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Democracy Reform as a Populist Policy Supply

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Abstract

The criticism of the political establishment and the representative power structure unites left- and right-wing populism and is superordinate to other issues. However, there has not been any research so far on what policies populist parties suggest to improve allegedly flawed democracy. This article tries to fill that gap, using an explorative approach. Dimensions of a populist democracy reform agenda are extracted from the literature, and policies gathered from the latest election manifestos of 22 populist parties from 15 Western European countries are assigned to these dimensions. The analysis shows the existence of a common populist democracy reform agenda, although generally pursued more extensively by left-wing populists.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dutch original: “Als enige politieke beweging handelt Forum voor Democratie vanuit een totaalvisie op de grote problematiek die nu in Nederland speelt: we hebben ongetwijfeld op bepaalde punten overlap met allerlei partijen, maar Forum voor Democratie wil niet alleen desymptomen van de huidige crisis aanpakken; we richten ons ook op deachterliggende oorzaak: het politieke systeem zélf. Je gaat een huis niet verbouwen als de fundamenten verrot zijn. We moeten beginnen bij de basis.” (translation by author).

  2. 2.

    Interestingly, the three parties in question – PiS, Fidesz and AKP – have mostly been and in part continue to be labelled national conservative until recently.

  3. 3.

    Skepticism is understandable in those cases where populist parties are at the same time extremist, crossing the threshold of open hostility towards the political system as a whole, or where they have been extremist in the past (Front National, Vlams Belang and Sverigedemokraterna). This past entertains doubts as to whether the ideological softening of those parties is genuine or mere camouflage. The credibility of the populist creed is also undermined when parties harbour radical factions, such as the FPÖ or the AfD (Decker and Lewandowsky2017, p. 31). Their more moderate factions are then „suspected of paying mere lip service to the rules” (Mastropaolo2008, p. 33).

  4. 4.

    In an earlier draft, this aspect was handled as a separate presidentialization dimension (Decker2004, p. 32), but there was not much evidence of this. The manifestos showed only PVV in favour of the direct election of the head of government and only Perussuomalaiset pleading for the direct election of mayors. Four parties (Socialistische Partij, AfD, Forza Italia and Lega Nord) proposed the direct election of the head of state. In the semi-presidential system in the sample, La France Insoumise even wants to switch to a parliamentary system. Incompatibility of parliamentary mandate and government office as a secondary characteristic of presidential systems is only posited by AfD, while ANEL suggests the opposite exactly. The quests for direct election were thus reallocated to the democratisation of elections dimension while AfD’s incompatibility demand was redistributed to the transparency and control dimension.

  5. 5.

    Finnish original: „Mitä monimutkaisempi järjestelmä, sitä epädemokraattisempi se on. […] Toimivan demokratian edellytys on läpinäkyvä päätöksentekojärjestelmä, jota kansalaisen on helppo ymmärtää ja seurata.“ (translation by author).

  6. 6.

    Sometimes, manifestos are also published in the language of significant minorities. For example, there is a Swedish version of the Perussuomalaiset manifestos. Podemos also published an English version of its 2015 manifesto which is an integral part of its 2016 manifesto included in the analysis, complemented by some new campaign pledges agreed upon with its list partner of 2016, Izquierda Unida.

  7. 7.

    I owe thanks to Ina Koch, Christian Krell, Anna Küppers, Lazaros Miliopoulos, Annika Ostendorf and Mahir Tokatli for lending me their respective language skills. The author gave supporting researchers a preliminary version of the dimension/policies attribution tables to be found in the “Appendix”, asked them to register parties’ reform claims comprehensively to facilitate their ultimate attribution in marginal cases, and used Google Translate to check their preliminary work for thoroughness and correspondance to the theoretical concept. Any mistakes remaining are the author’s own.

  8. 8.

    Despite its modest result of less than two percent in the March 2017 elections, Forum voor Democratie obtained two seats in the Dutch Parliament thanks to the pure PR system. Recent polls see Forum voor Democratie neck-and-neck with PVV at about ten percent vote share. Party leader Thierry Baudet had already become a relevant political actor by initiating a consultative referendum on the EU-Ukraine association agreement.

