Actions and Reactions:
On the dynamics of competition between populist challengers and
mainstream parties in Europe today
22-23 January 2018
University of Birmingham
Room: 429, fourth floor, Muirhead Tower
A Workshop organised by the
PSA’s Italian Politics Specialist Group (IPSG),
the “Parties, Voters and
Elections Research Group” of the Department of Political Science and
International Studies of the University of Birmingham, and the Department of
Politics and International Relations at Aston University.
REGISTRATION: the workshop is free, but available places are
limited. Those wishing to attend should contact Prof. James L. Newell (j.l.newell@salford.ac.uk) by 13
November 2017.
WORKSHOP PROGRAMME
Day 1: 22 January
12:30-1:30pm – Welcome Lunch
1:30-3:15pm – SESSION 1
Chair and discussant: Dr Daniele Albertazzi
(University of Birmingham; IPSG co-convenor)
Papers:
Emilie van Haute (Université libre
de Bruxelles): Responses of mainstream parties to populist radical right
With the recent
surge in support for far-right populist parties, xenophobia and nativism have
suddenly become more mainstream across Europe. The far-right’s success has put
fundamental civil and political liberties under threat at home, especially for
visible minorities, and raised the question of how more mainstream parties
should react to these extremists. Should they refuse to cooperate with the
far-right and seek to isolate them from power? Or, should they accept them as
legitimate democratic actors and include them in the political process? This
study examines this question, focusing in particular on how isolation or
inclusion strategies matter for the far-right’s support. Drawing on the four
waves of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data set and examining both
party thermometer ratings and vote choice over time, we find that strategy
matters.
Maurits Meijers and Andrej Zaslove (Radboud University): Creating a reliable and valid measurement of
political parties' populism
The conceptual
debate on the analytical concept of populism has produced a great number of
definitions. The classification of populist or non-populist parties often
depends on the specific definition one chooses. With an expert survey, we
attempt to measure the constitutive ideological and representative traits of
parties as specified by the dominant definitions of populism in the literature.
Relying on a high number of party-based populism experts per country, this
expert survey attempts to harness a conceptual consensus that is essential for
the study of populism. Moreover, the results of the expert survey will allow us
to compare the empirical repercussions of different definitions of populism.
For instance, do ideology-based or style-based definitions of populism yield a
different selection of populist parties? Moreover, factor analysis techniques
will allow us to devise a minimalist definition of populism on the basis of
quantitative indicators. The paper will assess the preliminary results of a
pilot study conducted in the Netherlands by mapping the different empirical
configurations produced by the different common definitions of populism.
3:15-3:45pm – Coffee Break
3:45-5:30pm – SESSION 2
Chair and discussant: Prof. James L. Newell
(University of Salford; IPSG Chair)
Papers:
Gilles Ivaldi (University of Nice): Crowding the market: the dynamics of
populist and mainstream competition in the 2017 French presidential elections
The 2017 French
presidential elections have seen a considerable rise in support for populist
actors at the periphery of the party system, challenging the dominance of the
more established parties of the mainstream. The electoral success of Jean-Luc
Mélenchon’s France Insoumise (LFI) has expanded the political space for
populist politics to the left of the political spectrum, competing with Marine
Le Pen’s Front national (FN) to the right. Meanwhile, the emergence of Emmanuel
Macron as a politically viable centrist alternative has dislodged further the
traditional bipolar dynamics of competition in French politics, resulting in a
significant reshaping of the party system. Based on a national survey of French
voters conducted in 2017, this paper will examine the dynamics of electoral
support for populist candidates in the presidential election, looking at
commonalities and differences between the left and right-wing manifestations of
the populist phenomenon, and to which extent these differed from the
mainstream. In doing so, the paper will position itself in the current
comparative literature on populism, addressing in particular how populism
interacts with other dimensions of competition, most notably globalization and
European integration which were paramount in the 2017 elections in France.
