Coronavirus Shapes Belgium’s Government and Populist Opposition

Josh Allen on 30th March 2020

Schuman Metro station in Brussels, during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a board telling the security measures.

By Judith Sijstermans (PiAP Belgium focused Research Fellow) – this piece originally appeared on EA Worldview

Amid the Coronavirus pandemic, acting Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès has formed an emergency government with full powers, including further authority in the emergency.

The minority government received support from nine out of twelve Belgian parties in the federal Chamber of Representatives on Tuesday. Only Flemish nationalist party the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA), left wing party the Partij van de Arbeid (PVDA), and the right-wing populist party Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest, VB) objected.

On the surface, this is a show of unity in the Belgian Government. But a deeper look at the state of play and the VB’s opposition uncovers shaky political ground.

Maneuvers over a Government

Belgium has been without a fully-empowered administration since the May 2019 elections, given their mixed results. These not only exacerbated the difference between the Flemish and Walloon regions of the country, but also repudiated the sitting government and punished its parties, Mouvement Reformateur (MR), Open VLD, and Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams (CD&V). The vote share of the N-VA, which left the government over disputes about the UN Migration Pact, was significantly reduced.

During negotiations, the outgoing government remained as a caretaker administration. Over the weekend of March 14, with the outbreak of Coronavirus and the need for urgent measures, chatter began about an emergency government. All party leaders, except those of the Vlaams Belang, discussed the possibility.

Until that weekend, government “formateurs”, responsible for negotiating a coalition, were still considering many coalition options. The leading option on the table at the time was a “Vivaldi” administration (because its four components represent the composer’s Four Seasons): Francophone socialists, liberals, and Greens and Flemish socialists, liberals, Greens, and Christian Democrats. However, after a long series of attempted negotiations, the only possible arrangement was to further empower the caretaker government.

Coronavirus and Competence

While the news cycle and politics are consumed with Covid-19, time has not stopped. N-VA leader Bart de Wever forecast, “There won’t be much to argue over the next few months. The question is: how do you prepare for peace?”

Flanders’ populist radical right party Vlaams Belang is not waiting for the end of the crisis to push against the government. And it has backing: in a poll commissioned by Belgian news outlets and released on 14 March, the VB is the clear Flemish winner with 28% of the vote. The N-VA suffers the biggest losses, polling 5% below their May 2019 electoral results.

Because of a cordon sanitaire upheld by all other Belgian parties since 1989, the negotiations to organize an emergency government did not include VB. But in May 2019, the party came the closest in its history to governing at the highest level. There were discussions to form a government with N-VA leader de Wever, and VB leader Tom van Grieken met the Belgian King.

Since autumn 2019, the VB has used the rhetoric of “Mission 2024”, seeking to become the largest Flemish party at the next elections, which would give them the right to be the first party to begin negotiations in Flanders. In their push against the cordon sanitaire and their opposition to the emergency government, Van Grieken wrote an open letter to Wilmès this weekend:

I do not agree with the fact that you, even today, divide citizens into first and second class citizens just because they voted for the “wrong” party. I hope that you withdraw your heartless decision and that the next meeting does involve the country’s second largest party.

Coronavirus provides an opportunity for the Vlaams Belang to project its ability to make policy, to argue that it is ready for the transition from an opposition to a governing party. This is the theme of leader Van Grieken’s new book, released on March 11th, En nu is het aan ons (“And now it is up to us”).

Since the 2019 elections the party has slowly been building up its staff resources. These have focused on policy experts, reflected in a new structure linking staff across the party and Belgium’s different legislative bodies.

In the case of Covid-19, the party has sought best practice and pointed at South Korea and Singapore as examples of good governance. It has criticized Belgium’s acting government and urged more radical measures more quickly. The party proposed a committee to scrutinize the government’s actions to ensure that the “coronavirus does not become a corona-coup”.

Gerolf Annemans, VB MEP and former leader, explained on Twitter:

This is a glorified coup by Magnette [leader of the Parti Socialiste] to push through his Vivaldi construction. Abusing the Corona crisis to try to silence the opposition. One of the most outrageous manoeuvres ever seen. Why, N-VA?

“I Told You So”

Vlaams Belang has used the virus to validate many of its key ideological stances: anti-immigration, law and order policies, and sub-state nationalism. Closing the borders has been celebrated and the party has urged further action, such as placing soldiers at the border. Long-time VB figurehead Filip Dewinter tweeted, when a terror suspect was arrested by border control:

Apparently it takes a Corona crisis to make clear that controlled borders are necessary and useful: we keep out intruders (corona, illegal immigrants, drug dealers…) and the bad guys (terrorists, criminals …) in — behind bars!

The party’s representatives have pointed to the perceived unfair distribution of health care resources between Flanders and Wallonia, criticized China for “causing” the Coronavirus crisis, and pinned unrest on the streets and in stores on young migrants.

The Covid-19 crisis, alongside long-term government deadlock and recent polls, provides a window of opportunity for the VB. The party’s framing of the crisis reflects both long-term policy goals and an accelerating push towards breaking Belgium’s cordon sanitaire.

