Week 1 Seminar - Understanding Right Wing Populism And What To Do About It

On the 11^th of October 2022, the European Studies Centre hosted a discussion on the report “Understanding Right-Wing Populism And What To Do About It” by FES Democracy of the Future. The report’s major findings were summarised by its authors Dr Tim Vlandas of St Antony’s College and Prof Daphne Halikiopoulou of the University of Reading, and comments were given by and Prof Lenka Buštíková (St Antony’s College) and Dr Anja Giudici (Newcastle University). This was the first talk Dr Othon Anastasakis has chaired in his new role as the Director of the European Studies Centre. 

Halikiopoulou began the presentation by noting that there are multiple indicators of the far-right’s success in Europe. Firstly, of course, there are election results, with the far-right performing better in recent years than it has historically. Secondly, other parties emulating far-right rhetoric and policies can also be counted as a far-right success. Thirdly, the far-right has in numerous countries lost its pariah status and has either provided support for or directly participated in government. Halikiopoulou noted an interesting difference between the majority of Europe, where far-right parties are a phenomenon that arose on the political fringes, while in Central and Eastern Europe, formerly mainstream parties have been subsumed by the far-right.  

The speakers’ main argument was that the supporters of far-right populist parties are very diverse and cannot simply be characterised as culturally xenophobic. People who oppose immigration on a cultural level do form the core of the far-right electorate, but a significant periphery of voters is attracted to far-right messaging on economics. Finally, one third of voters for far-right populist parties has no concerns about immigration at all, be they cultural or economic. Furthermore, the study contradicts the view that left-wing support is being eaten up by the anti-immigration platform, as people who self-identify as left-wing are still highly unlikely to vote for the far right.  

The speakers stressed that the “cultural backlash theory” of the far-right’s success gets the issue backwards. Most people are not concerned about immigration but are brought into the far-right fold because it speaks to a vast array of problems. While the solutions it proposes take the form of anti-immigration policies, they speak to other existing concerns. In that context, Vlandas highlighted negative responses to liberalising policies, which have made jobs more insecure and have normalised temporary jobs, and emphasised that welfare state policies moderate the insecurities that drive particular social groups to vote for the far-right. 

Lenka Buštíková praised the study for its emphasis on policies, stressing that the voters of far-right parties do not seem to care about immigration as much as is commonly supposed. The policy implication of this finding, as argued by Halikiopoulou and Vlandas, is that the left should not attempt to emulate the far-right on immigration issues and should stick to their traditional domain of inequality and security.

“Putting on her Eastern European hat,” Buštíková said that progressivism in Eastern Europe is on life support, and that they do not own the issue of economic inequality. Instead, the movement is associated with multiculturalism and the “original sin” of the neoliberal reforms of the 1990s. Buštíková noted that in Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic, the populists were beaten in elections by broad coalitions. To a large extent, this defeat was enabled by socially conservative and Christian democratic parties. 

Buštíková raised three more issues to unpack. Firstly, what exactly are people afraid of when it comes to immigration and what is the link to economic security? She pointed out that in Eastern Europe, “the immigrant is a ghost” conjured by politicians, as the region is not a major destination for Middle Eastern refugees. On the contrary, there are many migrant workers from Ukraine, EU peripheries, Yugoslavia, and China, who cause much less mobilisation in the ranks of the far-right. Indeed, PiS leads the continent in its policy of openness towards receiving Ukrainian refugees. 

Secondly, Buštíková noted the importance of social conservatism as a driving force in Eastern Europe. Fidesz rose to power in Hungary by aligning with churches, and PiS capitalised on the importance of religion in Poland. In both cases, xenophobic and other -phobic sentiments surfaced as secondary phenomena. Further examples of this trend are Slovakia, Ukraine, and Estonia, where far-right parties shifted an emphasis on the traditional family. 

Finally, Buštíková raised the issue of low birth rates and accompanying demographic anxieties. In Eastern Europe, she said, there is a large grey market that shields people against hardships, with neighbours helping neighbours in various ways. The far-right capitalises on people’s fears that this solidarity and reciprocity might be broken by “outsiders” such as LGBTQ individuals, working women, and cosmopolitans.