Jim Shields (Aston University): Populism
at the Polls: France's Presidential and Parliamentary Elections
The French
presidential election of 2017 was both a victory and a defeat for Marine Le
Pen’s far-right populist campaign ‘Au nom du peuple’. The victory was the Front
National leader’s second-place finish among 11 presidential candidates; the
defeat lay in Emmanuel Macron’s run-off win by 66% to Le Pen’s 34%. This paper
analyses the strengths and weaknesses both of Le Pen in the presidential poll
and of her party in the parliamentary elections that followed. What do these
elections tell us about the current challenge and prospects of far-right
populism in France? Does 2017, with 10.6 million votes for Le Pen, mark a high
point or just one more stage in the FN’s rise? The paper will consider the FN’s
electoral strategy and reach. It will also look beyond the elections to the
difficulties the FN has encountered since, with questions raised over Le Pen’s
continued leadership and over the durability of the FN’s populist appeal within
the shifting dynamics of electoral competition in France.
7 pm – DINNER
Day 2: 23 January
9:00-10:45 – SESSION 3
Chair and discussant: Dr Davide Vampa (Aston
University; IPSG Member)
Papers:
Paolo Graziano (University of Padova) and Manuela
Caiani (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa): Party
Realignment, Economic Crisis and Varieties of Populism in Europe
The paper
examines how the recent economic and political crisis within the EU has affected
the diffusion or consolidation of varieties of populisms in Europe, making this
category increasingly difficult to be attributed only to some specific
(ideologically determined) political parties. Focusing on several current
empirical cases of populisms in various European countries, we will try to
disentangle the role of the crisis with respect to other variables referred to
party (system) change - such as party realignment and party system
restructuring – to the growing electoral strength of populist parties in
Europe. The general hypothesis which inspires the article is that the
redefinition of Western parties (Mair, 2013) has offered opportunities for the
emergence of populist parties, whereas the crisis has provided a specific
opportunity for their consolidation. The paper will test this hypothesis by a)
mapping populist parties currently existing in Europe, and classifying them
according to different ’types of populisms’ (especially in terms of
inclusionary and exclusionary types: Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2013); b) analysing
the relationship between the economic crisis and the recent evolution of party
systems in all 28 EU countries.
Kyriaki Nanou (University of Nottingham): Economic crisis and the rise of welfare
nationalism across the EU
Nationalism has
been criticised as an irrational doctrine associated with some of the most
violent right-wing movements of the 20th century. Because it tends to be
understood in terms of ethnic exclusion, nationalism is considered a
prerogative of radical right-wing parties. This view is based on the
problematic assumption that nationalism is always extreme. Observing the
current economic crisis, we discern the rise of nationalism as a broader
phenomenon cutting across party lines and spatial boundaries, suggesting that
economic crises need not necessarily generate a radical right-wing variety of
nationalism, but rather a nationalism that can also be found in the mainstream.
This paper hypothesizes that the current economic crisis has triggered
nationalist rhetoric among European political elites aimed at facilitating
solidarity within countries but not between EU member states. Mainstream
parties have capitalised on the issue of who should be entitled to the
collective goods of the state, thus linking the economic crisis with the
immigration issue: what we term ‘welfare nationalism’. To test this argument,
we examine whether an increase in nationalist rhetoric from parties has
contributed to a rise in nationalist attitudes amongst citizens. We combine
cross-national survey data with data on party positions to analyse the relationship
between them.
10:45-11:15am – Coffee Break
Chair and
discussant: Dr Arianna Giovannini (De
Montfort University; IPSG co-convenor)
Papers:
Caterina Froio and Bharath Ganesh (Oxford Internet Institute): The transnational dimension of
Far right Islamophobia on Twitter
While an
increasing number of contributions addresses the topic of Islamophobia and
transnationalism in far right politics, few systematic investigations exist on
the discourses favored in transnational anti-Islam exchanges on social media.