In the time of Coronavirus, governments around the world have sought to suspend political conflict in the name of unity. But for the VB, pressure on the government remains crucial.

The Swiss People’s Party Looks for a New Leader

Josh Allen on 17th March 2020

Picture of Swiss right-wing politician Albert Rosti. He is a middle aged white man, clean shaaven with glasses. He wears a black suit and tie with a white shirt

A note from Dr Daniele Albertazzi the Populism in Action Project’s Principal Investigator: “Our team is now working remotely in the current situation with Coronavirus. In the meantime, we feature Adrian Favero’s analysis of political developments concerning the Swiss People’s Party in Switzerland.”

With the resignation of Albert Rösti, the Swiss People’s Party is looking for a new president. It is proving an arduous process, as the selection committee is struggling to find a viable candidate.

So what are the issues and what is the desired profile for a leader? For the Populism in Action Project, I conducted interviews with party reps in Zurich, Bern, and Geneva. Their thoughts on the party’s stability and coherence point to three central considerations.

1. Organisational and Ideological Factionalism

Part of the base longs for the “good old times” and wants to see a hardliner at the top. The other side wants an opening, thematically and personally, for a change in direction.

There are also significant ideological cleavages between cantons. The SVP branches in Bern, Zurich, and Geneva have historically different political priorities, styles of communication, and cultural views.

So the new president needs to increase collaboration and information exchange between cantonal branches. He or she has to unite the party and to maintain a clear ideological orientation across all cantons.

The new leader has to communicate the SVP’s core issues, but needs to avoid an overly aggressive “anti-foreigners and anti-EU” rhetoric. The SVP must demonstrate that it cares not only about its key topics but also about a broader variety of issues that affect party members in different parts of Switzerland.

This will require a certain level of language skills, with the ability to speak German, French, and English as the minimum requirement for the new leader.

2. Organisational Intensity

The party operates with and depends upon a ramified network of activists and local units for the pursuit of political interests.

The SVP is an “instrument of agitation” with the linkage between party membership, discipline, and solidarity. Continuous party growth in local branches is needed to keep the advantage of a wide network from which to recruit activists.

However, party leadership is often perceived as a distant self-serving circle, and differences emerge between the visions of the local base and the leadership. So the new president must be present at the grassroots level and must visit local sections across Switzerland regularly. The new president has to sense what concerns the base and has to create a feeling of inclusiveness among members and activists. Party members are only willing to volunteer if they feel welcomed and involved.

3. Centralised Agenda Setting

The previous strong performance and success in national elections is often related to Christoph Blocher, who is described as a strong leader of a weak organisation that opposed the establishment. He personifies the rise and political change of the SVP and “achieved a sort of ‘godfather’ status” within his party.

Several interviewees referred to this importance but emphasized that the SVP needs to emancipate itself from the image as “Blocher’s party”. To achieve the transition, the new president has to develop the appropriate party profile and must be coherent in processing and preparing important political issues. He or she must anticipate topics and oversee a centralization of agenda-setting processes within the party leadership. As one representative said: “The larger a party is, the more tightly it must be led.”

However, this grasp of power should not ignore the existing decentralization of the Swiss political landscape. It should not exclude participation of members in the deliberations on the SVP’s official positions and on the regional autonomy of cantonal branches.

Nevertheless, to strengthen the post-Blocher profile of the SVP, the new leader needs to improve the party’s ability to foresee issues and to ensure their importance within the public agenda. This will boost the general image of the SVP as a solution-oriented player within Swiss politics.

To attract potential candidates, the SVP also needs to think about compensation. The job of party leader is traditionally not remunerated, which may prevent certain aspirants from showing interest. As one representative said. “In my opinion, if you want good people, you have to pay something.”

SVP members and representatives expect the new party leader to unite the party, to engage more with members, to discipline the cantons that lost most percentage points in the federal elections, to stick to the party line while focusing on a variety of topics instead of just the core issues, and to speak at least two official languages. Balancing these factors pertaining to ideological factionalism, organisational intensiveness, and centralized agenda-setting will make it difficult for the selection committee to present viable candidates.

Why Europe’s Populist Radical Right Parties Are Not Eager to Leave the EU

Josh Allen on 6th March 2020

Nigel Fararge depicted outside the gates of the Houses of Parliament in January 2019. He wears a green overcoat with a brown collar as well as a pink shirt and a dark blue tie with white dots. Part of a unon jack is in the foreground of the shot, a protest placard can be seen behind him and there is a cluster of midde aged to elderly people, mostly male stood behind him. Nigel Farage has his mouth open as if he is talking to someone who is out of shot

By Stijn van Kessel (PiAP Co-Investigator) – Originally published by The UK in a Changing Europe and drawn from the article “Eager to leave? Populist radical right parties’ responses to the UK’s Brexit vote” in The British Journal of Politics and International Relations:

After the UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016, eurosceptics across Europe cheered. The most fervent saw the imminent departure of Britain as an example to be followed, while others considered the vote as a sign that the European Union was in need of fundamental reform. There were voices, also beyond eurosceptic circles, that spoke of a domino effect with other countries departing the EU.

