Right-wing populism

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Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Right-wing populism is a political ideology that rejects existing political consensus and often combines laissez-faire liberalism and anti-elitism. It is considered populism because of its appeal to the "common man" as opposed to the elites.[1] In Europe, however, right-wing populist parties are generally known for their opposition to immigration, mostly from the Islamic world, and the European Union, as well as their increasing support for the welfare state and a "more lavish, but also more restrictive, domestic social spending" scheme (sometimes called "welfare chauvinism").[2][3][4]

From the 1990s right-wing populist parties became established in the legislatures of various democracies including Canada, Norway, France, Israel, Poland, Russia, Romania and Chile, and entered coalition governments in Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Italy.[5] Although extreme right-wing movements in the US have been studied separately, where they are normally called "radical right", some writers consider them to be the same phenomenon.[6] Right-wing populism is distinct from the historic right, which had been concerned with preserving the "status quo", and mostly do not have roots in their political parties.[7]

Definition

Classification of right-wing populism into a single political family has proved difficult, and it is not certain whether a meaningful category exists, or merely a cluster of categories, since the parties differ in ideology, organization, and leadership rhetoric. Also, unlike traditional parties, they do not belong to international organizations of like-minded parties, and they do not use similar terms to describe themselves.[8] One commonality though is that they are more right-wing than other political parties on the left-right axis.[9]

Scholars use terminology inconsistently, sometimes referring to right-wing populism as "radical right" or other terms.[10] Pippa Norris noted that "standard reference works use alternate typologies and diverse labels categorising parties as 'far' or 'extreme' right, 'new right', 'anti-immigrant', 'neo-Nazi' or 'neofascist', 'antiestablishment', 'national populist', 'protest', 'ethnic', 'authoritarian', 'antigovernment', 'antiparty', 'ultranationalist', or 'neoliberal', 'libertarian' and so on".[11]

By country

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File:Right-wing populist parties in European national parliaments (November 2015).png
European national parliaments with representatives from right-wing populist parties in 2013. In dark blue, those in government.

Piero Ignazi divided right-wing populist parties, which he called "extreme right parties", into two categories: traditional right-wing parties that had developed out of the historical right and post-industrial parties that had developed independently. He placed the British National Party, the National Democratic Party of Germany, the German People's Union and the former Dutch Centre Party in the first category, whose prototype would be the disbanded Italian Social Movement; the French National Front, the German Republicans, the Dutch Centre Democrats, the former Belgian Vlaams Blok (which would include certain aspects of traditional extreme right parties), the Danish Progress Party, the Norwegian Progress Party and the Freedom Party of Austria in the second category.[12][13]

Right-wing populist parties in the English-speaking world include the UK Independence Party,[14] Australia's One Nation,[15] and New Zealand First.[16]

Austria

The Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) established in 1955 traditionally represents the "Third Camp" (Drittes Lager), beside the Socialist Party and the social Catholic Austrian People's Party. It succeeded the Federation of Independents founded after World War II, adopting the pre-war heritage of German nationalism. Though it did not gain much popularity for decades, it exercised considerable balance of power by supporting several federal governments, be it right-wing or left-wing, e.g. the Socialist Kreisky cabinet of 1970 (see Kreisky–Peter–Wiesenthal affair).

From 1980, the Freedom Party adopted a more liberal stance. Upon the 1983 federal election it entered a coalition government with the Socialist Party, whereby party chairman Norbert Steger served as Vice-Chancellor. The liberal interlude however ended, when Jörg Haider was elected chairman in 1986. By his down-to-earth manners and patriotic attitude, Haider re-integrated the party's nationalist base voters. Nevertheless, he was also able to obtain votes from large sections of population disenchanted with politics by publicly denouncing corruption and nepotism of the Austrian Proporz system. The electoral success was boosted by Austria's accession to the EU in 1995.

Upon the 1999 federal election the Freedom Party with 26.9% of the votes cast became the second strongest party in the National Council parliament. Having entered a coalition government with the People's Party, Haider had to face the disability of several FPÖ ministers, but also the impossibility to agitate against the own cabinet. In 2005 he finally countered the Freedom Party's loss of reputation by the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) relaunch in order to carry on the government. The remaining FPÖ members elected Heinz-Christian Strache chairman; since the 2006 federal election both right-wing parties have run separately. After Haider was killed in a car accident in 2008, the BZÖ has lost a measurable amount of support.

Belgium

Flag used by the now-defunct Vlaams Blok, representing the flag of Flanders (top), and historical flag of the Netherlands (bottom).

