As Europe enters a significant phase of re-integration of East and West, it faces an increasing problem with the rise of far-right political parties. Cas Mudde offers the first comprehensive and truly pan-European study of populist radical right parties in Europe. He focuses on the parties themselves, discussing them both as dependent and independent variables. Based upon a wealth of primary and secondary literature, this book offers critical and original insights into three major aspects of European populist radical right parties: concepts and classifications; themes and issues; and explanations for electoral failures and successes. It concludes with a discussion of the impact of radical right parties on European democracies, and vice versa, and offers suggestions for future research.

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Populist radical right parties in Europe

Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives.

Resena del libro:
Politics in Time. History, Institutions and Social Analysis.
PAUL PIERSON. Princeton University Press. New Jersey, 2004. 196 p.

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Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis

The dominant theoretical paradigm originating in the work of Cas Mudde conceives of populism as a thin-centered ideology that focuses on the antagonism between people and elites against the backdrop of popular sovereignty. While this framework has contributed significantly to an improved scientific analysis of populism, it is argued in this article that its ideological connotations are ill-conceived both conceptually and methodologically, and that its normative implications and failure to acknowledge the graded nature of populist behavior hinder the further evolution of the field of populism studies. Combining insights from the work of Ernesto Laclau and the proponents of frame theory, the article suggests dropping the ideological clause and simply conceiving populism as a discursive frame. The article contends that frame analysis reveals a strong fit between discursive elements and cognitive features of populism, furnishing solid methodological foundations to conduct empirical research and encouraging cooperation with neighboring fields of social science.

Is Populism an Ideology? A Refutation and a New Perspective:

Europe undivided: democracy, leverage and integration after Communism

A number of recent studies examining the accession of states from Central and Eastern Europe into the European Union have provided a much more sophisticated understanding of when, why and how the EU shaped, directed and occasionally determined change in the region since 1989. Although acknowledging the EU was at times a motor of change, its power was limited to particular points in the accession process and varied significantly across policy areas. Even in cases such as Slovakia, often used to demonstrate the power of EU conditionality, the influence of the EU on domestic actors and policy change has been exaggerated. The EU's ‘transformative power’ is at its greatest when deciding to open accession negotiations, a finding which has implications for the EU's ability to enact change in Croatia and Turkey.

When does the EU Make a Difference? Conditionality and the Accession Process in Central and Eastern Europe:

Shifting our understanding of populism from a question of core identity to a description of party appeals allows for a neutralization of the term's negative connotations by allowing that all parties may use populist appeals to some extent. It is then possible to address a party's use of populist appeals by measuring its distinctly nonpopulist appeals, which are usually less bound up with normative judgments. Although the preliminary analysis of Slovakia shows a relatively close empirical fit among the theoretical elements in the existing literature, two categories of populist appeals are identified: the outward-looking appeals that vary strongly with a party's relationship to power, and inward-looking appeals that remain more stable over time. Use of these by politicians may offer clues to the origination, attractiveness, and longevity of populist and nonpopulist appeals.

Cambiar nuestro entendimiento del populismo desde la cuestion de identidad a una que se enfoca en los llamados partidistas nos permite neutralizar la connotacion negativa del termino populismo puesto que nos lleva a reconocer que todos los partidos recurren a los llamados populistas en una medida u otra. Es entonces posible establecer el uso de los atractivos del populismo por parte del partido al medir sus atractivos no-populistas, los cuales usualmente estan menos vinculados con opiniones normativas. Aunque el analisis preliminar de Eslovaquia demuestra un ajuste empirico perfecto relativamente cerrado entre los elementos teoricos en la literatura existente, dos categorias de las caracteristicas populistas son identificadas: los atractivos observados en el exterior que varian fuertemente con la relacion del partido con el poder y los atractivos observados en el interior que permanecen mucho mas estables a traves del tiempo. El uso de estos por los politicos puede ofrecer claves para el origen, atractivo, y longevidad de los atractivos populistas y no-populistas.

Toward a More Useful Conceptualization of Populism: Types and Degrees of Populist Appeals in the Case of Slovakia

The seemingly random triumph and demise of new political parties in Central and Eastern Europe actually represent a durable subsystem with relevance for party systems around the world. This article...

Hurricane Season Systems of Instability in Central and East European Party Politics

The seemingly random triumph and demise of new political parties in Central and Eastern Europe actually represents a durable subsystem with relevance for party systems around the world. This article supplements existing research on volatility with supplementary measures of party age distribution that reveal clear patterns of disruption, turnover and restabilization. These patterns emerge from stable and coherent party subsystems which follow a simple model based on three dynamics: losses by established parties, rapid gains by uncorrupted newcomers, and equally rapid newcomer losses to even newer parties. Confirmed both by electoral evidence and computer simulations, this model offers insight into the endurance of these subsystems, particularly since the very mechanisms which generate new parties’ success can preclude their ability to survive in subsequent elections. Central and Eastern European party systems offer a laboratory for understanding trends in party system volatility that are emerging in Western Europe and across the globe.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2452275_code1320892.pdf?abstractid=2452275&mirid=5

Hurricane Season: Systems of Instability in Central and East European Party Politics

Slovakia distinguished itself in the first half of this decade by launching a coherent set of economic reforms that limited government and transferred social and economic risk to individuals. We examine reforms in fiscal policy, pensions, the labour code, health care, investment, education and justice. While the surprise formation of a centre – right governing coalition in 2002 enabled Slovakia's ‘neoliberal’ turn, a close network of neoliberal policy makers and advisors from civil society organisations used the opportunity to push forward a compelling explanation of Slovak economic problems and promote a clear institutional design for fixing them.

Tim Haughton

Papers

When does the EU Make a Difference? Conditionality and the Accession Process in Central and Eastern Europe:

Toward a More Useful Conceptualization of Populism: Types and Degrees of Populist Appeals in the Case of Slovakia

Hurricane Season Systems of Instability in Central and East European Party Politics

Hurricane Season: Systems of Instability in Central and East European Party Politics

Slovakia's Neoliberal Turn