Suchergebnisse

Populism is a hot topic in academia. The causes of this phenomenon have received much attention with many studies focusing on the role of the high levels of unresponsiveness of mainstream parties in triggering a populist response. In this respect, in many cases, populist parties have become a relevant electoral force in the concomitance with an electoral decline of mainstream political options, mostly in the last decades. This article considers a situation in which the whole party system's unresponsiveness reaches its zenith, and the party system collapses. A collapse is the result of the incapacity of most of the parties in the system to fulfill their basic function, i.e., to represent voters' interests. When this happens, none of the types of linkages—programmatic, clientelist, or personalist—that tie parties and voters are effective. Empirical observation shows that in those cases populism can perform as a sort of representation linkage to re-connect parti(es) and voters on the basis of the moral distinction between "the people" and "the elite." Through a discursive strategy of blame attribution, populistm can attract a large portion of the vote. At this point, its opposing ideology—anti-populism—also arouses. In other words, populism/anti-populism may result in a political cleavage that structures the party system by itself or, more frequently, with other cleavages. To elucidate this argument, the paper explores the case of Italy between 1994 and 2018. The electoral relevance of populist parties translated first into a discursive cleavage, which, in turn, changed the space of competition with the emergence of a new political axis, namely populism/anti-populism. This paper's central claim is that the dynamics of partisan competition cannot be understood by overlooking the populism/anti-populism political divide. The conclusion touches on one implication of the emergence of this political cleavage, namely change of the incentives for coalition building. In fact, when populism and anti-populism structure, at least partially, the party system changing the space of interparty competition, this in turn may affect the determinants behind parties' coalition-building choices.

At the theoretical level, even if populism and democracy are not necessarily antithetical, the former challenges the liberal component of democracy, advocating for the majority rule and putting under stress the principles of the rule of law. To test the relationship between liberal democracy and populism, we created four new questions that measure the support for liberal democracy conceived as a trade-off with different policies. We tested our battery of questions in a pilot survey with educated young voters. The results show that those individuals who exhibit lower levels of support for liberal democracy are the ones with higher populist attitudes. This might be due to the fact that the original battery of questions grasps the level of support for liberal democracy better than the standard 'Churchillian' question.

Levels of electoral volatility after the 2008 Great Recession were record in most Western European countries. The main causes of this electoral instability were the negative development of the economy, the crisis of the traditional political parties and the changes in the issues of political competition. At the individual level, it is not clear what factors lead voters to change partisan preferences after the Great Recession. In addition, in general terms, little is known about the differences between a stable voter and a volatile one. This study, for 12 Western European countries after the economic crisis, concludes that the economic voter model did not always explain the change of party preference after 2008, while sentiments of political dissatisfaction would help us to understand the change of parties between elections. ; Los niveles de volatilidad electoral tras la Gran Recesión de 2008 fueron récord en la mayoría de los países de Europa occidental. Entre las principales causas de esta inestabilidad electoral destacan el desarrollo negativo de la economía, la crisis de los partidos tradicionales y el cambio de los temas de competición política. A nivel individual, se desconoce qué factores propiciaron que los electores cambiasen de preferencia partidista después de la Gran Recesión. Además, en general, se sabe poco sobre las diferencias entre un elector estable y uno volátil. Este estudio de 12 países de Europa occidental tras la crisis económica concluye que el modelo del votante económico no siempre explicó el cambio de preferencia partidista después de 2008, mientras que los sentimientos de desafección política se encuentran entre las principales razones para entender el cambio de partidos entre elecciones.

AbstractAlthough the populist radical right (PRR) has become a global phenomenon, research about it focuses much more on Europe than on other regions. To counter this imbalance, this special issue provides comparative evidence on the discourse elaborated by the PRR on six non-European countries: Australia, Brazil, Chile, India, Turkey, and the United States. As we will show, non-European PRR forces articulate authoritarian, nativist, and populist ideas in different ways than their European brethren and they employ specific ideological elements (e.g., neoliberalism and religion) to advance discourses that resonate with the social grievances that are preponderant in the context wherein they operate. This reveals that part of the success of the PRR is related to its discursive flexibility and capacity to adapt itself with the aim of constructing frames that connect with the anxieties experimented by segments of the voting public across different national and regional settings.

