Any success of a populist party is often considered as a threat, a rise endangering Democracy. Even if there is a lot of passion over this issue, it is true that there has been a rise of populist parties in Europe, from the 1980s to late 1990s, a rise which has stabilized or reversed recently. These new populist parties appeared after the great period of stability (from the post war to the late 1960s), a period in which most extremist parties were small groups or party flashes. Since then, there are new populist parties. It is funded on a direct link between the leader and the people and a distinction between 'us' and 'them'.
[...] And they definitely contribute to, despite the growing of post modernist values, the “rightisation” of European societies. Bibliography Populist and extreme right in Western Europe, Gilles Levaldi The Extreme Right in Europe and in the USA, Paul Hainsworth Generational Replacement and Value Change in Six West European Societies, P. Abramson, R. Inglehart The New Politics of Resentment: Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe, H-G Betz Populism in Eastern Europe: racism, nationalism and society, Jospeh Held The Return of Populism: a challenge for European democracies, dir. [...]
[...] The rise and the limitations of the populist parties and movements in Europe Introduction Any success of a populist party is often considered as a threat, a rise endangering Democracy. Even if there is a lot of passion over this issue, it is true that there has been a rise of populist parties in Europe, from the 1980s to late 1990s, a rise which stabilized or reversed recently. These new populist parties appeared after the great period of stability (from the post war to the late 1960s), a period in which most extremist parties were small groups or party flashes (Betz). [...]
[...] For instance Sweden and Norway for instance both have very high levels of social capital, low levels of political trust since the 1980s (due to political events, and not social change) and have a very different weight of the extreme right (Newton). C. Political explanations The populist parties rise thanks to political disenchantment. Indeed, all of them try to picture themselves as outside the party system, an establishment which is corrupted and does not care about the people. And they are often strong in “consensual democracies” where there is not much difference left between the left and the right (Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, all of them have a consensual kind of governance), or after a cohabitation (France). [...]
[...] The second cultural clash is the one of post materialist societies (Inglehart). Post materialists de-emphasize materialist goals (growth, stability, order) to commit in environmental, women's or peace movements for instance. And they are more likely to be leftist. If young people are more post materialist (which does not fit perfectly with our figurer concerning their votes) and do not get materialist with age, it would mean that populist parties would disappear in a long term. But materialist values are still dominant, as shows it the French election in 2007. [...]
[...] There is not one extreme right in Europe but links can be drawn between our post industrial and post materialist parties. All those parties have quite the same voters and ideas, and grow on political disenchantment. Their future may be diverse as they are evolving either to normalization or to marginalization, but in most countries in Europe there is a strong core of people believing in these parties. What is sure anyway is that they changed the national debate and played a great part in the perception of foreigners in Europe. [...]
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