Survey

A long-term take on populist success: Presenting Timbro’s Authoritarian Populism Index (API) 2024

By Max Müller-Schumann, Dr. Nele Fabian

“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,” The Spectator argued last year.

The 2024 elections for the European Parliament seem to have confirmed this broader trend. Political groups advocating populist and/or authoritarian ideologies, such as the new Patriots for Europe Group (PfE), which has swallowed the former Identity and Democracy (ID) Group and is now the third-strongest group in Parliament, and the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), and The Left, gained a total of 25 seats compared to the last election in 2019. 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.

Since the previous European elections, disruptive events like the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and its resulting energy crisis, inflation and rising living costs have made people's perception of the 2024 election result somewhat more emotionally loaded than the long-term data actually suggest. People often have a weaker sense of long-term developments and tend to place greater emphasis on recent events, especially when they are perceived as particularly negative.

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.

The API 2024 – from national to EU-level analysis

The results of the 2023 national elections in countries like Finland, Greece or Spain indicate that the populist worldview – stressing that politics should be framed as a ‘conflict’ between ‘the people’ and the ‘elite’ – might in the near future become so dominant that we must probably contend with it as a form of ‘new normal’. The average support for left and right-wing parties in Europe advocating populist and/or authoritarian ideologies currently stands at 26.9%. Due to its imposed threats to liberal democracy, market economy, and the rule of law, populism can be seen as the new major opponent to liberalism in the 21st century.

To further investigate and map broad ideological trends in European politics, especially populism, the Swedish think tank Timbro first introduced its Authoritarian Populism Index in 2016. Subsequent editions were released in 2017 and 2019, and it is set up to keep data collection to, over time, provide a precise overview of the long-term development all over Europe. The most recent 2024 edition has been updated, revised, and expanded to include 31 countries including all EU member states plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, as well as the United Kingdom. It covers every election from 1945 to 2023.

To measure the public inclination towards authoritarian populism, the index is particularly focussing on election results for parties that may potentially pose a threat to the liberal democracy. Populist parties, traditionally, present themselves as the ‘authentic voice of the people’, positioning themselves as ‘defenders of the people’ against an ‘elite establishment’. This worldview is reflected in an often harsh and uncompromising ‘anti-elite’ rhetoric that portrays the ‘elite’ as corrupt and controlled by hidden interests. Common tropes used to identify ‘elites’ are their ascribed affiliations with ‘globalism’, ‘capitalism’, and, notably in the case of right-wing populists, ‘multiculturalism’.

Traditionally, parties have been classified as ‘authoritarian’ under two different circumstances: if they openly advocate non-democratic ideologies – e.g., Marxism- Leninism, fascism, Nazism – or if they have demonstrated a willingness to abandon democratic principles while in power – current examples are the Hungarian Fidesz party, the Polish PiS party, and Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS).

However, political ideas are not fully represented through the support of corresponding parties. There is no cohesive party family that can be described uniformly as ‘populist’, let alone as ‘authoritarian-populist’. Therefore, analysing ideological shifts through the electoral results of ever-changing political parties, which may vary in terms of ideas and policies, is not optimal. However, it remains the best instrument available at this time and is thus also used in the Index.

According to the Index, the most relevant populist parties in contemporary European politics are classified across four dimensions: economic issues, social and cultural issues, matters related to the European Union, and democratic credibility. It highlights the 60 most relevant authoritarian and/or populist parties in Europe. Twenty-five out of these parties are classified as ‘left-wing’ on economic issues, while 18 are classified as ‘right-wing’. On cultural issues, 32 parties are classified as ‘conservative’ while 11 are classified as ‘progressive’. On European issues, 22 parties are classified as ‘hard eurosceptics’, 19 as ‘soft eurosceptics’ and 9 parties as ‘pro-European’. This shows that parties can have fluid positions that are not always clearly classifiable at either one ideological fringe.

Right-wing authoritarianism on the rise, left-wing authoritarianism on the decline

The average support for left- and right-wing parties in Europe advocating populist and/or authoritarian ideologies currently stands at 26.9 %. While this figure represents a historically high level of support, 2023 signifies the fifth consecutive year without any additional growth, compared to previous years. It is also interesting that two opposing trends can be seen here: while support for right-wing authoritarianism/populism continues to rise, there has been a steady decline in support for the radical left in recent years, as they have failed to maintain the momentum they gained in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

The five countries with the highest support for populist and/or authoritarian parties are Hungary, Italy, France, Greece, and Poland. Conversely, the bottom five countries in terms of support for such parties are Croatia, Portugal, the UK, Luxembourg, and Malta.

As previously mentioned, focusing solely on electoral support for populist parties can be misleading and does not always reflect the actual political landscape. The UK is a key example: its pure majoritarian electoral system favours technically a two-party system, limiting the presence of anti-establishment parties. Consequently, radical views are often integrated within the major parties. Populist ideas still shape the political discourse, but don’t group within a separate party. Brexit is the most prominent result of this effect, and it shows how varied the influence of populism is shaped in different political systems.

As of March 2024, populist and/or authoritarian parties are participating in eight national governments across Europe, namely Hungary, Italy, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland, Switzerland, and Romania. Notably, this marks the lowest level of government participation since 2014, down from 15 countries in 2019. It is worth noting that we are currently at about only 50 % of the influence these parties had five years ago at national level, based on participation in government. On the other hand, the 2024 gain in support for populist and/or authoritarian parties at the European level now gives these parties a different kind of highly significant influence.

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).