  9. 9.

    Links to the manifestos under analysis are provided in the “Appendix”.

  10. 10.

    The manifesto of the PS for the 2015 elections consisted of a one-page document with five main subjects, an 8-page economic program and a 16-page program on social and health policy.

  11. 11.

    The Greek election of August 2015, shortly after the referendum on the Loan Facility Agreement, was largely shaped by economic and financial policy, which is also reflected in SYRIZA’s manifesto. The party’s democracy reform agenda is, however, very present in the 2012 guidelines.

  12. 12.

    Also part of this alliance were Fratelli d’Italia and Noi con l’Italia.

  13. 13.

    While two thirds of the left-wing parties in the sample have manifestos of more than 100 pages, only Dansk Folkeparti, Fremskrittspartiet and SVP even come close to that among the right-wing populist parties. Four right-wing populist parties (ANEL, Forza Italia, Lega Nord and Sverigedemokraterna) only have very short manifestos of about ten pages. Additionally, some right-wing populist parties with medium-sized manifestos adopt a very rigorous structure limiting each topic to one (Forum voor Democratie), two (FPÖ) or three (PVV) pages.

  14. 14.

    This is the case for ANEL’s aforementioned claim that only members of parliament should qualify for ministerial portfolios. While clearly going against the incompatibility demand on the transparency and control dimension, it does so to avoid important campaign contributors being rewarded with ministerial posts, thus to fight patronage on the party state dimension. In a similar vein, the no plurality of offices principle (privileges of political elite dimension) is violated by Socialistische Partij and Front National in favour of goals on other dimensions: The former wants to allow national deputies additional membership in the European Parliament to strengthen the national parliament in the European legislative process (national sovereignty dimension), the latter advocates allowing senatorial mandates and local executive offices to be held simultaneously to strengthen the influence of the local level (federalism dimension). For the same reason, Front National also asks for a better payment of mayors in small and medium-sized municipalities. As for term limits, Front National’s reform proposal contains both elements of extension (return to seven instead of five year term) and limitation (no reelection). The same is true for Fremskrittspartiet’s electoral system reform plan which combines a more proportional representation of the regions while advocating higher thresholds, allegedly in order to increase turnout, another reform goal on the democratisation of elections dimension. The rejection of “presidential monarchy” by La France Insoumise is substantiated by the very unequal balance of power between the president and the parliament, making the deputies act like the president’s foot soldiers rather than representatives of the sovereign people. PVV’s and Forum voor Democratie’s plans to weaken the local level are not related to other democracy reform dimensions but to migration policy.

  15. 15.

    This can also be said for the right-wing populist parties from non-member states, Fremskrittspartiet and SVP.

  16. 16.
  17. 17.

    Links to the manifestos under analysis are provided in the “Appendix”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, Germany

    Volker Best

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  1. Volker Best

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Correspondence toVolker Best.

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Politische Bildung Inland, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Berlin, Germany

    Sebastian Bukow

  2. Universität Trier, Trier, Germany

    Uwe Jun

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 and14.

Table 6 Policy supply on eight dimensions of populist democracy reform agenda by 22 relevant Western European populist parties
Table 7 Policy supply on the “Direct Democracy” dimension by 22 relevant Western European populist parties
Table 8 Policy supply on the dimension “Democratisation of elections” by 22 relevant Western European populist parties
Table 9 Policy supply on the dimension “Privileges of political elites” by 22 relevant Western European populist parties
Table 10 Policy supply on the dimension “Lobbyism and Corruption” by 22 relevant Western European populist parties
Table 11 Policy supply on the dimension “Party state” by 22 relevant Western European populist parties
Table 12 Policy supply on the dimension “Federalism” by 22 relevant Western European populist parties
Table 13 Policy supply on the dimension “Federalism” by 22 relevant Western European populist parties
Table 14 Policy supply on the dimension “National Sovereignty” by 22 relevant Western European populist parties

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Best, V. (2020). Democracy Reform as a Populist Policy Supply. In: Bukow, S., Jun, U. (eds) Continuity and Change of Party Democracies in Europe. Politische Vierteljahresschrift Sonderhefte. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-28988-1_8

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