Towards a Comparative Analysis of the Populist Critique of the EU and its Institutions: Populists Vs. Technocrats

Technocracy and populism have raised increasing interest in academia and public in recent years. The research has mainly focused on the commonalities of these two alternative forms of representation in opposition to party democracy (e.g. Caramani 2017) and technocratic populism as a major type of populism (Bustikova/Guasti 2019). In contrast, to this perspective, the proposed article tackles the relation between technocracy and populism from a different perspective: It concentrates on the tensions between populism and technocracy since populists either favor technocracy (e.g. Babis, Five Star Movement, Podemos) or decline it (e.g. AfD, Eurokrates). In addition, in particular European elites and technocrats are the target of criticism by the national populist parties since they act at the supranational level which is (also geographically) even more distant to the people than national elites. Hence, the article links populism, technocracy with Euroscepticism by asking whether and to which degree European elites and technocrats are a target of populist criticisms. While there has been research on the demand side by focusing on the opinions of the citizens (e.g. Bertsou/Pastorella 2017, Pastorella 2016), less is known about the supply side by analyzing the positions and arguments of the populist parties against technocrats. Therefore, it will be analyzed comparatively whether and how (diffuse and/or concrete) EU institutions have been criticized by different left and right wing populist parties (AfD, Syriza, Lega Nord) during the election campaign for the 2019 European Parliament elections. It is assumed that despite their different national context and type of populisms, the criticisms towards European elites and technocratic institutions are very similar. The empirical analysis is based on quantitative and qualitative content analyses of party manifestos (using the date from the party manifesto project), speeches, and other documents of the specific parties.