups. So, it is more common to vote for radical right parties, and the AfD especially.

What has driven this change? Dr Havertz points to three broad changes that occurred in Germany, which were related to economics, culture, and media. The first was the economic transformation; a shift from Fordism to neoliberalism brought about higher competitive pressures, which created insecurities and uncertainties for workers, as well as changes to Germany’s social welfare system. The PRR instrumentalized the rage and resentment borne of these changes and channelled it against “the elite” or “the establishment” as it is sometimes called.

The second change Dr Havertz described occurred in the aftermath of the Student Movement of 1968, which triggered a phase of modernization and liberalization in German society, bringing about improvements for minority groups and those who were subject to discrimination, including refugees, and immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community. The PRR again instrumentalized dissatisfaction with these changes and organized a cultural backlash, again directed at “the elite”, whose cosmopolitan character was the focus of populist ire. It was also directed at the minorities who were the beneficiaries of the changes described.

The third change occurred in the media environment with the emergence of the internet and social media, which have changed the way citizens communicate. Radical and extreme messages are much easier to express and disseminate broadly while simultaneously targeting specific recipients. The AfD and Pegida, especially, make use of this, whereby they have certainly contributed to the polarization of German society. All these developments converged roughly at the same time.

On this note, Dr Havertz mentions the AfD’s precursors. There were other radical right populist parties in Germany before the AfD; when they dissolved, they recommended their members to join the AfD instead, which is true for Pro Deutschland, for example. Some of these parties still exist on the regional level, though no longer on a national level. The same is true for Die Freiheit, Die Republikaner, the Bund Freier Bürger, and the Schill-Party. The AfD, on the other hand, can be considered the most successful radical right party in German post-war history, having reached the 5 percent threshold for parliamentary representation in every election since 2014, on regional, national, and the European level. This means, also, that they earn money and can provide employment opportunities, not just for party members, but also for members of Pegida and the Identitarian Movement.

Then there were the crises: the global financial crisis, and the Euro crisis. The latter was particularly salient for the AfD, as it was initially primarily a Eurosceptic party. Its founders were dissatisfied with the German centre-right approach to European integration, and strongly opposed the ‘rescue package’ with which the EU responded to the Euro crisis and Greece’s fiscal problems. Angela Merkel’s support for this policy made her a central hate figure in the radical right’s protest marches. The AfD could, to some extent, even be considered an anti-Merkel party. Having now lost this hate figure, the AfD and German radical right more generally will need to find a replacement.

In its first two years, Dr Havertz says, the AfD’s orientation was primarily driven by the party’s ordoliberal leadership. Though there were other wings, including a national-conservatism group, it was initially described as a “party of professors.” It was considered a party with considerable competence in the area of economics, which is also how they portrayed themselves. In the party’s first years, its face was Bernd Lucke, one of its first three speakers (chairpersons) – an economics professor at the University of Hamburg. He was often on TV, discussing economic issues based on his credentials. But right from the start, there were also some conservative members and others from the new-right and radical right. Some right-wing extremists also joined the party, and 2015 marked a strong turn to the right when Lucke and several other economic-liberal members left the party. Frauke Petry challenged Lucke’s position as speaker and prevailed. This meant a strengthening of the party’s national-conservative wing and also brought about a power shift within the party, from West to East German members. Soon, the Eastern states’ party associations gained a dominant position in the AfD.

Relatedly, the AfD has performed much better in the East Germany than in the West Germany, on both federal and sub-national levels. Also notable is that the party has attracted significantly more male than female voters. The party’s gender gap is very wide and has increased in national elections over time.

Another important development in the party was the development of “Der Flügel (the Wing)” – a right-wing extremist party faction under Björn Höcke’s leadership – which resulted in deeper internal division into a mostly Western economic-liberal faction and a mostly Eastern national-conservative/right-wing extremist wing. After its classification as a certain case of right-wing extremism by the Federal Agency of the Protection of the Constitution (the domestic intelligence service), Der Flügel was forced to dissolve.

Dr Havertz then provided an overview of the AfD’s programmatic orientation and ideological features, namely populism, nationalism/nativism/anti-immigrant positions, Islamophobia, authoritarianism, antisemitism/historical revisionism, Euroscepticism, anti-feminism/anti-genderism, ordoliberalism/social populism as well as welfare chauvinism (which Dr Havertz notes as a contradiction), and Covid-scepticism.

He concludes that the AfD is now firmly established as a radical right populist party in Germany’s party system. It poses a challenge to Germany’s democratic system because it is located somewhere between right-wing populism and right-wing extremism (meaning that its populism has anti-democratic implications) and it will remain an opposition party for the foreseeable future.

