Taking stock of the rise of radical left and left-wing populist parties in Southern Europe: the supply side

Abstract

The economic and political crises during and in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession led to a process of change in the electoral and party system dynamics across several European countries. These events, associated with the implementation of austerity policies of varying intensity, have transformed the party systems of several European countries – not least those of Southern Europe. The political transformations experienced by European democracies in the aftermath of the Great Recession have been the focus of several studies (see, notably, Hutter and Kriesi 2019), which have paid attention to different arenas including party systems, electoral competition, political mobilization and protest. Against this backdrop, the present panel aims to focus on radical left and left-wing populist political parties, one of the main political actors that emerged across much of Southern Europe during those years. In countries such as Greece, Spain, and Portugal (as well as France), political parties to the left of Social Democracy and the Greens experienced a process of rapid electoral growth in the 2010s, while, interestingly, in countries such as Italy those parties did not benefit from the context of economic and political turmoil. The growth in support for these parties altered party competition, changed party preference patterns with different intensities and varying stability, and entailed diverse types of organizational, programmatic, and rhetorical innovations within the parties themselves. In sum, the renewed support for these radical options likely involved both a modification on the demand and supply sides of the electoral marketplace. Over a decade after the Great Recession, this panel now intends to assess the electoral, organizational and programmatic trajectories of the radical left and left-wing populist parties during these years. We also aim to assess the development and composition of the social electoral coalitions that have supported these parties, and the electoral realignment (if any) that the emergence of radical-left and left-wing populist parties has brought about. We welcome both case studies and comparative papers on South European countries (very broadly defined), using either quantitative and/or qualitative methodologies.

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