Vlaams Blok, established in 1978, operated on a platform of law and order, anti-immigration (with particular focus on Islamic immigration), and secession of the Flanders region of the country. The secession was originally planned to end in the annexation of Flanders by the culturally and linguistically similar Netherlands until the plan was abandoned due to the multiculturalism in that country. In the elections to the Flemish Parliament in June 2004, the party received 24.15% of the vote, within less than 2% of being the largest party.[17] However, in November of the same year, the party was ruled illegal under anti-racism law for, among other things, advocating schools segregated between citizens and immigrants.[18]

In less than a week, the party was re-established under the name Vlaams Belang, with a near-identical ideology. It advocates for immigrants wishing to stay to adopt the Flemish culture and language.[19] Despite some accusations of anti-Semitism from Belgium's Jewish population, the party has demonstrated a staunch pro-Israel stance as part of its opposition to Islam.[20] With 18 of 124 seats, Vlaams Belang lead the opposition in the Flemish Parliament,[21] and also have 11 of the 150 seats in the Belgian House of Representatives.[22]

Cyprus

The ELAM (National People's Front) (Εθνικό Λαϊκό Μέτωπο) was formed in 2008 on the platform of maintaining Cypriot identity, opposition to further European integration, immigration, and the status quo that remains due to Turkey's invasion of a third of the island (and the international community's lack of intention to solve the issue).

Denmark

In the early 1970s, the home of the strongest right wing-populist party in Europe was in Denmark, the Progress Party.[23] In the 1973 election it received almost 16% of the vote.[24] In the years following its support dwindled away, but was replaced by the Danish People's Party in the 1990s, which has gone on to be an important support party for the governing Liberal-Conservative coalition in the 2000s (decade).[25]

France

In France, the main right wing-populist party is the National Front. Since Marine Le Pen's election at the head of the party in 2011, the National Front has established itself as one of the main political parties in France but also as the strongest and most successful populist party of Europe as of 2015.[26]

Germany

Franz Schönhuber on a Republikaner 1989 European election poster

So far, all attempts by right-wing populist parties to enter the Bundestag, the national parliament of Germany, have failed. Instead, populist positions are successfully represented by the left-wing The Left party. All right-wing populist parties have to face the problem of differentiation regarding far-right politics discredited by Nazism.

Nevertheless, on a regional level, right-wing populist movements like Pro NRW and Citizens in Rage (Bürger in Wut, BIW) sporadically attract some support. In 1989 The Republicans (Die Republikaner) led by Franz Schönhuber entered the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin and achieved more than 7% of the German votes cast in the 1989 European election, with six seats in the European Parliament. The party also won seats in the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg twice in 1992 and 1996; after 2000 however, the Republicans' support eroded in favour of the far-right German People's Union and the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), which in the 2009 federal election held 1.5% of the popular vote (winning up to 9% in regional Landtag parliamentary elections).

In 2005, a nationwide Pro Germany Citizens' Movement (pro Deutschland) was founded in Cologne. The pro movement appears as a conglomerate of numerous small parties, voters' associations and societies, distinguishing themselves by campaigns against Islamic extremism[27] and Muslim immigrants. Its representatives claim a zero tolerance policy and the combat of corruption. With the denial of a multiethnic society (Überfremdung) and the evocation of an alleged islamization, the pro politics extend to far-right positions. Other minor right-wing populist parties include the German Freedom Party founded in 2010, the former East German German Social Union (DSU), the dissolved Party for a Rule of Law Offensive ("Schill party").

Greece

The most prestigious right-wing populist party in Greece is the Independent Greeks (ANEL).[28][29] Despite being smaller than the more extreme Golden Dawn party, after the January 2015 legislative elections ANEL formed a governing coalition with the left wing Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), thus making the party a governing party and giving it a place in the Cabinet of Alexis Tsipras.[30]

The Golden Dawn has grown significantly in Greece during the country's economic downturn, gaining 7% of the vote and 18 out of 300 seats in the Hellenic Parliament. The party's ideology includes annexation of territory in Albania and Turkey, including the Turkish cities of Istanbul and Izmir.[31] Controversial measures by the party included a poor people's kitchen in Athens which only supplied for Greek citizens and was shut down by the police.[32]

The Popular Orthodox Rally is not represented in the Greek legislature, but supplied 2 of the country's 22 MEPS until 2014. It supports anti-globalisation and lower taxes for small businesses, as well as opposition to Turkish accession to the European Union and the Republic of Macedonia's use of the name Macedonia, as well as immigration only for Europeans.[33] Its participation in government has been one of the reasons why it became unpopular with its voters who turned to Golden Dawn in Greece's 2012 elections.[34]

Italy

Matteo Salvini, leader of Lega Nord since 2013.