Reported by Melissa Blink

 

Dr Karin Liebhart: “Right-wing Populism and the New Right in Austria –– Recent Trends and Manifestations”

The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) can be considered a right-wing populist party since 2017. Under its then-chairman, Sebastian Kurz, it took on several main characteristics of right-wing populist parties, for example, its strong focus on its political leader, its support of strong controls on immigration, a welfare chauvinist rhetoric, and so on. However, radical right populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) has been the main representative of right-wing populism in Austria for decades and is known for its considerable political success since the 1980s.

Dr Karin Liebhart, in her lecture, outlined the history and current circumstances of Austria’s populist radical right. To begin with, she discussed the labels she finds appropriate for each of the players in Austria’s radical or extreme right parties. The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) can be considered a right-wing populist party since 2017. Under its then-chairman, Sebastian Kurz, it took on several main characteristics of right-wing populist parties, for example, its strong focus on its political leader, its support of strong controls on immigration, a welfare chauvinist rhetoric, and so on. Radical right populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) has been the main representative of right-wing populism in Austria for decades and is known for its considerable political success since the 1980s.

The new extremist right is a label Dr Liebhart recommends for the Identitarian Movement, which is extreme right, racist, nationalist, anti-pluralist, and sees itself as a part of the global alt-right. It declared war on 1968’s cultural liberalization, which took place in Austria as well as in Germany. Its prime political aim is to fight the so-called “great exchange” and Islamization of Europe. The Austrian branch, founded in 2012, is a stronghold of the Generation Identity group, which seeks not electoral results, but rather seeks to influence wider public debate. They closely cooperate and collaborate with parties in parliament, like the FPÖ, and with student fraternities.

Dr Liebhart continued by discussing the more moderate side of Austria’s right-wing populist spectrum. In October 2017 the ÖVP, led by Sebastian Kurz, won the general elections. Journalists at the time noted that Austria was quite a curious case of populism; just months earlier Kurz had taken leadership of the centre-right ÖVP and rebranded the party as a political movement, “the Movement for Austria.” The movement focused entirely on Kurz’s personality, and he simultaneously directed the People’s Party sharply to the right. Votes saw a dramatic increase, from approximately 20 percent to approx. 30 percent. The elections ended in a right-wing populist coalition government; upon coming first place in the national elections, Kurz invited the radical right FPÖ to join as the junior partner in a coalition. Unlike in the years 1999 and 2000, when the FPÖ’s ascent to parliament was met with protests and diplomatic sanctions, 2017’s election outcomes were not met by significant protests from abroad.

Both parties, Dr Liebhart says, focused their election campaigns on anti-immigration policies and rhetoric. This strategy had been pursued by the FPÖ since the late 1980s but was fairly new for the ÖVP. Kurz essentially managed to occupy a political space until then monopolized by the FPÖ and soon made immigration his signature. The 2017 general election was incredibly significant, Dr Liebhart noted because it showed that right-wing populist attitudes were no longer limited to the fringes of the political landscape, becoming instead a mainstay of Austrian political culture. She says, in 2019 Cas Mudde said that the ÖVP has become “one of the most right-wing of Europe’s conservative parties,” while the FPÖ successfully shifted Austria’s political discourse firmly to the right.

Dr Liebhart then provided a brief history of the FPÖ. After Jörg Haider was elected chairman in 1986, the party became an explicitly radical right populist and Austrian nationalist party. Since it has direct roots in nationalist socialist ideology, Dr Liebhart feels that it does not belong to the ‘new’ type of radical right parties. Until Haider’s takeover, the FPÖ only played a very minor role in Austrian politics. Once in power, Haider focused on criticizing the political establishment, foregrounded immigration and integration issues, and rejected the idea of Austria as a subordinate subject of a larger German nation, promoting, instead, an ethnically defined Austrian national identity. Haider’s demagogic politics and focus on ethnonationalism did very well at the polls. He also ensured that the ‘Islamic threat’ became a particularly salient topic in Austria, which he combined with Eurocepticism and hostility towards the EU.

In 1999, the FPÖ joined the ÖVP as a junior partner in a coalition government for the first time. This was short-lived due to internal conflict, leading Haider and the FPÖ’s ministers to leave the party and found the “Alliance for the Future of Austria.” After Haider’s unexpected death in 2008, the Alliance lost significant electorate support and failed to reach the 4 percent threshold in the 2013 general elections. Haider was succeeded by Heinz Christian Strache, who further radicalized the party’s ideology, communication, and campaign strategies. This led to some renewed electoral success; the Alliance made it a junior partner to regional governments in upper Austria, for example. In 2006, 2008, and 2013, the party’s campaign posters were very racist, xenophobic, and focused on the construction of ethnic Austrian identity.

