The Impact of Populism on Policy Change: Evidence from Southern Europe

While most populist parties in Europe do not create policy- with a few notable exception - they influence political outcomes. This paper is an attempt to examine whether mainstream parties adjust their policy positions in response to successful left or right wing populist parties. If this is the case does it affect all party families, the incumbent or the main parties at the opposition? In other words which party is more vulnerable to populist rhetoric? To provide an answer to our research questions we examine the development of party systems in Southern Europe during the economic crisis, specifically in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. By combining public opinion data and frame/content analysis of party manifesto data we aim to demonstrate whether shifts in policy change are due to the rise of a populist party or a response to the public opinion. To illustrate our hypothesis we restrict our analysis to the issue of ‘Europe’ and European integration/membership as it panned out during the financial crisis (2009-2016) and reflect on the policy space created post-crisis.