But now that the UK has finally left, few countries seem to have been inspired by the British example. If anything, the trend across member states has been an increase in public support for EU membership.

The findings in our article suggest that early predictions of an imminent domino effect were always questionable. We focused on parties of the populist radical right (PRR), considered to be the most likely instigators of departure, yet even the most passionately eurosceptic politicians were reluctant to campaign for their countries’ exit from the EU.

Studying Populism and Euroscepticism

Parties of the PRR — characterized by anti-immigration positions, opposition to cultural change, and populist anti-establishment discourse — criticize the EU for a variety of reasons.

They lament the loss of national sovereignty which they associate with deeper European integration. They dislike the opening of borders, as well as the EU’s supposed undemocratic and elite-centered nature.

In our study, we focused on PRR parties in four founding EU member states: Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) in the Netherlands; Front National (FN; now re-named Rassemblement National) in France; Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, and Lega Nord (LN; later known as Lega) in Italy.

We asked whether these parties were inspired by the Brexit vote in their national election campaigns, which in all cases took place within two years of the British referendum.

Did they draw attention to Brexit, and increase their general emphasis on the topic of European integration? Did they bolster their euroscepticism and demand a similar EU membership referendum in their own country, or even a unilateral withdrawal from the bloc?

Caution Rather Than Demands for Exit

PRR parties initially reacted with some gusto to the Brexit vote. PVV leader Geert Wilders congratulated the British on their “Independence Day”, and argued that the Dutch deserved their own referendum. Italy’s LN declared that the British had “taught us a lesson in democracy”, whilE FN’s leader Marine Le Pen was similarly unequivocal in her praise for Brexit and her demand for a referendum in France. Alice Weidel of Germany’s AfD floated the idea of holding similar membership referendA across Europe.

Yet the Brexit vote failed to leave a more lasting mark on the strategies of PRR parties. European integration, in general, did not feature prominently in most of their election campaigns.

The case of Marine Le Pen, for whom “returning France’s sovereignty” was a key campaign pledge, was possibly the exception. Before the second round of the Presidential elections, however, she placed less emphasis on the EU, and her position — not least pertaining to the common currency — became more ambiguous.

The Dutch PVV already favored a “Nexit” well before the British referendum. In the 2017 Parliamentary election campaign, however, party leader Wilders preferred to prioritize his central theme of “Islamization”.

Apart from the PVV, the PRR parties ultimately shied away from advocating their countries’ unilateral withdrawal from the EU. Expressions of support for revoking membership or a referendum were voiced in a careful and non-committal manner: “ending EU membership may be necessary only if the EU fails to reform”.

The muted responses of PRR parties to Brexit can be explained in part by the relatively small appetite among European citizens for leaving the EU, but also by the comparatively low salience of the issue of European integration.

As long as PRR parties are successful by focusing on issues that are considered more important by their voters – not least those related to immigration and cultural change – their leaderships have little reason to take a risk and focus on themes that potentially divide their electorates or membershiips.

This is even the case in countries, like France and Italy, with considerable euroscepticism has reached considerable levels. As Duncan McDonnell and Anika Werner have argued, PRR parties “enjoy flexibility on European integration and can shift positions” precisely because of the issue’s limited salience among supporters and the public at large.

The uncertainty of the outcome of protracted Brexit negotiations, as a well as political instability in the UK, have further induced a cautious wait-and-see approach among PRR parties.

In the longer run, when there is clarity about the UK’s fate, there may well be renewed calls for leaving the EU. Yet this probably requires an increase in salience of EU-related issues and a concomitant rise in “exit scepticism” among European citizens.

The article “Eager to leave? Populist radical right parties’ responses to the UK’s Brexit vote” is in the latest issue of The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. It is co-authored by Stijn van Kessel, Nicola Chelotti, Helen Drake, Juan Roch, and Patricia Rodi. The research is part of the ESRC-funded project “28+ Perspectives on Brexit: a guide to the multi-stakeholder negotiations”, led by Prof. Helen Drake.

Italy’s Government Still On A Knife Edge After Key Regional Elections

Josh Allen on 29th January 2020

Giuseppe Conti (5 Star Movement affiliated Prime Minister of Italy since 2018) stands at a lectern midst giving a speech. He is a white male of around fifty years of age, has greying dark hair and a slightly tanned face. He is clean shaven and isn't wearing glasses. He wears a dark blue suit with a white handkerchief in to top pocket. His tie is a similar dark blue colour and his shirt is white. Behind him a figure of a male aide or another politican is visible, he is also wearing a suit, aged between 50 and 60, but is balding with a beard. the wall behind both men is marble and an Italian tricolor is partly visible on a flagpole

by Daniele Albertazzi (PiAP Principal Investigator) & Davide Pellegrino (University of Torino) – Originally published by The Conversation

A regional election in northern Italy has delivered a blow to populist right-wing figure Matteo Salvini. But while the center-left candidate in the elections for the Emilia-Romagna region saw off the populist threat – with the help of a grassroots campaign movement called The Sardines – his party’s national government looks far from secure.