In Italy right-wing populism is represented mainly by Lega Nord (LN),[35] whose leaders reject the right-wing label,[36][37][38] though not the "populist" one.[39] LN is a federalist and regionalist party, founded in 1991 as a federation of several regional parties of Northern and Central Italy, most of which had arisen and expanded during the 1980s. LN's program advocates the transformation of Italy into a federal state, fiscal federalism and greater regional autonomy, especially for the Northern regions. At times, the party has advocated for the secession of the North, which it calls Padania. The party generally takes an anti-Southern Italian stance; members are known for opposing Southern Italian emigration to Northern Italian cities, stereotyping Southern Italians as welfare abusers and detrimental to Italian society, and attributing Italy's economic troubles and the disparity of the North-South divide in the Italian economy to supposed negative characteristics of the Southern Italians, such as laziness, lack of education, or criminality.[40][41][42][43] Certain LN members have been known to publicly deploy the slur "terrone," a common pejorative term for Southern Italians that is evocative of negative Southern Italian stereotypes.[40][41][44] With the rise of immigration into Italy since the late 1990s, LN has increasingly turned its attention to scapegoating and denouncing economic immigrants entering Italy. The LN, which also opposes illegal immigration, is critical of Islam, wants Turkey out of the European Union, and proposes Italy's exit from the Eurozone, is considered a Eurosceptic movement and, as such, it joined the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group in the European Parliament after the 2009 EP election. LN was part of the national government in 1994, 2001–2006 and 2008–2011, always under Silvio Berlusconi. Most recently, the party, which notably includes among its members the Presidents of Lombardy and Veneto, won 4.1% of the vote in the 2013 general election. In the 2014 European election, Lega Nord, under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, took 6.2% of votes.

A number of national-conservative, nationalist and, arguably, right-wing populist parties are strong especially in Lazio, the region around Rome, and Southern Italy. Most of them are heirs of the Italian Social Movement (a post-fascist party, whose best result was 8.7% of the vote in the 1972 general election) and its successor National Alliance (which reached 15.7% of the vote in 1996 general election). They include the Brothers of Italy (2.0% in 2013), The Right (0.6%), New Force (0.3%), CasaPound (0.1%), Tricolour Flame (0.1%) and several others.

Additionally, in the German-speaking South Tyrol the local second-largest party, Die Freiheitlichen, is often described as a right-wing populist party.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, right-wing populism won a minor representation in the 150-seat House of Representatives in 1982, when the Centre Party won a single seat. During the 1990s, a splinter party, the Centre Democrats, was slightly more successful, although its significance was still marginal. Not before 2002 did a party considered right-wing populist break through in the Netherlands, when the Pim Fortuyn List won 26 seats and subsequently formed a coalition with the VVD and CDA. Fortuyn, who had strong views against immigration, particularly from Muslims, was assassinated in May 2002, two weeks before the election.[45] The coalition broke up already in 2003, and the party went into steep decline until it was dissolved.

Since 2006, the Party for Freedom (PVV) has been represented in the House of Representatives. Following the 2010 general election, it has been in a pact with the right-wing minority government of VVD and CDA after it won 24 seats in the House of Representatives. The party is Eurosceptic and plays a leading role in the changing stance of the Dutch government towards European integration, as they came second in the 2009 European Parliament election, winning 4 out of 25 seats. The party's main programme revolves around strong criticism of Islam, but broadened to all other fields as the party grew to its semi-governmental state. The PVV withdrew its support for the First Rutte cabinet in 2012 after refusing to support austerity measures. This triggered the 2012 general election in which the PVV was reduced to 15 seats and excluded from the new government.

Norway

The Norwegian Progress Party (FrP) is commonly considered a right-wing populist party.[46][47] From 2001 to 2005, the party tolerated Kjell Magne Bondevik's centre-right minority government. In the 1997, 2005, and 2009 parliamentary elections, the FrP was the second-largest Norwegian party by votes. They formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party after the 2013 election [48]

Poland

Polish Congress of the New Right, headed by Michał Marusik, aggressively promotes concepts like radical tax reductions preceded by abolishment of social security, universal public healthcare, state-sponsored education and abolishment of Communist Polish 1944 agricultural reform, as a way to dynamical economic and welfare growth.[49][50] Due to lack of empirical and economic evidences presented by party leaders and members, party is considered populist both by right wing and left wing publicists[51][52]

Switzerland

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In Switzerland, the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party (SVP) reached an all-time high in the 2007 elections. The party has variously been identified as "extreme right"[53] and "radical right-wing populist",[54] reflecting a spectrum of ideologies present among its members. In its far right wing, it includes extremist members such as Ulrich Schlüer, Pascal Junod, who heads a 'New Right' study group and has been linked to Holocaust denial and neo-Nazism.[55][56] In Switzerland, radical right populist parties held close to 10% of the popular vote in 1971, were reduced to below 2% by 1979, and again grew to more than 10% in 1991. Since 1991, these parties (the Swiss Democrats and the Swiss Freedom Party) have been absorbed by the Swiss People's Party, whose aggressively right-wing, populist campaign catapulted it to 29% of the popular vote in 2007, the highest vote ever recorded for a single party throughout Swiss parliamentary history.

