Pros And Cons Of Right Wing Populist Parties

Political systems within a country are a complex mosaic of the comprehensive organizations, groups and people who influence how the country is ran. One important aspect of the political system in a country is the political parties. Political parties are an organization, or an alliance of individuals who have the sam political beliefs. These people work together to influence the country win elections and ultimately control the government. Each political party has their own platform, which is their ideologies and how they wish to govern if elected. These parties all have their own spot along the political spectrum. Throughout time views of how the country should be ran, the culture of the country, and the economy change. This ultimately leads
to the popularity of a new political ideology. The far right, also known as the radical right or populist right, has recently gained popularity throughout the world, specifically in western Europe. After the second world war, radical right wing parties were viewed negatively. People associated them with them with the wrong doings that occurred during the second world war. The toxic views of the radical right made parties who ran on this platform essentially irrelevant, and in retrospect ceased to exist. As the world began to change, and people’s views shifted from the post-war era right-wing populist parties started to encompass a plurality of votes in Europe. Countries such as France, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland started to see a shift in voting behavior. This has led to a steady increase in popularity among right wing populist parties. This sudden rise of popularity leaves us with the underlying question of “what are the plausible factors/motivations for the sudden rise in the support of right wing populist parties”. Using France, Austria and Italy as case studies a hypothesis can be formed to identify the underlying factors that caused the change in voting behavior, and led to the recent allure of right-wing populist parties. Before we can begin to hypothesize why right wing populist parties have gained popularity we must understand what right wing populist parties are, and their historical background.
Right wing populism can be defined in a multitude of ways. Many scholars have their own complex definition of what it means to be a right-wing populist party. To get a full understanding of what a right-wing populist party is we must understand what is means to be “right wing” and what it means to be “populist”. According to Oxford dictionary right-wing parties are “conservative or reactionary section of a political party or system”. As a conservative, they believe in traditional values and believe that we should look to the past to succeed in the future. Oxford Dictionary defines populist as “A member or adherent of a political party seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people.” Therefore, right wing refers to the structural components of the party. This is the platform or beliefs that the party runs on. Populist encompasses how the party relates to the public. This is ultimately how they promote their ideas to the people in which they want to
influence. Hans-Georg Betz, the author of The Two Faces of Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe, defines right wing populist parties.
According to Betz there is not just one form of right-wing populism. He states that there is national populist parties and neoliberal populist parties (Betz 663). National populist parties are “primarily working class parties which espouse a radically xenophobic and authoritarian program”. He distinguishes these parties by “their radical rejection of the established socio-cultural and sociopolitcal system, their pronounced advocacy of individual achievement, a free market place, and drastic restrictions of the role of the state” (Betz 644). Betz claims that right wing populist parties are against “the social integration of marginalized groups” (Betz 644). Essentially this means that right wing populist parties are anti-immigration. They want to limit immigration of those who are not native to that country and therefore, “ It has become a commonplace to attribute the growing appeal of the radical-right wing populism to the recent explosion of hostility towards immigrants in much of western Europe” (Betz 415). They believe that in limiting the amount of immigrants they will preserve the dominant cultural and political consensus. Betz also looks at right wing populist parties through a neo-liberalism theoretical framework. He states that neoliberal programs distinguish right-wing populist parties from all other established parties. (Betz 417).
This means that they “ appeal to a mixed social constituency and tend to stress the market orientated, libertarian elements of their program over xenophobic ones” (Betz 633). These types of parties origins can be traced back to the tax-welfare backlash of the 1970s. (Betz 417) Although both types of right-wing populist parties have an abundance of differences, Betz stresses that “both types are a response to profound economic, social, and cultural transformation of advanced societies interpreted as transition from industrial welfare to post industrial individualized capitalism” (Betz 663). Sarah L. De Lange, the author of New Alliances: Why Mainstream Parties Govern with Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties, recognizes theories to explain the rise of right-wing populist parties. Lange examines how “office, policy and votes made mainstream right parties turn into radical right-wing populist parties” (Lange 899). Lange uses coalition formation theories to understand what made mainstream parties undergo the transformation. Richard Saull the author of Capitalism, crisis and the far-right in the neoliberal era takes a different approach to explain right wing populism. He believes that right-wing populism is based around the “connection between the socio-economic instabilities associated with capitalist development and the political fortunes of the far right” (Richard1). Saull looks at right-wing populist parties in a much larger lense than Betz and Lange. According to Saull right wing populist parties, much like the Oxford definition, share similar ideologies as conservatives. He believes that”at a basic level the ideological values, social basis and political objectives of the far right have and continue to overlap to varying degrees with those of the traditional conservative right” (Saull 29).