Here to Stay: Anti-establishment Parties in Europe

Abstract

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.

Are the Supporters of Populist Parties Loyal Voters? Dissatisfaction and Stable Voting for Populist Parties

“…1 We limit our empirical investigations to established democracies because the dynamics between political dissatisfaction, vote stability and populist support are substantially different in newer democracies. The political systems of Central and Eastern European countries, for example, are still characterized by a lack of continuity in the party system, higher levels of public dissatisfaction with politics, and with several parties going through episodes of populism long before the rise of populism in the West (Hartleb 2015;Van Kessel 2015;Mudde 2007). 2 Recent studies show that while overwhelming support for the democratic political system itself remained largely unaltered in established democracies (Norris 2011), pessimism about the functioning of political institutions and distrust of its main actors has deepened over the generations (Dalton and Weldon 2005;Mair 2013).…”

“…However, the electoral support for populist parties increased strongly in several long-standing Western democracies from the 2000s onwards (e.g. Hartleb 2015; Van Kessel 2015). As a result, the thesis that dissatisfied voters in general – and more particularly the dissatisfied voters of populist parties – are regular vote-switchers may no longer hold in political systems where dissatisfied voters can vote stably for viable populist party alternatives.…”

“… 1 We limit our empirical investigations to established democracies because the dynamics between political dissatisfaction, vote stability and populist support are substantially different in newer democracies. The political systems of Central and Eastern European countries, for example, are still characterized by a lack of continuity in the party system, higher levels of public dissatisfaction with politics, and with several parties going through episodes of populism long before the rise of populism in the West (Hartleb 2015; Van Kessel 2015; Mudde 2007). …”

Anti-establishment coalition governments in Southern Europe: Greece and Italy

“…In the years thereafter, the debate on anti-party and challenger parties became more specific, focusing on antiestablishment parties whose emergence could be associated with the process of 'value change' and the subsequent failure of traditional parties to include the emerging issues into their narrative (Ignazi 1997: 318). Several scholars (Sartori 1976;Schedler 1996;Capoccia 2002;Abedi 2004;Hartleb 2015;Zulianello 2019) have used a range of synthetic conceptualizations in order to approach the parties that deviate from the category of political establishment.…”

Do Entrepreneurial Parties Make any Difference for Polish Politics? The Case of the Palikot Movement and Kukiz’15

“…The subject literature has for many years produced discussion on the crisis experienced by political parties� The most frequently advanced arguments to illustrate this very crisis are the decreasing citizen participation, resulting in diminishing party membership numbers, a growing electoral volatility as well as a declining turnout (Whiteley, 2011;van Biezen, Mair, & Poguntke, 2012;Scarrow, 2015)� Another aspect of this problem has been the growing link between parties and state institutions, something that can be especially clearly seen in the cartel party model of Richard Katz and Peter Mair (1995)� It is worth emphasising that these phenomena impact significantly on the way in which a party realises its functions and particularly on the function of representing interests (Enyedi, 2014, p� 194)� On the one hand, all the critical remarks made above relate to political parties as such, while on the other, it does somewhat appear that in practice they are concentrated first and foremost on mainstream parties� The consequence of such a situation is, among other things, an extremely clear tendency, one observed as equally in stabilised as in new democracies, for the creation of new groupings which in assumption may be alternative in relation to the poorly functioning "old" parties (Hartleb, 2015;Deegan-Krause & Haughton, 2015)� The expression "new groupings" is used on purpose, because apart from new political parties there is a growing activity of actors who negate the party organizational formula, but still perform functions characteristic for parties such as taking part in elections or creating governments� Good example may be the Italian Five Star Movement (Della Porta et al�, 2017;Natale & Ballatore, 2014)� what the "new quality" proposed within the programmes of these entities is and of whether these parties really practise what they have preached, particularly whether they use innovations related to alternative forms of democracy in their own structures and after entering parliament try to put their postulates on the state agenda� Keywords: party programmes; Polish parties; entrepreneurial parties; new parties Celem artykułu jest odpowiedź na pytania, na czym polega "nowa jakość" proponowana w programach tych podmiotów oraz czy głoszone przez nie postulaty są realizowane w praktyce, w szczególności czy wykorzystują innowacje związane z alternatywnymi formami demokracji we własnych strukturach oraz czy po wejściu do parlamentu starają się uczynić swoje postulaty częścią agendy państwowej� Słowa kluczowe: programy partyjne; polskie partie; partie przedsiębiorców; nowe partie…”