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"The Populism Interviews features interviews with many of the leading experts on this most controversial of issues. Populism is a widely debated topic, and it generates interest across the globe. As a result, a burgeoning literature deals with many aspects of populism and its links to pressing issues such as media freedom, minority rights and separation of powers. To make sense of such a complex subject, this book presents interviews with some of the leading experts on populism at the international level. Through a dialogue with important figures, this book offers the possibility to make sense of a global phenomenon in a complete and accessible way. The first section presents different theories on what populism is and is not, highlighting the differences but also the points of contact between different approaches. The second section offers an overview of the evolution of populism through history and across continents, detailing its causes and consequences. The third section deals with issues and topics connected to populism, such as environmentalism, welfare, religion, social movements and the media. Bridging theoretical approaches and empirical studies, while considering cases across space and over time, this book offers an insightful and accessible guide to the study of populism. This volume will be of interest to all scholars, students and researchers of populism"--

"The Populism Interviews features interviews with many of the leading experts on this most controversial of issues. Populism is a widely debated topic, and it generates interest across the globe. As a result, a burgeoning literature deals with many aspects of populism and its links to pressing issues such as media freedom, minority rights and separation of powers. To make sense of such a complex subject, this book presents interviews with some of the leading experts on populism at the international level. Through a dialogue with important figures, this book offers the possibility to make sense of a global phenomenon in a complete and accessible way. The first section presents different theories on what populism is and is not, highlighting the differences but also the points of contact between different approaches. The second section offers an overview of the evolution of populism through history and across continents, detailing its causes and consequences. The third section deals with issues and topics connected to populism, such as environmentalism, welfare, religion, social movements and the media. Bridging theoretical approaches and empirical studies, while considering cases across space and over time, this book offers an insightful and accessible guide to the study of populism. This volume will be of interest to all scholars, students and researchers of populism"--

Abstract
In contemporary Europe, far-right parties threaten liberal democratic principles such as pluralism, media freedom and minority rights. Despite the stigma they normally face, far-right parties have experienced electoral breakthroughs even in countries where they remained electorally marginal such as Germany, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. We advance the idea that this happened because the level of stigmatization faced by these parties decreased before their electoral breakthrough. Therefore, we form a theoretical framework based on a threefold mechanism: far-right parties manage to reduce the stigma they face because of a reputational shield or by moderating their message; the media help the far right gain visibility and legitimacy by accommodating its views; established parties accommodate far-right parties without ostracizing them. Then, we test the framework by looking at the electoral breakthroughs of four parties: the results confirm the expectations except for the role of established parties, which is inconclusive.

Populism is a widespread political phenomenon present in countries across the globe. To explain the success of populist actors and discourses, I claim it is essential to consider the long-term impact of authoritarian legacies on national political culture, individual attitudes, and electoral behavior. In the first section, I discuss the importance of collective memories in molding identities and structures of power. I then present the relevant literature on democratization and authoritarian legacies, explaining how to integrate these strands of literature with the study of populism. In the following section, I examine cases from Europe and Latin America that are suitable to study the populist present through the lenses of collective memories of authoritarian regimes. In the conclusions, I discuss possible directions for future research and suggest that other types of memories, including collective memories about colonialism and civil wars, can have a relevant impact on populism. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

In May 2019, the elections for the European Parliament (EP) saw populist parties obtain almost a third of the available seats, with populist radical right parties making the biggest gains compared to the 2014 elections. Despite the results were less resounding than some predictions anticipated, a considerable amount of Members of the EP represent a populist party. This article first presents the performance of populist parties in forty years of EP elections, from their first occurrence in 1979 until 2019, and then focuses on populist radical right parties. The analysis suggests that (i) the number of seats occupied by populist parties in the EP continues to grow over time; (ii) right-wing populist parties no longer struggle to form political groups within the EP; (iii) radical right populist parties have become the most common type of populist party within the EP. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Right-wing populism is a global phenomenon that challenges several pillars of liberal democracy, and it is often described as a dangerous political ideology because it resonates with the fascist idea of power in terms of anti-pluralism and lack of minorities' protection. In Western Europe, many political actors are exploiting the fears and insecurities linked to globalization, economic crisis, and mass migrations to attract voters. However, while right-wing populist discourses are mainstream in certain countries, they are almost completely taboo in others. Why is right-wing populism so successful in Italy, Austria, and France while in Germany it is marginal and socially unacceptable? It is because each country developed a certain collective memory of the fascist past, which stigmatizes that past to different levels. For this reason, right-wing populism can find favorable conditions to thrive in certain countries, while in others it is considered as an illegitimate and dangerous idea of power. Through a comparative study of eight European countries, this book shows that short-term factors linked to levels of corruption, economic situation, and quality of democracy interact with long-term cultural elements and collective memories in determining the social acceptability of right-wing populist discourses. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Since their transition to democracy in the 1970s, Spain and Portugal have been 'immune' to the success of populist radical right (PRR) parties. This exceptional situation, however, came to an end: Chega's leader, André Ventura, was elected in the Portuguese parliament, while VOX has become the third most voted political party of Spain. Using new online survey data from the Spanish and Portuguese national elections in 2019, we find that the Iberian PRR electorate is mostly in line with the characteristics of the PRR electorate in Western Europe when it comes to socio-demographics, political dissatisfaction, media diet, and the rejection of immigration and feminism. Interestingly, however, the support for Chega and VOX does not come from economic losers of globalization. Finally, both parties capitalize on country-specific issues —national unity in Spain and welfare in Portugal— but PRR parties might struggle to establish themselves within the party system of the two Iberian countries. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The paper focusses on the online political discourse of the Five Star Movement (5SM) and its strategic adaptability. The main goal of the analysis is to establish how salient several topics are over time in order to test the party's ideological flexibility. Indeed, 5SM's post-ideological approach and its emphasis on direct-democratic tools might constitute a winning formula for other populist parties willing to exploit the crisis of the mainstream parties and representation. The paper, through an automated content analysis, tracks the longitudinal evolution of the salience of the topics addressed by 5SM on the party's blog. This allows us to establish which topics are at the core of the party's message and which, on the other hand, have been raised strategically over time. Results show that 5SM's discourse is very flexible and adaptable: it devotes a large space to the importance of direct democracy while flexibly addressing different topics depending on the political and social context.

AbstractWhile a vast theoretical literature argues that we live in populist times, the success of populism beyond its electoral dimension is rarely investigated empirically. This paper analyses the development of populism in five Western European countries (Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) from the 1970s to the 2010s. First, it measures whether political parties articulate populist discourses more and more often in their election manifestos. Second, the paper tests whether the presence of populism has increased over time in newspaper articles. The results show that populism is not a new phenomenon and that there is no linear increase over the decades. Moreover, while election manifestos are significantly more populist in the 2010s than in previous decades, populism in newspaper articles remains rather stable at a low level, suggesting that the media curb rather than foster populist discourses.