In the digital age, new ways of interaction provide a new type of public sphere, which dramatically changes party politics. This not only includes the modernisation and professionalisation of mainstream political parties but also paves the way for new challengers and a new dimension of campaigning. The current examples, the Pirate Party, especially in Germany, and the Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo, show at least short‐term potential. The Pirate Party caused a media hype about the young activists. Grillo transcended the borders between comedy and politics without the helping hand of the traditional media, which ignored him. The threat for representative democracies lies in the growing anti‐elitism, which combines the Pirates and Grillo. Mainstream political parties should indicate that the claim for a new participatory politics beyond right and left is a utopian one, while attacking the way that party politics works. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Public attention has been drawn to the recent successes of the far right. This article claims that a new wave of anti-establishment parties has shaken European politics. A diverse array of outsiders from the left, right and no fixed ideological abode are attacking the mainstream centre-left and centreright. Their anti-elitist approaches to politics have strategy, topics and style in common. Examples such as Syriza (The Coalition of the Radical Left), Podemos (We can!) and the Five Star Movement (MoVimento Cinque Stelle) show that this provocative new spectre of the twenty-first century is not just right wing. Keywords Anti-establishment Á Party politics Á Alternative doctrine Á Far right Á Mobilisation Á Euroscepticism Á Populism Introduction: a misleading focus on the far right Political observers have given much attention to the far right and to right-wing populist challengers. Since the 1990s, in particular, these parties have either entered national parliaments for the first time or increased the number of seats they hold. In most European countries they are relevant political players.

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The European project has recently reached a critical point, where a discussion on the fundamental objectives of the European Union has entered public debate. Obviously, a new euroscepticism is on the rise which is often linked with the agenda of populist or even extremist parties and a general tendency of ‘renationalizing Europe’. The drifting apart within the mainstream parties shows the cracks in European society. The success of right-wing populist tends to be volatile despite of the fact that this heterogeneous party family seems to be a permanent factor in the European party landscape. In Austria or France, the parties show with the second generation of leadership that they are able to renew themselves. But the parties differ a lot in the national backgrounds, can be extremist or totally not. In general, it is unlikely that any right-wing populist or extremist international groups will be formed any time soon competing as unified force at the European level. Extremist parties do not have enough potential support to pose a threat to the existing liberal democratic order with some exceptions such as Hungary an Greece due to the time of a severe crisis not only in economic terms. The power of European integration is so strong that it is unlikely that there will be any national U-turns on this issue, despite the occasional upsurge of populism or extremism in individual countries. Nevertheless, the debate over the future of European integration and of the European Union itself will continue to have a significant influence on the political debate in individual member states

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