Building on the literature on far right politics, opposition to Islam,
transnationalism and the Internet, the paper addresses this gap by studying the
issues that are favored to oppose Islam in online exchanges between audiences
of far right organizations across France, Germany, Italy and the United
Kingdom. We use a new dataset on the activities and audiences of far right
Twitter users that is analyzed through a mixed methods approach. Using Social
Network Analysis, we detect transnational anti-Islam links between far right
organizations across countries based on retweets from audiences of far right
Twitter users. Retweets are qualitatively coded for content and compared to the
content retweeted within national communities. Finally, using a logistic
regression, we quantify the level to which specific anti-Islam issues enjoy
high levels of attention across borders. Subsequently we use discourse analysis
to qualitatively reconstruct the interpretative frames accompanying these patterns.
We find that although social media are often ascribed much power in favoring
transnational anti-Islam exchanges between far right organizations, there is
little evidence of this. Only few dimensions of the opposition to Islam
(security and Islamization of Europe) garner transnational far right audiences
on Twitter. In addition, we find that more than the parties themselves, leaders
play a prominent role in the construction of a transnational anti-Islam far
right discourse.
Pietro Castelli (Scuola Normale Superiore,
Pisa) and Lorenzo Zamponi (EUI): Contested
borders: pro- and anti-refugee movements in Italy
The increase in
asylum applications over the past years set in motion two interrelated
processes across European societies: on the one hand, the radical right
mobilized to ‘defend the borders’ of Europe, promoting institutional and
extra-parliamentary initiatives against refugees; on the other, a wide set of
grassroots actions in solidarity with asylum-seekers were promoted by
left-progressive movements at the national and transnational level. Thus far,
however, very little research has looked into the competitive interaction
between these two camps. Conversely, we consider the recent dynamic as a
potentially fruitful chance to overcome a known limit of social movement
studies – the tendency to focus on individual movements as isolated actors –
and investigate the reciprocal influence of the opposing movements.
Accordingly, the paper offers an in-depth analysis of movement-countermovement
dynamics in the wake of the ‘refugee crisis’ in Italy. What are the main frames
and repertoires of action promoted by the pro-refugee and anti-refugee camps?
To what extent their choices have been shaped by initiatives taken by their
opponents? How did they attempt to limit the expansion and resonance of the
opposing camp and its influence on mainstream actors and narratives? Based on
new empirical data from over 40 face-to-face interviews with activists from
anti-immigration as well as solidarity groups in Italy, we show that discursive
opportunities and interaction with the state contributed to shaping the frames
of both movements around similar resonant themes, although triggering
conflicting interpretations and distinct repertoires of action. Furthermore,
our analysis shows a visible interaction between the two movements, with the
pro-refugee camp often intervening in reaction to initiative of the opposite
front. While the pro-refugee movement effectively mobilized in solidarity to
asylum seekers, intervening in situations perceived as critical, it was
considerably less successful in countering the hegemonic frames promoted by
anti-immigration and populist right-wing coalitions.
Yaprak Gürsoy: The Peculiarities of Turkish Populism: Nationalism, Neoliberalism,
Strong Party Organization and Authoritarianism
The electoral
successes of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, first as the Prime Minister (between 2003
and 2014) and then as the President (since 2014) of Turkey have been attributed
partly to his populist appeal. Indeed, the antagonistic and divisive style of
Erdoğan is similar to other populist leaders in Europe as identified by the
literature. Yet, this paper argues that, in four respects the Turkish variant
differs from other the European cases. First, Turkish populism is nationalist,
but not anti-immigrant. Non-Turkish citizens within the country, such as the
Kurds, are seen as the “other” although Sunni Muslims from Syria have been
welcomed. Second, Turkish populism has been following neoliberal, free trade
policies rather than advocating protectionist and socialist or mixed economic
policies. Third, Erdoğan’s appeal relies
not only on his personal charisma but also on strong, grass-roots party
organization of the Justice and Development Party (JDP), with high mobilization
capacity. Finally, the electoral successes of the JDP and its mobilization
against the 15 July 2016 coup attempt have led Erdoğan and the governing party
to dismantle democratic institutions further and attempt to consolidate
competitive authoritarianism. The paper shows that these four attributes of
populism, together, do not exist in other European countries, which makes
Turkish populism under Erdoğan’s leadership a different, if not a peculiar,
case.
1:15-2:00 – Lunch
2:00-3:00pm – Final Roundtable
& Concluding Remarks
