Survey
Explaining the rise of authoritarian populism in Europe: Five take-aways for policymakers
President of the French far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National - RN) party and head of the RN list for the European elections, Jordan Bardella talks with member of parliament and President of the French far-right National Rally party parliamentary group, Marine Le Pen
© gettyimages
It’s rather time to consider the heretofore unthinkable: perhaps populism will be to the twenty-first century what labour union-backed social democracy was to the twentieth.
By Max Müller-Schumann, Dr. Nele Fabian
The 2024 elections for the European Parliament seem to have confirmed this broader trend.
While the electoral result shows historically high support for populist parties in Europe, it appears to be more of a continuation of a long-standing trend of growing support for these parties, rather than a sudden shift.
This insight emerges from Timbro’s Authoritarian Populism Index 2024 (API 2024, as well as previous editions), which serves as an important analytical tool for evaluating such trends. Elections reflect both long-term and short-term developments, and the differences between them must be taken into account. It is key that the gradual development of electoral preferences is also correctly assessed, and this is precisely where regular data collection, as undertaken in the Index, plays an important role.
The Index reveals that the 2024 European election result is the culmination of a gradual increase in support for populist parties, which had taken place throughout a number years, not just very recent years alone. It helps us acknowledge that Europe is dealing with an overall slow progression rather than an abrupt one, however, support for populism progresses at different speeds in single EU member states, and the influence of populist groups in European parliaments has grown critically.
Explaining the rise of authoritarian populism in Europe: Five take-aways for policymakers
The Index shows that right-wing populist parties have grown steadily over the past thirty years. This raises questions about the reasons that explain this development. The comparative analysis of the Index gives the following explanations:
Populist parties have grown in tandem with an increasing demand for their ideas - on immigration, Europe, multiculturalism, globalisation, etc. – and thanks to their ability to adapt their rhetoric and programs to a level of radicalism that voters can tolerate. This effect in itself might be the single most important explanation, meaning it revolves around a ‘political-ideological supply’ meeting a ‘demand’.
There is a strong temptation to explain the growth of populist ideas in material terms, preferably by being able to blame opponents’ economic policies for their emergence. Especially from the left, there is a strong desire to attribute the rise of populism to ‘neoliberal’ economic policies. However, this explanation is difficult to reconcile with the actually trend displayed in the data – at least when considering a long time span. Moreover, media coverage on the perceived severity of the economic situation across various regions of Europe can contribute to skewed perceptions, as the impact is not uniform across all countries or individual EU citizens. This generalization poses a significant problem, even when making comparisons within Europe.
This is an important point, since much energy has been devoted to advising established parties: should they cooperate, compete, neglect, or oppose? The so-called “cordon sanitaire strategy” (the refusal of one party to cooperate with certain other parties) has been tried in many countries but has never held up over time, given that the aim was to reduce support for populist parties. Even in countries like Belgium or Germany, where populist parties were purposefully denied government participation by the other parties, they have had significant policy influence through the pressure they created, solely based on their electoral weight.
While different political systems and political cultures may have lag effects, even the systems most inhospitable to authoritarianism and populism have ultimately proven penetrable in the long run.
In most cases, established right-wing parties have considered cooperation with right-wing populist parties to be a less painful option than enduring eternal opposition or engaging in prolonged and unfruitful collaborations with left-leaning parties. Only in Hungary, Italy, and Poland have authoritarian/populist parties reached the highest positions on their own merit. In most cases, they have been brought into power by established parties.
The Index also highlights the paradoxical trajectory of anti-systemic parties, noting that their success in challenging the establishment can lead to their integration into the political mainstream. In 27 out of 31 considered countries, anti-systemic parties have at some point been included in government or confidence-and-supply agreements.
Populism vs. Liberalism
The Index shows that the common view that populism is a key opponent of the liberal movement can be partly challenged: electoral support for liberal parties in Europe has shown relative stability over time, hovering between 7-10% and reaching a record total level of 12.3% in 2023. This surge is primarily driven by shifts in the Baltic states, Central Europe, and Southern Europe. Currently, support for liberal parties is strongest in Slovenia, Estonia, France, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. A positive trend (growth in at least the two last elections), can be identified in Croatia, Germany, Romania, Finland, Estonia, Slovakia, and France. However, it should be noted that these results do not include the recent 2024 election for the European Parliament yet.
Also, even though a consolidation of support for populist parties in the last 5 years can be seen, it should not be underestimated that electoral results do not fully represent party influence in the political discourse. Populist movements might affect other parties, as well as intellectuals and political commentators, far beyond their electoral results. The challenge to appropriately measure the level and influence of populist ideas remains one of the key issues in analysing the ongoing trends.
More broadly, the investigation also raises the question about the substantive differences between contemporary populist parties and challenger parties of earlier generations. The substance of politics must be evaluated beyond the populist facade. It should be underlined that the long-term consequences of these developments are still unknown.
The 2024 Authoritarian Populism Index, authored by Andreas Johansson Heinö at Timbro is available for download here.
Free hard copies can be obtained by reaching out to the supporting organisations EPiCENTER (info@epicenternetwork.eu) and FNF (brussels@freiheit.org).