The Populist Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe

Andrea Pirro

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317557111
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Campaigns & Elections
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Often neglected in the study of far right organisations, post-communist Europe recently witnessed the rise and fall of a number of populist radical right parties. The Populist Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe is the first comparative study to focus on the ideology, impact, and electoral performance of this party family in the region. The book advances a series of arguments concerning the context and text of these parties, and systematically analyses the supply-side and demand-side of populist radical right politics. Whilst populist radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe maintain broad similarities with their West European counterparts, they come across as a distinct phenomenon worthy of study in their own right. Parties like Ataka (Bulgaria), Jobbik (Hungary), and the SNS (Slovakia) resort to historical legacies and contextual idiosyncrasies to frame their ideology; interact with other parties over a number of policy areas; and ultimately compete for public office on the basis of their nativist agenda.

The book provides a novel framework for the analysis of different aspects of populist radical right politics, notably enhancing the understanding of this phenomenon by means of primary data such as personal interviews with party leaders and original expert surveys. Using the ideological features of these parties as an overarching analytical tool, this book is essential reading for students and scholars researching the far right, post-communist issues and European politics in general.

1
Introduction

The literature on the far right has increased at an exponential rate over the span of the last two decades, generally concentrating on the fortunes of the ‘usual suspects’ in Western Europe.¹ The 2014 European Parliament elections confirmed a favourable – though heterogeneous – trend for nationalist, populist, and Eurosceptic forces across Europe. Despite these results, the scholarly attention remained very much focused on Western Europe, leaving recent developments in Central and Eastern Europe largely uncharted.

Starting from the mid-2000s, populist radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe came to prominence as rather successful contestants in their respective political arenas.² The achievements of the Politicheska Partiya Ataka (Political Party Attack, Ataka) in Bulgaria; Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom (Movement for a Better Hungary, Jobbik) in Hungary; and Slovenská Národná Strana (Slovak National Party, SNS) in Slovakia add to the performance of other Western European populist radical right parties and demonstrate the pervasive appeal of this party family across the whole continent. Notwithstanding potential similarities across Europe, one should be wary of drawing conclusions about the populist radical right on the basis of its manifestations in Western Europe.

Research on the populist radical right in Western Europe emphasised the role of specific structural and sociocultural factors in the performance of prototypical parties such as the French Front National (National Front, FN) or the Austrian Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of Austria, FPÖ). Amongst the most prominent hypotheses, the rise of populist radical right parties has been interpreted as a reaction to a ‘silent revolution’ (Ignazi 1992, 2000) – an argument difficult to translate to post-communist Europe. Moreover, the ascription of populist radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe to a ‘third wave’ of right-wing extremism may come across as inadequate, as the concerns expressed by this party family in post-communist Europe surpass the phase of ‘unemployment and xenophobia’ originally identified by von Beyme (1988). Instead, the populist radical right in Central and Eastern Europe seems to retain features sui generis, introducing a combination of old and new politics.

In general terms, our quest for conceptual clarity has greatly benefited from the professionalisation of the study of the radical right (Mudde 2011: 12). The progressive recognition of the populist radical right as a self-standing new party family (e.g. von Beyme 1985, 1988; Ware 1996; Mair and Mudde 1998; Gunther and Diamond 2003) has, at the same time, stimulated scholarly attention to this phenomenon and potentially contributed to the resolution of a ‘war of words’ (Mudde 1996). The ground for discussion is thus set with the identification of a populist radical right party family that shares ideological and structural features across Europe. Populist radical right parties present a common ideological denominator of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism (Mudde 2007); abide by the rules of parliamentary democracy and try to win public office; and adopt organ-isational strategies that resemble both political parties and social movements (Gunther and Diamond 2003: 188). Notwithstanding these similarities, this study argues that historical legacies and contextual idiosyncrasies prompted a different declension of the populist radical right ideology in Central and Eastern Europe.³

On the basis of these premises, this study seeks to answer questions relative to the dimensionality, impact, and electoral performance of populist radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe through the lens of their ideology. Hence, the book is guided by the following research questions: what features lie at the core of the populist radical right ideology in Central and Eastern Europe? How do populist radical right parties exert influence on post-communist party systems? What factors account for the electoral performance of populist radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe? This study first resorts to a historical and contextual analysis to frame the populist radical right ideology in the region. Then, the analysis moves on to the systematic comparison of three radical right parties of the populist variant: Ataka in Bulgaria, Jobbik in Hungary, and the SNS in Slovakia.