Stefano Bonaccini’s re-election as the governor of Emilia-Romagna matters because it has given hope that the erosion of the left’s traditional dominance of local politics in the four central regions once known as the red belt — Tuscany, Umbria, the Marches and Emilia-Romagna — is not unstoppable.

Emilia-Romagna is the richest, most populous and, historically, also the most solidly left-wing area in the red belt. But the right-wing League has been growing in popularity in the area, especially since Salvini took over the party in 2013.

He saw this regional election as a golden opportunity to bring down the government – a fragile coalition between the center-left Democratic Party (PD) and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S). The latter had been in national government with Salvini until their partnership collapsed in 2019 and many see the new arrangement as being geared more towards keeping Salvini away from power rather than providing a functioning administration.

Salvini therefore sought to turn this regional election into a test of whether the national government enjoyed the confidence of the electorate. A right-wing victory would have set off a campaign to force the governing parties to stand down and hold a general election.

The League has become increasingly popular in Emilia-Romagna, while the incumbent PD has been shrinking, so the vote was considered winnable by Salvini and his supporters. Pre-election polls showed the race between Bonaccini, the PD-backed candidate for the governorship, and Lucia Borgonzoni, the League’s candidate, was in fact very tight.

Sardines Against Salvini

Salvini ran a polarizing campaign, which in turn sparked a new grassroots movement on the left called the Sardines. This group was started by ordinary citizens opposed to the radicalism of Salvini’s League.

Turnout was 67.7% in this regional election – a significant increase on 2014, when just 37.7% of eligible voters took part. This mirrors recent events in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Spain, where the possibility of an electoral victory for a populist radical right-party has increased interest in politics and boosted participation.

But Bonaccini’s success appears heavily tied to his personal appeal. He himself is considerably more popular than the coalition of parties that backed his election. Meanwhile, the PD’s ally in government, the M5S, has almost disappeared in the region. It shrank to a pitiful 4.7% of the vote, while the League won 32%, similar to its share in the European elections last May. These are all bad signs for the government.

What Now for National Government?

The very poor performance of the M5S in this election, and in the other regional election held on the same day in Calabria), is bound to cause instability for the national government. The party has never done well at local and regional levels but this result, coupled with recent turmoil at the top, will be taken by many as a sign of imminent collapse.

The party’s leader, Luigi Di Maio, recently resigned, unable to command the support of the party as it slumped in the polls since entering government one and a half years ago.

Since 2018, 30 M5S parliamentarians have been fired or have quit to join the League or other groups. More could now follow, which would be deadly for a governing coalition with a very small majority in the Senate.

Even if no one leaves, internal tensions within the M5S may still bring the governing coalition to an end, as more and more Five Star representatives judge its experience in power alongside the left as a failure. Moving to the opposition benches would at least allow the M5S to recover its long-lost “purity” as an anti-establishment party

As for the PD, it is still in search of an identity and an electoral strategy 12 years after having been founded. In Emilia-Romagna, it basically owes its victory to others (particularly the incumbent governor, Bonaccini, and his ability to attract the votes of former M5S supporters).

While it is difficult to say when a general election will happen, it seems unlikely that the governing coalition can hold. The PD’s victory in Emilia-Romagna has bought it a little time, but we do not expect the two governing parties to stick together until the end of the legislature.

Where Luigi Di Maio and Italy’s Five Star Movement Went Wrong

Josh Allen on 23rd January 2020

By Mattia Zulianello (PiAP Italy focused Research fellow) – Originally published by the LSE’s European Politics and Policy Blog

On Wednesday, Luigi Di Maio resigned as leader of Italy’s Five Star Movement (M5S). Why, in contrast to other populist parties, has M5S appears to have imploded while in office?

The Five Star Movement has been characterized as a “valence populist party“. That label has been applied because, M5S is not a “left” or “right” populist party. Instead, it is among those who predominantly, if not exclusively, compete by focusing on non-positional issues such as the fight against corruption, increased transparency, democratic reform, and moral integrity. These parties may adopt specific positions (for example, M5S’s advocacy of a basic income), but their primary and prevailing competitive emphasis is placed on their competence and performance on “valence issues”, achieving goals that are widely shared by voters.

The policy stances of valence populists are informed by an unadulterated conception of populism in which other ideological elements play a marginal or secondary role. Policies are flexible, free-floating, and often inconsistent. While valence populist parties are common in Eastern Europe — an example is ANO 2011 in the Czech Republic — M5S is the only contemporary case of this populist variety in the West.

The M5S originally emerged and remained until 2018 as an anti-system party that rejected cooperation with the other factions in the system. Five Star presented itself as a separate pole in opposition to both the center-right and center-left, declaring that it would only work with other parties on a strict issue-by-issue (and law-by-law) basis. The M5S rejected their legitimacy in the strongest terms, so fully-fledged cooperation was out of the question.

