scholarly journals When nationalism meets populism: examining right-wing populist & nationalist discourses in the 2014 & 2019 European parliamentary elections

Author(s):  
Patricia Rodi ◽  
Lazaros Karavasilis ◽  
Leonardo Puleo
Politics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 510-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Maškarinec

In the 2017 Czech parliamentary election, the Czech Pirate Party (Pirates) gained 10.79% of the votes – an unprecedented success, compared to most of the pirate parties across Europe. However, as their electoral gain varies widely across the Czech Republic’s territory, this article analyses all (more than 6000) Czech municipalities in the elections of 2010, 2013, and 2017 to explain this variation. Overall, the success of the Pirates was driven especially by obtaining much more support in larger municipalities with younger populations (although not only those aged 18–24 but also older ones), lower unemployment, higher turnout, and lower support for leftist parties. Thus, from a spatial perspective, the patterns of Pirate voting largely resembled long-term spatial support for Czech rightist parties and we can conclude that the Pirates made considerable inroads to regions which had historically been strongholds of the Civic Democratic Party, as the former main party of the right, but also strongholds of minor right-wing (‘liberal centre’) parties of the 1990s and early 2000s. Success of the Pirates thus was based especially on votes from municipalities located in more developed areas, where the Pirates received many more votes than in structurally disadvantaged regions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oskar Niedermayer

It is questionable if the concept of the European election as a second-order national election is still a useful explanatory model or if the European election has become a relevant “Europeanized” election . Therefore, six hypotheses about the orientations as well as the turnout and the electoral behavior of the electorate at European elections in comparison to national parliamentary elections are developed and empirically tested by analyzing the campaign and results of the European election 2019 in Germany . Four of the six hypotheses can be confirmed . Nevertheless, in view of the changes of many indicators one can speak of a “Europeanization” of the European election . Additionally, the composition of the parliament in comparison to the situation after the 2014 elections is discussed, concentrating on the rise of the right-wing parties . Finally, the article deals with the conflict between the European Parliament and the European Council concerning the election of the successor of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission . [ZParl, vol . 50 (2019), no . 4, pp . 691 - 714]


Subject Inter-Korean relations. Significance Visiting Washington on April 10-11, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in got no support for sanctions relief for inter-Korean projects. On April 12, in a major policy speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sharply criticised Seoul’s “pose as a meddlesome ‘mediator’”. Despite these rebuffs, Moon on April 15 claimed to find Kim’s message positive overall, and expressed readiness to meet him again, anywhere. Impacts Along with a harder line at home, North Korea will draw closer to its old allies, China and Russia. Amid ever-closer China-North Korea ties, Chinese President Xi Jinping will probably visit Pyongyang this year. Weakening Moon -- a leader who supports inter-Korean engagement -- is counterproductive for Kim. A resurgent right-wing opposition may win parliamentary elections in Seoul in April next year, making Moon a lame duck.


2002 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Cole

The 2002 Elections In France Were A Gripping Drama Unfolding in four acts. Each act has to be understood as part of a whole, as each election was ultimately dependent upon the results of the first round of the presidential election on 21 April. However untypical in the context of Fifth Republican history, the first round of the presidential election strongly inf luenced the peculiar course of the subsequent contests. The outcome of the first election on the 21 April – at which the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen won through to the second ballot against Jacques Chirac, narrowly distancing the outgoing premier Lionel Jospin – created an electric shock which reverberated around the streets of Paris and other French cities and sparked a civic mobilization without parallel since May '68. The end-result of this exceptional republican mobilization was to secure the easy (initially rather unexpected) re-election of Chirac as president at the second round two weeks later. The election of 5 May was unlike a typical second-round election. Rather than a bipolar contest pitting left and right over a choice of future governmental orientations, it was a plebiscite in favour of democracy (hence Chirac) against the far-right (Le Pen). Chirac was re-elected overwhelmingly as president, supported by at least as many leftwing as right-wing voters. This enforced plebiscite against the extreme right allowed a resurgent Jacques Chirac to claim a renewed presidential authority. At the parliamentary election of 9 and 16 June, the Fifth Republic reverted to a more traditional mode of operation, as a new ‘presidential party’, informally launched just weeks before the elections, obtained a large overall majority of seats to ‘support the President’ in time-honoured Fifth Republican tradition.


Author(s):  
G.E. I Ibragimova ◽  
◽  
A.M. Karamanov ◽  

The article examines the ascent of the party «Alternative for Germany» (AFD) from its creation in 2012 to a sharp jump in popularity in the parliamentary elections in 2017. Special emphasis is paid to the review of the strengthening of Eurosceptic rhetoric, criticism of modern German politics as a result of the arrival of farright politicians to the leading positions in the party. The article concludes that Euroscepticism has become one of the components of the broad populist platform of the party as the AFD has developed. Moreover, it is established that unexpectedly high support for the AFD by the German electorate and the party’s acquisition of the status of the main opposition force in the Bundestag becomes an important factor for the German establishment in the context of defending its position on further deepening the processes of European integration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-29
Author(s):  
Boris Guseletov

