Research On Emerging Populist Parties In Contemporary Western Europe

Recently in the politics of western Europe and America,there occurred too many “Black Swans”.For instance,only in 2016,there are two major shocks,the Brexit and Donald Trump becoming the president of U.S.In the western Europe,the AfD entered the parliament in Germany,and Italian's populist party five-star movement and the League had formed the coalition government in 2018,the Yellow Vest Movement broke out in the France in the end of 2018.All of these populist events mean the politics in Western Europe had transformed a lot,and they are all “turning right”.These huge changes have formed great challenges and threats for the traditional center-left and center-right parties,and means people have different demand for democracy.This dissertation has studied several issues as follows: what is populism? Why there are more and more populist parties and movements in the western Europe? What's the theoretical and social reason behind its rising? What's current development of populist parties in western Europe? And what's its impact on the traditional mainstream political parties? Facing with the threats from populism,how can traditional parties adapt and self-transform?As a kind of thin-ideology,populism has the tendency of hollowness.Populism has the characteristics of nature of bottom-up grassroots,irrational radicalism,revolutionary,strong hostility,post-truth era fraudulence and so on.In western European countries,populism and some political parties are closely intertwined with each other,which leads to the tendency of populism of some political parties.In recent years,there has also been an academic consensus that such parties should be defined as populist parties,and a large populist party family has formed in Western Europe.There have been three waves of populism around the world so far,and what we are now experiencing and witnessing is the third wave of populism.The widespread rise of populist parties and movements since 2016 indicates that western liberal democracy has faced an epoch-making watershed.And the most fundamental appeal of western Europe's populist parties and its movement lies in the fact that the fundamental changes have taken place in the democratic demands of the general public,that is to say people,with more clear perception for their own demand and with strong dissatisfaction with current elite democracy and representative democracy,demand for a deeper level of democracy.The emergence of populism poses a great challenge and threat to the traditional democratic system in the west.The challenge of populism does not represent the decline of traditional democracy,but rather,it will lead to new development and revitalization of democracy.The rise of this populist movement in Western Europe is a comprehensive result of the multi-factor,multi-level and long-term evolution.First of all,the identity crisis of western European people,the continued economic difficulties of European countries after the debt crisis and the challenges brought by the highly developed information network diffusion have played an important role in promoting the rise of populism.Secondly,structural changes have taken place in the population of Europe,and time changes people's values,and the European integration process of national construction began after the sovereignty problem of reality,and the post-truth era bring people fear and anxiety,all of these factors becoming the fertile soil for the emerging populist parties in Western Europe and its growth.Finally,popular social and revolutionary psychology also contributed to the rise of populism.At present,the populist party in Western Europe have developed into a huge family,including all kinds of left-wing and right-wing populist parties and movements.This dissertation makes an empirical study on the four most valuable and influential populist parties,namely the five-star movement in Italy,the AfD in Germany,the Rassemblement National in France and UKIP,and analyzes their background,ideology and political influence on their host countries.This dissertation argues that the influence of populist parties will not be significantly reduced in the short term,and they will probably still play a role in western European politics for a long time in the future,and will not decrease or die out soon.For as long as the demands of the masses are not met,and as long as the mainstream parties in Western Europe do not have a plan in place,the ground for populism will remain.Moreover,in the context of the widening gap between the rich and the poor in western European countries,populist parties will continue to exist.In particular,the policies of the left-wing populist parties will be supported and welcomed by the public.Moreover,popular demand for direct democracy remains high,leaving room for populist parties that call for it.Populism will not be the solution to the current social problems in Western Europe,because firstly,populists ignore the fundamental problems of capitalism's own system.Secondly,even though populism advocates a single society and culture,advocates hatred and stirs up feelings of fear and anxiety,advocates narrow nationalism,and advocates the state of isolation between countries,but the future trend of the world is bound to be diversified,open,tolerant,inclusive and deeply integrated.Populist parties have shocked the status and influence of traditional parties,so mainstream parties need to adjust from the following aspects: actively respond to the general public opinion,seriously treat various issues,optimize the inter-party competition environment,adapt to the changes of the information age,and improve the effectiveness of the traditional democratic system.This dissertation makes a comprehensive analysis of populist political parties from various angles by using various social science research methods.First of all,by using the system analysis method,the populist party is put into the historical and western European political background,and a comprehensive analysis and judgment is made from the perspectives of social changes,social structure,cultural values and ideology.Secondly,by using the method of comparative research,this paper will make a comparative analysis of several representative political parties in the emerging populist political parties in Western Europe,comparing their similarities and differences in the fields of ideology and policy program,and find out the similarities and differences from the comparison.The study of emerging populist parties in Western Europe has significant academic value and practical significance.However,due to the limitations of the author's knowledge,research time and data range,this study also has some shortcomings.Firstly,this paper lacks relevant quantitative research.Secondly,the empirical analysis of various political parties in this paper is not very sufficient,especially for the populist political parties in Germany,France and Italy,the language barriers and the inconvenience of material access pose a writing challenge and obstacle for this dissertation.The above two deficiencies may become the direction of the author's further research.