In her concluding remarks, Buštíková pointed out that populists are still far ahead of the left on both rhetoric and action on social protection, with economic insecurity being at the core of their success. Sometimes, they carefully identify pockets of voters to “buy off,” such as pensioners or rural dwellers. However, it is also undeniable that in other cases, they have addressed legitimate long-term grievances, such as family finances in the case of Poland’s 500 PLUS programme. 

Anja Giudici praised the report for its wealth of information, which was nevertheless presented with great coherence and consistency. She said that differentiating between sectors of the far-right electorate makes sense, and that it provides a good empirical argument – in addition to a moral one – for why the rest of the political spectrum should not adopt far-right immigration policies and rhetoric.

Giudici raised three issues for further discussion. Firstly, she noted the possibility that right-wing populist parties might be but one part of a broader social movement. In Western Europe, political and non-political far-rihgt actors strategically split tasks to maximise their effectivity. In Italy and France, for example, there has been activity on the right of the political spectrum to co-opt schools and change education from the bottom up. Right-wing figures in France and Germany even cooperated with conservative immigrant groups to protest against sex education.

To this point, Halikiopoulou responded that there is nevertheless a difference between more niche nationalist parties in Western Europe and formerly liberal political parties in Eastern Europe. Mainstream political parties in the latter have shifted to the right not necessarily as part of a broader social movement, but because radicalisation has its own appeal to voters. Vlandas acknowledged that the left has become elitist in its concerns and has left a vacuum in institutions like schools, which the far-right has been eager to fill.

Giudici also asked how progressive parties should engage with right-wing mobilisation outside of the parliamentary arena, noting that the recommendations given focus on elections. Since politics are not made exclusively during elections, it is necessary to think about what the rest of the political spectrum can do outside of appealing to voters. She also pointed out that it is impossible for the left to entirely ignore cultural issues in favour of economics, seeing as the former are already on the table. Brexit in the UK or referendums on whether minarets should be banned or whether kids should sing the national anthem in Swiss schools, for example, require coherent responses from progressive forces.

Finally, Giudici asked how the left can appeal to voters when economic issues have already been monopolised by the far-right. If the far-right embraces affordable education in France or financial benefits for families in Italy, how can left-wing parties make their own alternatives appealing?

A number of further questions were asked by the audience in the question-and-answer session. Some audience members asked about differences between countries, for example why the far-right is accepted in some countries and ostracised in others. Halikiopoulou ascribed this to the ability of some parties, such as the Sweden Democrats, to distance themselves from fascism with a civic nationalist narrative. In response to another question on support for the welfare state in Western Europe, Halikiopoulou pointed out that there is still great ideological diversity on the far-right: some parties embrace the welfare state while others emphasise the free market. Indeed, cooperation between the left and far-right is possible on certain issues of social protection and has taken place in Greece.  

The speakers were hesitant to characterise far-right populist messaging as simplistic. Vlandas noted that the left has been hammering this idea for two decades without much success, and that people have legitimate grievances. He also said that intermediary associations such as trade unions have declined and rhetoric that emphasises class rather than immigration has become rarer. Halikiopoulou added that populism is a feature of the far-right movement, but not necessarily the reason why it is successful; in the West, politicians appeal to nationalism, while social conservatism is a more prominent force in the East.  

Regarding how well-informed people are about immigration, Vlandas said that perceptions are a mix of fantasy and reality. People are bad at estimating unemployment and immigration numbers, but the allocation of refugees to different regions does seem to correlate with far-right support. To this, Halikiopoulou added that it is specifically Muslim immigrants who are targeted and that the far-right capitalises on terrorism and the perceived intolerance of Islam.

Finally, the speakers discussed the position and role of the European Union. They noted that the more Eurosceptic people are, the more likely they are to vote for the far-right. Ironically, the far-right thus receives a spotlight in the European Parliament. Nevertheless, explicitly anti-EU opinions are subsiding on the far-right after the fiasco of Brexit and talk has shifted to changing the EU from within. 

Ladislav Charouz, (Research Assistant)