Returning to the 2017 coalition government between the FPÖ and ÖVP, Dr Liebhart noted that it operated harmoniously for more than a year, which was facilitated by the ÖVP’s shift to the right under Kurz’s leadership. Their policies were virtually identical regarding such as family politics or the restriction of asylum policies. Another example that demonstrates the parties’ convergence is the fact that both used the same slogan in the 2019 elections: “Someone who speaks our language.”

In any event, the coalition turned Austria into a Eurosceptic and outspokenly anti-immigration country, aligning it more closely with Poland and Hungary than with other Western European countries. The “Ibiza affair” of May 2019 – during which a secretly recorded video showing Strache and Gudenus of the FPÖ discussing illegal practices was made public – blew up the coalition. Interestingly, Dr Liebhart notes, the FPÖ lost significant votes but the ÖVP did not. The ÖVP’s slogan, “our way has just begun,” was widely successful. In the subsequent snap elections, the ÖVP gained 37.5 percent of the other share and joined a coalition with the Green Party. However, Kurz, Austria’s “most charismatic and successful politician” in decades, eventually had to resign in 2021 following bribery investigations.

Under Herbert Kickl, the FPÖ’s chairman since 2021, the party has managed to regain support amongst potential voters. This is partially because Kickl presents himself as the only representative of the opposition to the government’s COVID-19 measures, and the main politician trying to defend the people’s democratic rights against supposed incursions by the government. The FPÖ is very active in organizing anti-Corona-measure rallies. In this vein, it closely collaborates with right-wing extremist groups like Generation Identity, and even Neo-Nazis. Importantly, Dr Liebhart says, the Coronavirus and related rallies have offered the radical right a new stage. Speaking specifically on the Identitarian Movement, Dr Liebhart says that it has, especially in Vienna, taken over and appropriated the anti-Corona-measure demonstrations. One slogan often touted at the rallies reads “the government should control the borders, not the people.”

Dr Liebhart concludes her lecture by saying that “the lasting impact of the transformation of the ÖVP into a right-wing political force on Austria’s political landscape and culture should not be underestimated.”

Reported by Melissa Blink

 

Dr Gilles Ivaldi: “The Populist Radical Right in the 2022 French Presidential Election: Party Fragmentation and Electoral Outcome”

Marine Le Pen presented a two-fold strategy; she simultaneously detoxified her and her party and hid her more radical policies, such as anti-immigration and EU scepticism, which Dr Ivaldi calls “de-demonization strategy.” She also presented a left-wing social populist set of economic policies to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, which is the number one issue for voters. While Le Pen tried to downplay her populist political tendencies, Eric Zemmour embraced them and forwarded a hard-line campaign that helped to portray Le Pen as more of a moderate.

Dr Gilles Ivaldi, in his presentation, provided an overview of the performances of the two populist politicians in the French Presidential election, Marine Le Pen (National Rally) and Eric Zemmour (Reconquête!) and the factors that contributed to their success and failures.

Dr Ivaldi began his speech by highlighting that Le Pen and Zemmour appeared in election champaigns in very different, divergent stances and platforms. On the one hand, Zemmour mixed populism, nativism, and authoritarianism and could comprise a very classical populist platform and manifesto. On the other hand, Le Pen, as Dr Ivaldi argues, presented a two-fold strategy; she simultaneously detoxified her and her party and hid her more radical policies, such as anti-immigration and EU scepticism, which Dr Ivaldi calls “de-demonization strategy.” She also presented a left-wing social populist set of economic policies to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, which is the number one issue for voters. While Le Pen tried to downplay her populist political tendencies, Zemmour embraced them and forwarded a hard-line campaign that helped to portray Le Pen as more of a moderate.

The two candidates also diverged in the issues they attempted to tackle during the election. Le Pen focused, as stated previously, on the cost-of-living crisis currently impacting Europe and the rest of the world. Zemmour, instead, focused his attention on immigration, and law and order. This benefitted Le Pen because she was seen to take the reins on cultural and socioeconomic issues that voters prioritised.