Investigation in this field is admittedly complicated by a number of factors. Above all, with the only exception of the SNS, the populist radical right parties examined in this book are recent additions to their respective national arenas; it follows that the scientific literature on these parties is still meagre, making this study predominantly explorative in nature. In fact, whilst some authors addressed the issues of racist extremism (Mudde 2005a, b) or Euroscepticism (e.g. Taggart and Szczerbiak 2001, 2004; Kopecký and Mudde 2002; Szczerbiak and Taggart 2008a, b) in the region, very little systematic comparative work appeared on popu-list radical right parties in post-communist countries (see Mudde 2000a; Minkenberg 2002b).

On the whole, this book satisfies at least two criteria of social enquiry (King et al. 1994). First, it advances hypotheses important to the understanding of a growing real-world phenomenon: the limited information available on populist radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe does not clear doubts about their raison d’être, their impact on respective party systems, or the potential threats they may pose to liberal democracy. Second, it seeks to understand and explain this phenomenon by making a specific contribution to the literature: this study aspires to go beyond the hypotheses advanced to explain the same phenomenon in Western Europe and broaden the scope of investigation on the populist radical right to post-communist countries.

The remainder of this chapter will, in turn, refer to the existing literature and account for the scientific contributions to the debate; draw attention to the importance of the research questions and hypotheses of this work; and, finally, discuss the research design and methodology of this book.

The populist radical right in Central and Eastern Europe

Numerous contributions on the populist radical right in Western Europe have appeared in the past two decades; the volume of work released over the years has thus rendered this party family an extremely successful object of study (e.g. Mudde 2007: 2). Acknowledging the appeal of the populist radical right (Bale 2012), however, does not concede the notable lack of attention to this phenomenon in post-communist countries. What is more, the limited number of volumes focusing on Central and Eastern Europe (e.g. Hockenos 1993; Ramet 1999b; Mudde 2005b; Minkenberg 2010) may easily appear ‘outdated’ because of the recent (and at least equally interesting) developments within the populist radical right camp in the region. Indeed, since the mid-2000s, new or regenerated populist radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe have either outshined or paralleled the performance of their Western European counterparts.

Defining the populist radical right

The professionalisation of the discipline has surely contributed to defining and thus delimiting the object of this book (Sartori 2004: 786). When reference is made to this party family, the term ‘radical right’ has largely supplanted ‘extreme right’, for extremist organisations position themselves “against the free democratic constitutional order and outside the democratic consensus” (Minkenberg 2011: 38). This differentiation essentially draws on the official definition of the German state, which distinguishes between extreme and radical organisations. Whilst the first are those opposed to the constitution (verfassungswidrig), the latter are simply hostile towards its principles (verfassungsfeindlich) (Mudde 2000b: 12). Although legal and political constraints vary across countries, right-wing parties are deemed radical for their “rejection of the established socio-cultural and social-political system… without, however, openly questioning the legitimacy of democracy in general” (Betz 1994: 4). In this regard, they cannot be defined as ‘anti-system parties’ in a strict Sartorian sense, in that they do not seek to overturn the democratic system (Sartori 1976). They do not participate “in order to destroy” (Daalder 1966: 64), but rather to delegitimise and remould (certain aspects of) the liberal-democratic system.

At the structural level, these are partisan organisations that straddle “the conceptual space between ‘party’ and ‘movement’” (Gunther and Diamond 2003: 188). In spite of its hostility to parties and the establishment, the populist radical right participates in elections and tries to win public office; yet populist radical right parties resemble social movements in that they try to mobilise public support and offer interpretative frames for particular issues (Lucardie 2000; Minkenberg 2002b). In other words, what brings them together “is the way that they organize, their broad anti-institutional ideology and their location on the far right of the ideological spectrum” (Taggart 2000: 86).

