DÜNYA İLİŞKİLERİNDE AVRUPA BİRLİĞİ - Deneme Sınavı - 4

The Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, both in 2016, have become the starting point for a renewed interest in populism and its consequences for how modern democracies function

The strongest populist challenges of liberal democracy have occurred in South America, where populist movements with strong leaders has led to the dismantling of the rule of law and increasingly authoritarian rule in for example Venezuela.

In both Poland and Hungary, populist parties have won elections and subsequently implemented reforms of the legal and media systems.

Populist parties are those who often and consistently raise the idea that there is a homogeneous people who are in opposition to an equally homogeneous and in addition corrupt elite, and that political decisions should be based on the will of the people without being filtered through elite institutions.

Populist parties have been elected to the national parliament and/or to the European Parliament in 24 of the 28 EU Member States.

In most of the countries, there are one or two populist parties, but in Bulgaria as many as five populist parties have been represented on at least one occasion during the period in question.

There is a certain presence of populist actors in the EU institutions themselves, and  populists are found in the two bodies responsible for legislating—the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers—although to a limited extent.

In Italy the two populist parties Lega and the Five Star Movement formed a government.

In Slovakia, the results for the populists in the parliamentary elections in 2016 were more than 20 percentage points higher than that in the European Parliament elections in 2014. This includes a new party, We are Family (Sme Rodina), but the three already existent populist parties all improved on their 2014 European Parliament results in the 2016 national elections.

Britain and France exhibit the classic pattern with much lower support for populist parties in national parliamentary elections.

This chapter adheres to the view that the core of populism, whether we regard it as a political style or as an ideology, is the idea of an opposition between “the people” and “the elite”.

Since there is only one popular will, no internal decision-making structure is needed except for a leader who can formulate and preferably implement this will. The rest of the movement’s role is to support the leader. Because the leader is the interpreter of the true popular will, all criticism, both internal and external, is illegitimate. The leader’s role is thus rather peculiar in populist movements. One way populist leaders mark their distance from the elites is by refusing to follow conventions for how political leaders are expected to look or behave within a certain given context and Donald Trump is an excellent example of this.

Populism as an ideology is a challenge for representative democracy, as the representative democracy requires a chosen political elite.

Those who oppose the populist politicians or parties are by definition not included in the people. Core message of populists “…they, and only they, represent the people”

In cases where the EU does not act as a liberal democratic state, it is usually since the Member States have retain the decision-making power at the national level. In other words, decisions in the EU are either made through a set of institutions that mimic those in a democratic state or by a set of 28 (more or less) liberal democracies negotiating amongst themselves.

Populist parties are those who often and consistently raise the idea that there is a homogeneous people who are in opposition to an equally homogeneous and in addition corrupt elite, and that political decisions should be based on the will of the people without being filtered through elite institutions, such as the established political parties.

The countries with the biggest increases are Italy, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In Italy the two populist parties Lega and the Five Star Movement formed a government. In the Czech Republic, two new populist parties received representation and ANO became the largest party with almost 30 percent of the vote. In Slovakia, the results for the populists in the parliamentary elections in 2016 were more than 20 percentage points higher than that in the European Parliament elections in 2014. This includes a new party, We are Family (Sme Rodina), but the three already existent populist parties all improved on their 2014 European Parliament results in the 2016 national elections. In Slovakia we can thus speak of a very successful election for populist movements.

Cyprus, Malta, Lithuania and Portugal completely lack populist parties while in Hungary, Fidesz holds governmental power and a sufficiently large majority in parliament to amend the Constitution on its own.

The EUs ability to respond to threats to democracy within Member States has been tested by developments in two other countries with populist parties in government. Hungary and Poland; these are thus two examples of countries where populist parties with strong parliamentary and government positions seriously challenge the political system and its institutions.

“Brexit”, which is, at least indirectly, a result of the electoral success of the populist party UKIP.