Explaining the strength of European populism

Why does right-wing populism appear so strong in Europe?

In a recent sign of its success, a populist party led by billionaire businessman Andrej Babis won parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic in October. Other European Union (EU) countries Hungary and Italy also have populist leaders.

In France, the government of centrist president Emmanuel Macron narrowly survived a no-confidence vote. The government has been flip-flopping after Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned after 26 days, only to return four days later. Macron faces a challenge in the polls from the far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen.

The populist Reform UK is also doing strongly in opinion polls, while Germany’s right-wing AfD party has won state elections in the past year.

The rise of European populism is hard to counteract, because of the continent’s economic performance. Europe is lagging in both technology and  manufacturing, says Ronen Palan, professor of international politics at City St George’s, University of London.

“The fundamental problem that Europe faces is that the fourth industrial revolution skipped it,” Palan told Yuvoice in an interview.

“You have the American companies,  the Magnificent Seven – Meta, Apple etc. There is nothing in Europe remotely like that. Manufacturing excellence is now in China – China is far advanced. Europe is squeezed in between. Without a solution to that problem, we are talking about economic stagnation – Europe becomes a tourist attraction.”

The first industrial revolution started in Britain in the eighteenth century with inventions such as the steam engine.  The second industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century got a boost from the expansion of electricity, while computers led the third industrial wave of the late twentieth century.

The Magnificent Seven U.S. tech companies have stormed ahead in the U.S. stock market in recent years, helped by their role in the development of artificial intelligence.

Populist parties are offering little practical to address these economic concerns, but are playing on people’s sense of the precariousness of their lives, according to Palan.

Laggardness in Europe is also nothing new, he adds.

“Similar events took place in the 1970s. The European car industry was buffeted by the Japanese, the Americans were pulling ahead, the Americans and the Japanese were competing with one another. The answer was the common market and the single market, the creation of European champions, European competitors – we are in the same situation now.”

It has become harder for Europe to pull together as one force since one of its biggest economies, Britain, left the European Union following the Brexit vote, although Britain and Europe continue to collaborate on geopolitical issues, Palan says.

“Brexit created an institutional gap. The fact that Britain is out weakened Europe and weakens Britain,” he said, though he added that: “it doesn’t mean that if Britain were part of Europe, they would find a solution.”

The mood is not all going one way. A pro-European Union party won elections in September in the eastern European country of Moldova. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni faced a general strike and major protests in September and October following her refusal to recognise the state of Palestine, in contrast to other EU countries such as France and Spain. Left-wing as well as right-wing parties are also popular in France.

However, Palan points out that the rhetoric of both left-wing and right-wing parties is often similar, as right-wing parties such as France’s National Rally and Reform UK also promote strong intervention by the state. British think tank Chatham House said in an October report, that the National Rally’s economic policies were “closer in tone to French Socialist icon Jean Jaurès than to the Iron Lady (former Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher)”.

These right-wing populist groups are taking their lead from U.S. President Donald Trump, whose language comes straight from the Marxist playbook, according to Palan.

“The Deep State is a Marxist concept, the idea that there is a small cabal of people – the bourgeoisie – controlling the state, and that Trump represents the working class against the entrenched state,” said Palan, adding that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage “is also adopting Marxist language – it’s very confusing.”

Francesco Rigoli, a political psychologist at City St George’s, University of London, says Europe’s biggest economies, Britain, France and Germany, could all have populist parties in government in a few years.

“The level of polarisation remains extreme,” he told Yuvoice. “There’s a feeling that the traditional parties have disappointed, that they have not fulfilled expectations. There’s a feeling that Europe is in crisis.”