The article examines the results of the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, held on March 15-17, 2021. It compares the results of the leading political parties in the elections of 2017 and 2021, and describes all the leading Dutch political parties that were represented in parliament in the period from 2017 to 2021. The results of the activities of the government headed by the leader of the “People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy” M. Rutte, formed following the results of the 2017 elections, are presented. The reasons for the resignation of this government, which took place on the eve of the elections, and its impact on the course of the election campaign are revealed. It was noted how the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s actions to overcome its consequences affected the course and results of the election campaign. The activity of the main opposition parties in this country is evaluated: the right-wing Eurosceptic Freedom Party of Wilders, the center-left Labor Party and others. The course of the election campaign and its main topics, as well as the new political parties that were elected to the parliament as a result of these elections, are considered. The positions of the country’s leading political parties on their possible participation in the new government coalition are shown. The state of Russian-Dutch relations is analyzed. A forecast is given of how the election results will affect the formation of the new government of this country and the political, trade and economic relations between Russia and the Netherlands.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Maškarinec

Abstract The paper presents a spatial analysis of the Czech Pirate Party (Pirates) voter support in the 2010 and 2013 parliamentary elections and the 2014 European Parliament elections. The main method applied for classifying electoral results was the spatial autocorrelation and spatial regression. The result of the analysis has shown that territorial support for the Pirates copies to a great extent the areas of high support for right-wing parties and simultaneously the areas exemplified by a high development potential. In the case of spatial characteristics, little support for the Pirates was shown in Moravia and higher in the Sudetenland in terms of determinants of support. Additionally to spatial regimes, inter-regional support for the Pirates was also influenced by other non-spatial characteristics, although the strength of their influence was relatively weak. The units which embodied a successful environment for voting for the Pirates were particularly characterized by greater urbanization and a greater number of entrepreneurs, while a lack of jobs and the older age structure, i.e. the signs that in the socio-economic, or socio-ecological sense define peripheral areas, negatively impacted the gains of the Pirates. Ambiguous influence was exercised by college-educated inhabitants, who in the parliamentary elections in 2010 and 2013 decreased the gains of the Pirates, however, in the elections to the European Parliament in 2014 a direction of relationship was modified and turned positive.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-26
Author(s):  
Srđan Mladenov Jovanović

The organization known as Srpska desnica (SD; the Serbian Right Wing) during 2019 become increasingly seen in the Serbian media, as well as receiving augmented visibility on posters throughout the country. With their recent electoral success in the town of Medveđa, as well as their announcement that they are turning into an official party that would enter the 2020 parliamentary elections, coupled with the troublesome past of their leader, Miša Vacić, the situation calls for investigation. In this article, we are putting Miša Vacić’s public and political engagement under a magnifying glass, positioning him within the broader nationalist political spectrum of the country, engaging his official political program. We shall furthermore define the concept of the political scarecrow, a political party or figure that serves primarily to frighten, as shall be clear from the case study that this is the role of his organization.


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-91
Author(s):  
Y. Ostapets ◽  
A. Klyuchkovych

The article considers the structural changes in the party system of the Slovak Republic, taking place in 2016– 2020 due to the strengthening of parties of anti-systemic populist orientation. The author researches the causes and factors of evolution of the party landscape in the EU countries towards institutionalisation of antisystem policy. The development of the Slovak party system reflects the key trends in the political development of the EU countries with the weakening position of the systemic party establishment and the strengthening role of populist parties. The complexity of the phenomenon of antisystemicism in modern conditions is emphasized, since mainstream parties, seeking electoral support, use the rhetoric of populist parties, and populist parties, haveing obtained parliamentary mandates, weaken their radicalism and start working in the mainstream format. As a result of the 2016 parliamentary elections, the breakdown of the “structural nucleus” of Slovakia’s party system took place, which for two decades had been the basis of its stability and predictability of development. The weakening influence of “traditional” (Christian-Democratic, Conservative, Social-Democratic) parties freed up electoral environment for “new” populist, anti-systemic, right-wing extremist forces. Electoral statistics demonstrates that the influence of mainstream parties weakens at the regional and local levels of Slovak politics. The results of the 2020 parliamentary elections demonstrate that the party system of Slovakia in the continuum between mainstream and populism comes even closer to the populist format. The electoral triumph of populists and their convergence with programmatic parties within the parliamentary-governmental coalition raises new challenges for Slovakia’s political system. Among the main reasons for the rise of populism in Slovakia are the following: disappointment of citizens with the activities of the ruling elites; mediation and personalisation of policy; denationalisation of politics and increasing importance of global governance structures at European and world levels; increasing populism in Slovakian election campaigns; low level of institutionalisation of political parties and the party system as a whole. Attention is drawn to the destructive tendencies in the development of the modern party system of Slovakia. The collapse of the “structural core” of the Slovak party system and the further pluralisation of parliamentary representation of parties do not contribute to the stability and predictability of parliamentary-governmental activity. Increased electoral influence and parliamentary representation of political subjects of populist, anti-systemic and right-wing extremist orientation cause political risks for the stable democratic development of the Slovak Republic.


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