When the results were declared, Le Pen came second to Emmanuel Macron, collecting 23 percent, with Zemmour falling short at the end of his campaign due to his close alliance with Putin on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As Dr Ivaldi summarised, “Altogether, Marine Le Pen checked many important boxes in this election – she responded to the traditional issues of the populist radical right agenda, she established a more respectable image for her party, and she checked the boxes of the cost-of-living issues for voters.” She also, importantly, narrowed the gender gap for populist parties historically in France – mostly men favoured Zemmour, whereas, both women and men voted for Le Pen through the election rounds. Similarly, where the young and old favoured Zemmour, Le Pen appealed to every age demographic.

When the election reached the second round of voting, this is where Macron prevailed. However, Le Pen did manage to earn the votes of around 13 million French citizens, most surprisingly, with many of those coming from traditionally left-wing voters. As Dr Ivaldi summarised, “In this election, there were two fronts working against each other – the traditional Republican front and the anti-Macron front.” Although the former ended up winning, the latter provided a substantial threat to this ‘tradition.’

At the end of his speech, Dr Ivaldi provided very valuable insights into the future of French politics in the years to come. Firstly, he predicts that Le Pen will still be the dominant radical right party leader in France. Zemmour, however, will likely fade with political marginalisation. Lastly, French politics will continue to be polarised on three main fronts – the radical right and left and with Macron holding the centre-ground.

Reported by Tom Robinsons

 

Dr William Allchorn “From the Margins to the Mainstream: The UK Populist Radical Right at a Time of Transition”

Dr Allchorn offers three key takeaways from the journey of right-wing extremism to the radicalisation of the mainstream in UK party politics. Firstly, British exceptionalism thesis (that the UK is the ‘ugly duckling of the European radical right’) is historically true but became increasingly problematic in the 21st century. Secondly, since the demise of UKIP, the UK extreme right has become even more marginal, fragmented and violent. And finally, the contemporary UK radical right are organisationally marginal but pursues anti-immigrant socio-economic frames which are increasingly mainstream post-Brexit.

Dr William Allchorn began his presentation by introducing a conception of UK radical right politics by Roger Griffin – the idea that the UK is still the “ugly duckling” of the European radical right (Griffin, 1996). By interrogating this claim with specific examples of electoral performance, Dr Allchorn provided a clear picture of radical right politics in the UK previously and in contemporary politics today.

Beginning with the British National Party (BNP) in the 1990s, the party rose to prominence due to its stances toward immigration and Muslim communities (demand-side) and its organisational moderation and ideological moderation (supply-side). The party peaked at the 2009 general election with 52 counsellors across the UK being elected but still without parliamentary representation. With the reduced salience of immigration as a political topic coupled with a neo-fascist legacy commanded by the divisive leadership of Nick Griffith, party popularity subsequently fell.

Following on from the BNP were the extremist radical right parties that were significantly fragmented. Parties included the English Defence League (EDL), National Action (NA) and National Front (NF). This extremist anti-establishment collective represented, what Dr. Allchorn labels, “a move towards a post-organisational space of anti-Islamic protest” in UK politics without much electoral representation or recognition.

With the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), the UK saw a move towards classical populism and the prevalence of the ‘corrupt elite’ versus ‘the real people.’ On the demand-side, anti-immigration and anti-establishment viewpoints went arm in arm with a charismatic leader in Nigel Farage, on the supply side, a neo-fascist past and a strong rejection of Prime Minister David Cameron’s liberal-conservative coalition government. Its popularity initially spiked in the 2009 European Elections and with notable successes in subsequent European Elections and various local and by-elections. At its height, they fielded 22 MEPs, 2 MPs and notable Conservative Party defectors such as Mark Reckless and Douglas Carswell. In the 2014 European Parliament Elections, UKIP won with its populist stance and platform which contributed to the Brexit referendum.

The 2015 general election saw the fall of the UKIP party domestically without them winning a seat leading to Farage’s resignation and subsequent party infighting. Although they claimed victory following the outcome of the Brexit vote, the 2017 general election compounded their demise and UKIP was labelled radical with Theresa May’s Conservative Party consolidating right-wing, especially working-class voters. The 2019 general election further oversaw the radicalisation and mainstreaming of the extreme right in its support of the conservatives.

Dr Allchorn concluded his presentation with three key takeaways from this journey of right-wing extremism to the radicalisation of the mainstream in UK party politics. Firstly, referring back to Griffin in the introduction, he stated, “We can suggest that the British exceptionalism thesis (that the UK is the ‘ugly duckling of the European radical right’) is historically true, but became increasingly problematic in the 21st century.” Secondly, “Since the demise of UKIP, the UK extreme right has become even more marginal, fragmented and violent.” And finally, “The contemporary UK radical right are organisationally marginal but pursues anti-immigrant socio-economic frames which are increasingly mainstream post-Brexit.”

Reported by Tom Robinson