Este artículo analiza la relación existente entre derecha radical populista y apoyo a la democracia. Para ello, estudia el caso de VOX. En este sentido, la formación de Santiago Abascal, resulta particularmente interesante ya que encaja en la definición de derecha radical populista pero en su discurso, el radicalismo es mucho más fuerte que el populismo. Además, el partido presenta rasgos idiosincrásicos únicos y que juegan un papel fundamental a la hora de entender su voto. Así, por ejemplo, el nacionalismo se expresa a menudo mediante alusiones al período predemocrático en España sin adherirse explícitamente al franquismo. Dos son los principales resultados de este estudio. Por un lado, evaluando el discurso de VOX, especialmente su programa electoral, encontramos que sus líderes aluden recurrentemente a la España predemocrática tanto en temas concretos como en símbolos. En segundo lugar, mostramos que aquellos que expresan un menor apoyo al régimen democrático fueron más proclives a votar a VOX quea otras fuerzas políticas, al menos en las últimas elecciones generales de noviembre de 2019. Además, encontramos que los valores autoritarios, el descontento político y la idea romántica de un pasado glorioso, interactúan con el apoyo al régimen y ayudan a explicar el voto a VOX. Aunque sea necesario un estudio comparativo para evaluar más a fondo esta relación, este artículo puede dar una primera pista de que, haciendo hincapié en el pasado autoritario de su país, algunos partidos de la derecha radical populista consiguen éxito político movilizando a aquellos electores que están menos comprometidos con la democracia.

This article analyzes the individual factors that help explain the electoral support for Jair Bolsonaro in the 2018 Presidential elections in Brazil in light of the findings for the Populist Radical Right (PRR) in Western Europe. The present article contributes to the comparative literature on the determinants of the vote for the PRR in a non-European country. Analyzing the rise of the PRR in Latin America is particularly relevant since structural constraints limit its chances. To carry out our analysis, we rely on survey data from the Brazilian Electoral Study (BES). Beyond some specificities due to differences in the articulation of the PRR's main ideologies, we found that while certain determinants of the vote for the PRR in Brazil are in line with the hypothesis based on the European experience, others respond to country and region-level indicators like negative identity toward the PT.

AbstractIn this article, we triangulate qualitative data regarding the framing of the pandemic and the strategic decisions taken by Spain's new populist radical right-wing party, VOX, with a quantitative analysis of aggregate polling data and individual-level survey responses to answer three questions: how has VOX framed the politics of the pandemic? What actions has VOX taken in response to COVID-19? Have the events of the COVID-19 crisis affected VOX's electoral chances? We argue that VOX's response to the pandemic has focused on augmenting the antagonistic relationship between itself and the political establishment, especially the left-wing government. Strategically, VOX has sought to leverage the health crisis to engage in legislative manoeuvres aiming, without success, to position itself as the primary party-in-waiting for right-wing voters. We also demonstrate that VOX has proven to be resilient against the potential for electoral decline that was widely prophesied at the beginning of the pandemic.

In this article, we triangulate qualitative data regarding the framing of the pandemic and the strategic decisions taken by Spain's new populist radical right-wing party, VOX, with a quantitative analysis of aggregate polling data and individual-level survey responses to answer three questions: how has VOX framed the politics of the pandemic? What actions has VOX taken in response to COVID-19? Have the events of the COVID-19 crisis affected VOX's electoral chances? We argue that VOX's response to the pandemic has focused on augmenting the antagonistic relationship between itself and the political establishment, especially the left-wing government. Strategically, VOX has sought to leverage the health crisis to engage in legislative manoeuvres aiming, without success, to position itself as the primary party-in-waiting for right-wing voters. We also demonstrate that VOX has proven to be resilient against the potential for electoral decline that was widely prophesied at the beginning of the pandemic.

Abstract
Despite the increasing influence of populist radical right (PRR) forces at the global level, they have been absent in
Chile until very recently. Today, however, the conditions seem to be ripe for the consolidation of the PRR in the country. As we show in
this contribution, José Antonio Kast and the Partido Republicano advance a programmatic agenda that emphasizes authoritarian, nativist, and
populist ideas. We also demonstrate certain peculiarities of this political project, which differentiates it from its European brethren. In
fact, the party has adopted very clear neoliberal positions and puts much more emphasis on outgroup distinctions within rather than outside
the nation. Moreover, given that José Antonio Kast and the Partido Republicano maintain a very fluid relationship with the mainstream right,
collaboration between the two seems much simpler and more feasible than in most European cases.

"This book examines VOX, the first major and electorally successful populist radical right-wing party to emerge in Spain since the death of General Franco, and the restoration of parliamentary democracy in the late 1970s. In December 2018, VOX, a new party on the populist radical right, entered the Andalusian regional parliament, and played the role of kingmaker in the ensuing government formation discussions. Since then, under the leadership of Santiago Abascal, VOX has earned political representation in numerous local, regional and national elections. The party attracted more than 3.6 million votes in the November 2019 general election, making VOX the third largest party in the Spanish Congress. In two years, the party has become a key political challenger and an important player in Spanish politics. This book explains the origins of the party, its ideology and relationship with democracy, its appeal with voters, and its similarities with (and differences from) other populist radical right parties in Europe. It draws upon a rich source of domestic as well as cross-national survey data and a systematic analysis of party manifestos which provide a detailed account of the rise of VOX and what its emergence means for Spanish politics. This volume will be of interest to scholars of comparative politics, political parties, voters and elections, Spanish politics, the populist radical right and populism in general"--