However, anti-system parties often eventually integrate into the system which they previously opposed. This is especially true for populist parties as the “new normal” in European party systems and governments. The integration and legitimation of populist parties can be a long or short process, according to the various incentives of the political system and electoral results, and it is usually accompanied by a series of programmatic and organizational reforms.

The zenith of the integration of populist parties is their entry into national office. In many cases, populist parties are able to survive this, and even to gain votes in subsequent elections. After a first disastrous experience in office (1994), Italy’s Lega benefited over time from a learning process. It now has a long record of government participation and dominates the Italian agenda. According to all polls, the party led by Matteo Salvini is by far the strongest in the country, with support estimated at 32%.

The astonishing success of Salvini is the story, first of all, of a successful process of organization: the centralization of the party machine, a cohesive dominant coalition, the socialization of its activists and elites via value infusion, and the persistence of various structures and purposes of the “old” mass party. The Lega is then capable of acting as a strategic actor well beyond the short term, and converting sudden pressures or shocks — such as the Gregoretti trial over the alleged kidnapping of migrants — into competitive weapons by making them fit its narrative.

In contrast, the crisis that the M5S has experienced since 2018, culminating in Di Maio’s resignation, is the outcome of a failed process of integration by an anti-system party despite organizational reforms and programmatic adaptation before entering office. Although M5S has implemented a form of top-down management through a strictly centralized structure, internal conflict has been a constant: its dominant coalition lacks cohesion, and it lacks the instruments to ensure value infusion among elites and activists. Its public image remains that of a conflict-ridden party.

These problems are the consequence of a flawed organisational project, incapable of effectively absorbing internal conflict. They are also linked to the peculiar nature of the Five Star Movement’s ideological profile. Valence populist parties seek to transcend left and right, and the integration into the coalition game with other parties implies choosing between one of the two sides.

M5S first governed with the right-wing Lega, then with the center-left Democratic Party (PD). While the PD had long been the sworn enemy of Five Star, cooperation between the two parties was not necessarily doomed to failure. In many cases, parties can successfully cooperate after years of reciprocal hostility. However, in the case of M5S, it led to a fiasco.

The absence of mechanisms to absorb internal conflict made it impossible to explain effectively to voters the rationale, expectations, and benefits of M5S’s strategic repositioning. The party failed to articulate a coherent and consistent message, a failure compounded by its organisational chaos.

The nature of a valence populist party is linked to the idea of communicating competence and performance in achieving widely-shared political goals. Five Star did not fulfil this idea.

The outcome is what we see today: a party that lacks a clear direction, is plagued by internal conflict, and is suffering a string of electoral debacles. M5S is learning — or at least should be learning — that agency matters, and parties remain the masters of their own success or failure.

Tampere University: “How Populist Logic Functions in Contemporary Media”

Josh Allen on 6th January 2020

Niko Hatakka (PiAP Finland focused Research Fellow) lectured on “How Populist Logic Functions in the Contemporary Media Environment” at a symposium organized by the Institute for Advanced Social Research at Tampere University, Finland on December 4-5, 2019.

The symposium brought together cross-disciplinary social scientists in discussion of populism as class, discourse, and affective formation. Workshops considered to what extent these dimensions are effective in distinguishing political varieties, forms, and limits of populism as an analytic category.

Studying Populism and Italy’s League in Varese

Josh Allen on 2nd January 2020

Matteo Salvini wearing a tan cord jacket and trousers and darker tan rollneck is seated next to a woman in a white blouse and another woman wearing spectacles, a white blouse and a jacket. All three in the row are white with dark hair and aged around 40 years. They're clapping. The room that they are in is marble and white plaster with carvings that look like they're from the Renaissance period or just after partially visible on the walls

Interview with Mattia Zulianello (PiAP Italy focused Research Fellow) Originally published in Varese Noi on 5 December and translated by Mattia Zulianello

Mattia Zulianello is in town to conduct a study which will keep the University of Birmingham’s researchers busy, analyzing party activism in four different European contexts.

He has this to say about the Italian political party “the League”: “The League’s system to foster participation is among the most efficient. The party congress on December 21 may have a strong impact on its grassroots.”

Zulianello, 33, is a researcher in the Department of Political Sciences and International Studies (POLSIS) at the University of Birmingham. The author of several books and academic articles, he and his colleagues around Europe are working on a project funded by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council): “The Survival of the Mass Party” (the Populism in Action Project).

Research will analyze four political parties: The League in Italy, the UDC-SVP in Switzerland, the Vlaams Belang in Belgium, and the Finns Party in Finland.

Zulianello explains: “We seek to understand what makes people participate in political life as activists — on the one hand, to establish why the representatives of a party care so much about the organizational structure, and on the other, to discern the purpose and meaning of activism”.