The present work draws on the conceptualisation of the populist radical right party developed by Cas Mudde (2007) and praises ex post the travelling capacity of his definition (Sartori 1970). The three parties analysed in this work (Ataka, Jobbik, and the SNS) match the populist radical right profile, for they display a combination of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism – as stated previously, ideological components also shared by other parties of this famille spirituelle across Europe (e.g. von Beyme 1985; on core concepts, see Ball 1999). Nativism holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group and that non-native elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the homogeneous nation-state; authoritarianism refers to the belief in a strictly ordered society; and populism considers society to be divided into two homogeneous and antagonistic camps (i.e. ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’), arguing that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale of the people (Mudde 2007).

Appraising this party family as the expression of a radical, exclusionary version of nationalism (i.e. nativism) perhaps represents the least disputed portion of Mudde’s conceptualisation. As a whole, however, this definition is not without contention (e.g. Lucardie 2009; Zaslove 2009; in response to these, Mudde 2009). In the process of reviewing the literature on this party family, the term ‘radical right’ is certainly the most employed in studies on Central and Eastern Europe (e.g. Ramet 1999b; Minkenberg 2002b, 2010; Beichelt and Minkenberg 2002); yet the definitions proposed by these contributions are also not exempt from problems.

For example, Ramet (1999a: 4) appraises the radical right as a form of organised intolerance, which emerged as a dimension of cultural ‘irrationalism’; is inspired by intolerance towards the ‘outsiders’; is hostile to the notions of popular sovereignty; emphasises the restoration of traditional values of the nation or community; and aspires to impose them on the entire nation or community. In articulating the portion of ‘hostility to popular sovereignty’, however, the author creates conceptual tension between the authoritarian component (“hostility to the democratic process”; Ramet 1999a: 15) and one of its claimed aspects or sub-features – that is, populism. Understanding authoritarianism in narrow procedural terms would then be at odds with its populist component which, inter alia, exalts the soundness and health of (native) peoples’ insights (MacRae 1969: 160) and ultimately appeals to the popular will as the only legitimate source of a ‘pure’ democratic regime (e.g. Mény and Surel 2002).

As a matter of fact, the present discussion suggests that authoritarianism is not the least controversial feature of the radical right ideology (cf. Ramet 1999a: 15), for it may lend itself to different interpretations. In order to make sense of authoritarianism as an ideological component of this party family, it is important to stray from the strict political institutional connotation that studies on non-democratic regimes had associated to it (Linz 1993, 2000) and adopt a looser ideational meaning of the concept. Mudde (2007: 23) points exactly in this direction when he defines authoritarianism as “the belief in a strictly ordered society, in which infringements of authority are to be punished severely”. Hence, authoritarianism is stripped of its institutional and procedural connotations and appraised as a worldview that could also be attached to populism. In practical terms, these parties do not challenge democracy in principle (Mény and Surel 2002: 4), and the authoritarian portion of their ideology is mostly reflected in their security and ‘law and order’ agenda.

Michael Minkenberg (2000: 174, 2002b: 337) defines right-wing radicalism as “a political ideology, whose core element is a myth of a homogeneous nation, a romantic and populist ultranationalism directed against the concept of liberal and pluralistic democracy and its underlying principles of individualism and universalism”. Although this definition closely resembles the one adopted in this study, Minkenberg includes under the radical right umbrella different ideological variants, depending on the image of collective homogeneity and the exclusionary criteria adopted by these organisations. These versions of right-wing radicalism are authoritarian-fascist, classical racist (including colonialist), xenophobic or ethnocentric, and religious-fundamentalist (Minkenberg 2002b). The inclusion of the ‘authoritar...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• Context and text
• 2 The context and issues of the prophets of the patria
• 3 The ideology of the populist radical right in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia
• Supply and demand
• 4 Exploring the dimensionality and assessing the impact of populist radical right parties
• 5 Demand and supply The electoral performance of the populist radical right
• 6 Conclusions
• Appendix A List of consulted country experts
• Appendix B Country expert questionnaire
• Appendix C Expert surveys' scores
• Appendix D List of survey questions
• Index