United Kingdom

Nigel Farage, Leader of and MEP for the right-wing populist UK Independence Party.

The largest right-wing populist party in the United Kingdom is the UK Independence Party (UKIP). Advocating an exit from the European Union and a points-based immigration system similar to that used in Australia.[57][58][not in citation given] The UK's governing Conservative Party has seen defections to UKIP over European Union and immigration debate, as well as same-sex marriage. [59]

United States

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The People's Party (United States) is an early example of right-wing populism. Moore (1996) argues that "populist opposition to the growing power of political, economic, and cultural elites" helped shape "conservative and right-wing movements" since the 1920s.[60] The Tea Party movement of 2009–present had been characterized as "a right-wing anti-systemic populist movement" by Rasmussen and Schoen (2010). They add, "Today our country is in the midst of a...new populist revolt that has emerged overwhelmingly from the right -- manifesting itself as the Tea Party movement."[61] The New York Times asserts, "The Tea Party movement has become a platform for conservative populist discontent".[62]

Right-wing populist political parties

Current right-wing populist parties or parties with right-wing populist factions

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Former right-wing populist parties or parties with right-wing populist factions

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See also

Notes

  1. Betz and Immerfall, p. 4-5
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  5. Norris (2004), p. 2
  6. Kaplan & Weinberg, pp. 1-2
  7. Kaplan & Weinberg, pp. 10-13
  8. Norris (2005), pp. 43-44
  9. Ware, pp. 41-42
  10. Kaplan & Weinberg, pp. 10-11
  11. Norris (2005), p. 44
  12. Ignazi, p. 26
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  14. Norris (2005), p. 72
  15. Norris (2005), p. 68
  16. Norris (2005), p. 69
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  22. http://www.dekamer.be/kvvcr/showpage.cfm?section=/depute&language=fr&rightmenu=right_depute&cfm=cvlist53.cfm?sorttype=group&legis=53
  23. Jens Rydgren. "Explaining the Emergence of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties: The Case of Denmark" West European Politics, Vol. 27, No. 3, May 2004, pp. 474–502."
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  33. http://www.laos.gr/PROGRAM_LAOS.pdf
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  53. P. Ignazi, Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 234
  54. H-G Betz, 'Xenophobia, Identity Politics and Exclusionary Populism in Western Europe', L. Panitch & C. Leys (eds.), Socialist Register 2003 - Fighting Identities: Race, Religion and Ethno-nationalism, London: Merlin Press, 2002, p. 198
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  56. Antisemitism and Racism in Switzerland 1999-2000
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  60. Leonard J. Moore, "Good Old-Fashioned New Social History and the Twentieth-Century American Right," Reviews in American History vol 24#4 (1996) pp 555-573, quote at p. 561
  61. Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen, Mad As Hell: How the Tea Party Movement Is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System (2010) quotes on p. 19
  62. David Barstow, "Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right," New York Times Feb 6, 2010
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  67. Gemenis, Kostas (2008) "The 2007 Parliamentary Election in Greece", Mediterranean Politics 13: 95–101 and Gemenis, Kostas and Dinas, Elias (2009) "Confrontation still? Examining parties' policy positions in Greece", Comparative European Politics.
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Further reading

References

  • Berlet, Chip and Matthew N. Lyons. 2000. Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN 1-57230-568-1, ISBN 1-57230-562-2
  • Betz, Hans-Georg. Radical right-wing populism in Western Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994 ISBN 0-312-08390-4
  • Betz, Hans-Georg and Immerfall, Stefan. The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies. Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1998 ISBN 978-0-312-21338-1
  • Fritzsche, Peter. 1990. Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505780-5
  • Ignazi, Piero. "The extreme right: defining the object and assessing the causes". In Martin Schain, Aristide R. Zolberg, Patrick Hossay (Eds.), Shadows over Europe: the development and impact of the extreme right in Western Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0-312-29593-6
  • Kaplan, Jeffrey and Weinberg, Leonard. The emergence of a Euro-American radical right. NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998 ISBN 0-8135-2564-0
  • Norris, Pippa, "The Right in Elections" Paper in APSA Panel 36-15 at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 2004, Chicago.
  • Norris, Pippa. Radical right: voters and parties in the electoral market. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-84914-4
  • Ware, Alan. Political Parties and Party Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-878076-1
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