Zulianello will interview the League’s activists and representatives in various locations. He will start from Varese, where the party which was Umberto Bossi’s took its first steps, to then move on to Veneto and Emilia “following the logic of interviewing activists in a big city, where a historical stronghold of the League is located, as well as in a small town or rural area in its surroundings”.

Questions for activists will focus on concrete matters: entry into the League, reasons for staying in it, the views of its leaders, the way the organization works, the meaning of political participation (whether it is staffing a gazebo or giving out leaflets).

The researcher says of the risk that there might be “infiltrators” in the party:

The League probably has one of the most intelligent systems of screening because it is structured on two membership levels.

It’s a very efficient model. To enter the League you need to start by being a supporter member. After fifteen months you can become an activist member, but this request needs to be approved at the provincial, national, and federal levels.

A “true” Leghista is evaluated on the grounds of his/her effective activism and this makes the whole organizational system really efficient.

Zulianello has already met representatives of the League in Varese. He will return to the city in the next few months to meet with activists.

The League’s congress in Varese on December 21 illustrates how activists are reacting to proposals about the changing goals of the party. How will they respond to leader Matteo Salvini, “who in some respects is better known than the party itself”?

Zulianello says, “Changing the party’s statute carries a very strong symbolic meaning. Making some changes — that at first seem insignificant, such as changing ‘Nations”’into ‘Regional Territorial Articulations’ — can have a significant impact on the grassroots”.

How Media Hybridity Makes Populism Fail as a Democratic Corrective

Josh Allen on 19th December 2019

by Niko Hatakka (PiAP Finland focused Research Fellow) – this post initially appeared on EA Worldview

The hybridization of the media system affects populism as a political logic to the point that it makes it less likely to constitute a corrective for democracy.

Populist movements do not have to be anti-pluralist or illiberal, or otherwise shockingly subversive, but the hybrid media system will make them appear like they are. In media systems of the 21st century, the access to the public sphere has become more inclusive and horizontal. More people can get involved in defining how we should view the world. But what does that mean for the articulation of “the people” when anybody can speak or be perceived to speak in the name of “the people”?

If we want to understand the form and trajectory of populist mobilizations in the current media environment, we must connect different theoretical approaches used in populism research. The ideational, populism-as-style and political communication approaches explain “what populism is” and “how populism is done”. But into understand “what populism actually ends up doing”, we need to combine these approaches with something else.

Read the full academic article: “Populism in the Hybrid Media System”

A New Approach to Populist Political Communication

The so-called Laclaudian approach suggests that populism is a political logic of articulation, the process in which things get their meaning through language and acts of signification. When viewed as a political logic, populism is regarded as the unification of groups and individuals, hosting different kinds of political demands, to form imagined alliances – or chains of equivalence – that can eventually constitute “a people” that can strive to change the status quo.

This theory illuminates the discursive processes of how populist ideas are communicated and connected to particular political movements, the part where populism becomes flesh via the discursive articulation of “the people” and its relationship with “the elites”. This is why the approaches that regard populism as style and as communication are useful: there cannot be populist ideas without their discursive and context-specific construction.

But it is only when connected to the discursive theoretical approach that mainstream approaches can inform us as to what kinds of political forces are mobilized by populist messages in the media system.

Our heuristic models on the relationship between populism and media do not currently have that dynamism, for they are set in the age of traditional non-hybrid media. When it comes to the role of the internet for populism, the literature often ignores online communication or attributes to it an excessive responsibility for the rise of populist movements. Especially in the time of much discourse about “fake news” and “post truth”, there is a tendency to understand social media as a kind of mind-control-machinery.

These narratives simplistically represent populism as a technological phenomenon. Social media allow populist actors to emancipate themselves from the traditional media, but we have not updated our research and analysis on the idea of online media, not only as a means of bypassing gatekeepers, but as an integral part of the media system.

As an analytic starting point, I suggest that the diffusion of populist political communication in the hybrid media system can be understood as:

1) Media populism:

Mainstream media communicate populist ideas independently of political actors.

2) Populist communication bypassing gatekeepers:

Populists communicate populist ideas independently of the mainstream media.

3) Populist re-mediation of media content:

Media content is re-mediated by populists to communicate populist ideas.

4) Journalistic amplification of populist communication:

Mainstream media covers populist communication and simultaneously participates in its dissemination.

5) Civic amplification of populist communication:

Political opponents and activists discuss populist communication and simultaneously disseminate it via online and mainstream media;

6) Resistance backlash:

Feeding on the mainstream media’s and political opponents’ mediated criticism of populist political communication, populist communicators disseminate populist ideas and style.

So populist political communication should not only be understood as the transmission and diffusion of populist ideas but as a discursive struggle involving both proponents and opponents. The focus must be shifted from the contents and salience of mediated populist political communication itself, to how populist communication is transformed after several stages of interaction between the original message, the media system, and various publics.

Therefore, to understand how populist communication affects populist movements’ in terms of their form, trajectory, and chances of challenging hegemony, we have to look at how political organizations, journalists, and citizen activists interact with populist communication.

