Party Strength And The Rise Of European Populism

The global age in the early 21st century ushered in a new wave of populism.In contemporary party competition and political elections,populism has become an extremely important political element and slipped from the trend of thought to the mainstream political ideology,from the grassroots to the center of power with resorting to electoral voting,political marketing and the huge influence of social media.In a sense,the fourth wave of populism in the new century is marked by emergence of populist parties.Academic circle have been searching for some macroscopic or microcosmic framework for explaining the resurgence of European populism.The thesis returns to the research path of institutionalism about party organization and puts forward an exploratory analysis framework of the rise of populism—party strength.Party strength includes independence strength,systemness strength and cohesion strength.Its interaction of internal factors and multi-factor configuration have inherent advantages to analyze "party" origin of populismThe thesis uses Evan Lieberman's Nested Analysis as mixed-method strategy for qualitative-quantitative research.Firstly,large-N regression analysis results of 22 European countries show that the decline of mainstream party strength will boost the electoral share of populist parties in Europe.The populist parties gain electoral support based on the decline of any one of mainstream parties' independence strength,systemness strength or cohesion strength.In contemporary Europe,weak party strength in the situation of economic anxiety and cultural backlash is the underlying logic behind the rise of populism.Then,the thesis focuses on small-N cases,adopts the most similar system design,and makes a comparative analysis of why Germany and Italy have generated varying populism in the similar historical circumstances and national conditions.Case study proves that mainstream party strength is a significant element in interpreting the complex picture of Germany-Italian populism.The electoral support of populist parties is highly consistent with the development trend of mainstream party strength in Germany and Italy:in Germany,although the strong rise of Alternative for Germany(AfD)in 2013 marked a new low for mainstream party strength,Christian Democratic-Social Union(CDU&CSU)and Social Democratic Party(SPD)can rely on strong party strength to keep populist challengers under control,either by directly neutralizing populist zeitgeist or by incorporating populist demands into their policy positions.While in Italy,the heterogeneous,fragmented competition subculture makes any party being enslaved to continuous strife thereby too difficult to accumulate strong party strength.Due to the lack of strong party strength,Italy has been the "paradise" for populism to triumph over traditional parties since 1993.Based on the qualitative-quantitative mixed analysis,the thesis draws the following conclusion:populism is the result of declining mainstream party strength in a specific historical periodAccording to Lieberman' s analysis framework,the theoretical explanatory power of "party strength" on the rise of populism can be verified empirically.The qualitative-quantitative mixed research supports a certain significance of that mainstream party strength restrain the development and growth of populist forces,however,it is inappropriate to over-interpret the empirical evidences and overstate the positive effects of party strength on the stable party system.The thesis expects to bring some innovative inspirations and thoughts to the next stage of global populism research:first,it is necessary to further clarify the endogenous causation between the decline of party strength and the rise of populism.Second,to construct a theoretical paradigm of explaining the coexistence of strong(weak)mainstream party strength and strong(weak)populist forces in some European countries.Third,to further stretch the theoretical tension of "party strength" in the process of explaining the rise of populism.