Populism in Europe: An Illiberal Democratic Response to Undemocratic Liberalism (The<i>Government and Opposition</i>/Leonard Schapiro Lecture 2019)

Mudde, Cas

doi:10.1017/gov.2021.15

Cited by 72 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The examples above, such as the trilogues, describe how policy-making in the EP has become removed from democratic ideals about openness, participation and public scrutiny. Some have argued that this tendency towards professionalisation, technocratisation and depoliticisation is common to EU policy-making and fuels illiberal populism (Mudde, 2021;Schmidt, 2020). How democratic are the groups, how do they hold up liberal democracy and democratic practices within them?…”

Section: Evaluating Political Groups: Focus On Democratic Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: European Parliament’s Political Groups in Turbulent Times

Kantola

Elomäki

Ahrens

2022

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics

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The turbulent times the European Union witnessed over the last years together with the increased competences for the European Parliament call for closer examination of political groups as core actors in this setting. In this introductory chapter, we engage with political groups as unique alliances of national party delegations and the context they operate in. We first discuss the core features of the political groups and then proceed to present new inroads into studying their functions, work and practices. By engaging with broader questions of democracy and what political groups research can contribute, we suggest that theorising the democratic functioning within the EP allows casting a critical eye on democratic practices and the growing salience of the political groups. The chapter closes by introducing the chapters of the volume which provide new insights into the practices of political groups, the dynamics and power relations between them and, thus, decision-making and policy-making in the European Parliament.

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Section: Evaluating Political Groups: Focus On Democratic Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: European Parliament’s Political Groups in Turbulent Times

Kantola

Elomäki

Ahrens

2022

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics

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“…Finally, this article provides additional support to the thesis that populists gain ground when social democrats move to the centre in the economic debate (Hopkin and Blyth 2019;Mudde 2021). In this regard, none of the external financial policies adopted by Argentina and Hungary is populist per se, being fully compatible with a social-democratic agenda.…”

Section: Assessment Of Alternative Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 62%

Post-Neoliberalism and External Financial Liberalization: Comparing Left-Wing and Right-Wing Populism

Silva

2021

Gov. & oppos.

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This article aims to discuss to what extent populist parties with opposite ideological backgrounds have differed in their policies towards inherited external financial liberalization (EFL). Building upon a comparative case study centred on Argentina under Kirchnerism (2003–15) and Hungary under Viktor Orbán (since 2010), I conclude that both experiences led to a partial EFL reversal. However, reflecting their opposite ideological underpinnings, each subtype of populism opted to restrict a different dimension of EFL. Argentina's left-wing populism re-regulated cross-border capital flows, harming financial operators, foreign investors and primary exporters through capital controls and export surrenders. These interventionist capital account regulations were needed to shield expansionary macroeconomic policies that attended the interests of subordinate socioeconomic strata, fuelling the tension with financial markets and domestic economic elites. Conversely, Hungary's right-wing populism focused on the ownership structure of the banking sector, aiming to redistribute assets from foreign to domestic private banks and improve the credit conditions for native capitalists. In this case, even when resorting to macroeconomic heterodoxy, the maintenance of fiscal balance and price stability retained support from both foreign investors and domestic business groups, mitigating tensions derived from financial nationalism.

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“…Yet, real-world behavior demonstrates that citizens care about democracy when considering their vote choice which is arguably the most consequential political action of most citizens. What is sometimes overlooked in a time of populist and anti-system parties (Mudde, 2021) is that candidates in established democracies do not run a chance of even coming close to a majority of votes when campaigning on overtly anti-democratic platforms. While this rule is not without exceptions (eg.…”

Section: Merely Expressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratic Support as Truism: Ordinary Citizens’ Vulnerability to Anti-democratic Temptations

Wuttke¹

2022

Preprint

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For long, ordinary citizens have been considered bulwarks against democratic decay. Yet, recently, assaults on democracy were undertaken by rulers who came into power through citizens’ sovereign choices. Why do citizens so frequently fail to stand up for democracy although the democratic idea is almost universally supported? To resolve this paradox, in this review article I introduce “democratic support as truism” as a novel conceptual lens. Citizen support for democracy is a truism in that it is a widely held but superficial attitude. In other words, almost everyone supports democracy but only few can explain why they do, or what democracy is. From this perspective, the foremost danger to democracy is not that large swaths of citizens would oppose democracy and might become active agents of democratic overthrow. Instead, due to a shallow understanding of democracy’s underlying principles and practices many citizens fail to recognize democratic norm violations and become easy targets for the manipulation by aspiring autocrats who frame their assaults on democracy as pro-democratic. As a consequence, even though democracy remains as popular as ever, against more sophisticated forms of democratic backsliding the citizenry is a more fragile line of defense than previously considered.

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Populism in Europe: An Illiberal Democratic Response to Undemocratic Liberalism (TheGovernment and Opposition/Leonard Schapiro Lecture 2019)

Cited by 72 publications

References 60 publications

Introduction: European Parliament’s Political Groups in Turbulent Times

Introduction: European Parliament’s Political Groups in Turbulent Times

Post-Neoliberalism and External Financial Liberalization: Comparing Left-Wing and Right-Wing Populism

Democratic Support as Truism: Ordinary Citizens’ Vulnerability to Anti-democratic Temptations

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