The hybridization of the media system affects not only what kind of populist ideas are being communicated and how they are spread, but also what kinds of movements will be mobilized by a populist logic. We must update our understanding of the role of the media in diffusing populist political communication to accommodate not only online communication but also reciprocal interactivity between different actors involved in the communication system. A distinction must be made between what populists are trying to communicate and what their communication actually articulates, after the communication has gone through a series of discursive negotiations in the public sphere.

Outcomes of a Hybrid Media for Populist Movements

By making the most controversial acts of populist communication more salient, the media system intensifies their political use. This can lead to their further normalization, especially because it is cost-effective for populist leaders to remain confrontational and openly hostile towards criticism. The logic of the contemporary media environment thus hinders the chances of populist movements becoming legitimate channels for the institutionalization of unmet societal demands, due to the mediated amplification of their least-appreciated elements.

Theoretically populist movements do not have to be anti-pluralist or illiberal, but the hybrid media system will make them appear like they are. And unless populist movements consolidate antagonism as a key feature in their communications, external and internal mediated scrutiny is likely to cripple them by starting to disintegrate their idea of “who the people are”. The outcome is that the populist logic is less likely to function as a corrective for democracy in the hybrid media system.

Belgium’s Populism and Polarization: Europe in Miniature?

Josh Allen on 4th November 2019

Leader of the Finns Party Tom Van Grieken is depicted from the waist up outside on an autumnal day. He is a white male with short slick bakc dark hair, probably about 35. He wears a shirt with no jacket and a black tie with white heart shapes (like from a game of paying cards). His sleeves are rolled up revealing a large silver watch. He smiles and clasps one hand in the other in front of him

by Judith Sijstermans (PiAP Belgium focused Research Fellow) – this post was initially published on EA WorldView

With last week’s appointment of “caretaker” Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès, Belgium has refocused attention on its political stalemate.

Belgium’s first female Prime Minister was appointed after her predecessor Charles Michel took up the Presidency of the European Council. She faces a difficult situation, with her party Mouvement Reformateur (MR) losing ground in May’s elections and giving her little political leverage.

The ongoing lack of a government has left Belgium’s growing budget deficit in limbo, drawing admonishment from international institutions. Wilmès soon lamented the lack of urgency in negotiations between the two parties most likely to establish a coalition administration, the Flemish Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA) and the Francophone Parti Socialiste (PS).

The stalled process to form a Belgian government often feel like “another crisis, and another compromise“. In 2011, Belgium famously (or infamously) broke the record for the longest time spent without a government: 541 days. It is now been more than 150 days since Belgium’s May 2019 elections, with another vacuum amid longer and longer negotiation times for government formation.

But this is not just a Belgian story. It is a demonstration of politics across Europe.

Modernising and Contagious Populism

The biggest story of Belgium’s 2019 elections was the unprecedented success of the radical right populist party, the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest, VB). The party took second place in vote share across Belgium, behind only fellow Flemish nationalist and right wing party N-VA.

The VB’s proportion of the vote rose more than 8% in federal elections and 12% in Flemish Parliament elections. In the federal elections, VB won 11.9% of the vote (810,177) as compared to the N-VA’s 16% (1,086,787) and the Parti Socialiste’s 9.5% (641.623).

The outcome was a personal victory for VB leader Tom Van Grieken, 33, elected in 2014 as the youngest-ever head of a Belgian party. In his first federal elections, he was the fourth most-popular politician, “moderating VB’s line and presenting a more outward-facing agenda than the party has previously.

The strategy is not only one of moderation, but of modernization. VB did well with young male voters and spent more than any other Belgian party on Facebook advertising. In a press conference after the ballot, van Grieken declared a ‘new Vlaams Belang that doesn’t shut its doors to the press, but that has an open mind.”

In previous coalition negotiations, VB has struggled against its reputation and the tradition of a cordon sanitaire, a pact made by other Flemish parties to exclude any possibility of coalescence with the Vlaams Blok, VB’s predecessor.

Survey data had indicated that the cordon was a contributing factor to a declining vote share for VB. But with its surge in 2019, VB may be taking advantage of “fraying barriers” between right-wing populist factions and mainstream conservative parties in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to erode what N-VA leader Bart da Wever called “the Great Wall of China” in Belgian politics.

Shortly after the election, the N-VA met VB in the hope of forming a coalition in the Flemish Parliament. This was ultimately ruled out by other parties who chose to uphold the cordon. But the Belgian King met van Grieken, the first reception by the monarch of a radical right leader since the 1930s, and the VB has made a mark on the Flemish governing coalition’s policy proposals, particularly over integration.

Polarisation

While the Belgian government has not been formed, all legislative bodies below the federal level have formed coalitions which tell a story of polarization between Belgium’s communities.

In Flanders, the N-VA leads a coalition with the liberal Open VLD and centre-right CD&V. In Wallonia and the French speaking community, the Parti Socialiste leads a coalition with the liberal Mouvement Reformateur and green Ecolo. In the Brussels Regional Parliament, the Flemish Groen and French Ecolo were the main winners of the election; they join a coalition including socialists and liberals.

