Varieties of populist parties

Abstract

Can parties such as the Swedish Democrats, the Jobbik Movement for a Better Hungary, the UK Independence Party and the Italian Lega Nord all be classified consistently as part of the same family? Part I of this study summarizes the conceptual framework arguing that the traditional post-war Left-Right cleavage in the electorate and party competition has faded, overlaid by divisions over authoritarian-libertarianism and populism-pluralism. Building on this, part II discusses the pros and cons of alternative methods for gathering evidence useful to classify party positions. Part III describes how these are measured in this study, using Chapel Hill Expert Survey data in 2014 and 2017, and how they are mapped on a multidimensional issue space. Part IV compares European political parties on these scales – including Authoritarian-Populist parties – across a wide range of European countries. The conclusion in part V draws together the main findings and considers their implications.

Measuring populism worldwide

“…And other strongly populist parties, like Syriza and Unidos Podemos, endorse progressive or liberal social values (Duina and Carson, 2019). In this regard, scholars need to identify varieties of populists distributed across a multidimensional issue space, such as distinguishing Progressives, the Nativist Left, and Laissez-faire Libertarians, as well as the Authoritarian Right, rather than assuming that all can be neatly categorized by their "extreme" right-wing position along a single Left-Right dimension (Norris, 2019).…”

“…By contrast, elsewhere in the world many populist leaders have often been categorized as economically left-wing, such as in Central and Eastern Europe (Pirro, 2015) and Latin America (Torre and Arnson, 2013). The ambiguity is also common in popular usage, such as commentators depicting President Trump, Senator Warren, and Senator Sanders as “populists,” despite wide differences in the political worldviews and public policies advocated by these leaders (Norris, 2019; Wilkinson, 2020).…”

“…The use of populist rhetoric is conceptualized as a “first-order” language making claims about the rightful distribution of legitimate authority and power in decision-making processes. In liberal democracies, the most common contrast to populism is the rhetoric of “liberal pluralism.” The substantive meaning of the rhetoric about governance becomes colored by the second-order principles, however, including by social and economic values and programmatic policy positions, generating varieties of populism (Norris, 2019). In turn, these may be expected to reflect core socioeconomic and cultural cleavages in the mass electorate.…”

Ontological Security, Trauma and Violence, and the Protection of Women: Polygamy Among Minority Communities

“…[It] is harmful to the status of women and in addition disrupts the demographic balance in Israel …." (Netanyahu, 2018). A similar tone was adopted by member of parliament Bezalel Smotrich, belonging to the far-right party Habayit HaYehudi: the birth rate among Israel's Bedouin community "is a bomb that must be handled, ….…”

“…The publication of the Report drew extensive media attention and provoked official and unofficial government statements, including those of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (Netanyahu, 2018). The fight against polygamy thus became part of the national agenda.…”