Across Belgium’s regional bodies different colours reign: the Flemish regionalist yellow, Francophone socialist red, and Brussels’ multi-lingual Green. But the only parties which gained seats in May 2019 were the Greens (Ecolo and Groen), the VB, and the far-left Workers’ Party of Belgium (PVDA-PTB). While they are on opposite sides of the left-right divide, these parties’ voters share a lack of trust in the political system.

The “mainstream” political space between these parties is sparser. The N-VA and the PS have made clear that there is little common ground between their parties; the pull by challenger parties to the left and right is likely to make finding a common platform even more difficult.

This pull away from mainstream parties is a marker of European politics. Emmanuel Macron’s successes in France came at the expense of the Socialist Party, which lost 250 seats in the 2017 legislative elections. The UK’s 2019 European Parliament elections saw the governing Conservative Party fall to 5th place behind both the Green Party and the Brexit Party. In Swiss Parliamentary elections last month, the vote for Green parties increased substantially, but the radical right populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) remained the largest in the legislature.

A Stalled State of Play

This rise of populism and hollowing out of the center are not only electoral phenomena; they affect the functioning of political institutions. Belgium is an exemplar of this erosion. In addition to the 127 days needs for the formation of a Flemish coalition, an unlikely combination of left-wing parties and the VB threatened a government shutdown after a last-minute budgetary amendment.

There is government stasis and uncertainty is present across Europe: in the difficulties faced by the Italian governing coalition, the prolonged and controversial selection process for the head of the European Commission, and the strikes and protests across Catalonia this month.

It is tempting to think of Belgium, with its many institutions and convoluted process of government formation, as unique. It’s not. With the development — or lack of development — in its many institutions, Belgium is now setting the path for political shifts across Europe.

Surprises in Switzerland’s Election: A Green Surge, More Women, and Decline for Populist SVP

Josh Allen on 30th October 2019

Federal Palace of Switzerland with full flags due to Indian President's state visit. Plaza view during full moon with clear night sky.

By Adrian Favero (PiAP Switzerland focused Research Fellow) – this post originally appeared on EA Worldview

On October 20, about 5.3 million eligible voters in Switzerland were asked to elect the new Parliament. About 45.1% cast ballots, a turnout slightly lower than in previous years.

As several forecasts predicted, the major parties lost votes and the two green parties – the Greens and the Green Liberals – gained seats. However, some results were rather surprising, as the new distribution in the National Council, the Lower House of the Swiss Parliament, testifies.

Greens: Better Than Expected

As predicted, almost all over the country, more people voted for green parties than in 2015. But the anticipated green wave turned out to be a green tsunami.

The Greens (GPS) almost doubled their votes, surging by 6.1% to a 13.2% share, and gaining 17 seats in the National Council. This was an unprecedented surge in representation, topping the record of 15 additional seats, set by the right-wing populist party Swiss People’s Party (SVP) in 1999. The Green Liberal Party (GLP) also exceeded expected results, with a gain of 3.2% and nine more seats.

The current debate on climate change and the green parties’ “competence issue ownership” — as noted in my pre-election summary — motivated many citizens in the casting of their votes. The extent to which the so-called “Greta effect” will permanently change the party landscape remains to be seen, but it inevitably leads to discussion of a potential re-configuration of seats in the government.

But political shifts move slowly in Switzerland. Although the Greens have replaced the Christian Democrats (CVP) as the fourth biggest party, they may not be able to claim representation in the Federal Council for two reasons.

First, the Greens are not as well represented in the Council of States, the upper chamber, as they are in the National Council. Second, parties are usually expected to consolidate their election results, and these results are often reflected in the government only several years (or even decades) after electoral gains in the Parliament.

More Women

The National Council now has 84 women, 42% of the chamber. Switzerland is now second in Europe, behind Sweden, in women’s representation in the legislature.

In previous elections, it was usually parties on the left that fed the increase in women’s representation; however, in 2019, the share rose on both right and left. The proportion of women legislators in the Radical-Liberal Party (FDP) rose from 21.2% to 35.7%. The share in the SVP increased from 16.9% to 24.5%.

Losses for SVP and Social Democrats

The SVP suffered the greatest decline of all major parties. Never before has a party lost 12 seats, amid a fall in vote share by 3.8% for the populist party.

However, the SVP remains the strongest power in the National Council. And the second-placed Social Democrats (SP) suffered its worst result since the introduction of proportional representation in 1919. A post-election survey found many citizens who traditionally voted for the SP switched to one of the green parties.

What Now?

With the shifting party landscape, new co-operation between the Greens, the CVP, and the SP will be likely, aligning against an SVP which is still the largest party in Parliament.

However, it remains to be seen how this new constellation deals with unfinished issues such as health insurance costs and the future relations with the European Union.

It is too early for clear predictions — and we still await the second-round results in the Council of States, the upper Parliamentary chamber.