Radical Right Parties in Southern Europe: the Portuguese Case of Populism in a Comparative Perspective

At a global level, the long-term competition between autocracies and democracies provides evidence that autocracies are so far overcoming this challenge and continuing to strengthen their powers. The proportion of around 70% of people living under authoritarian regimes highlights this trend. If we consider the 2022 Forth Wave of Democracy, debated at the Summit for Democracy, one conclusion is that the number of countries living under autocratic regimes is greater than those that defend democracy. Consequently we have witnessing a global decline of freedom, according to the aforementioned forum. When considering the countries of Southern Europe, and particularly the years after 2008 economic crisis, we have witnessed a reinforcement or a new birth of radical right-wing parties, strongly supported by a disruptive rhetoric and a variety of populist political responses. These captured the interest of significant parts of voters in several Southern European countries. One of the latest countries to join the radical and populist trend is Portugal. In this case, the Chega party (which means Enough) has grown rapidly since the 2019 parliamentary elections (from one MP to 12 MP elected in the 2022 early elections). Following recent contributions (Caiani, Graziano, 2021), we intend to investigate how the Portuguese case of a rapidly evolving radical party can be observed in a comparative perspective, considering social, economic and cultural changes and populist responses in Southern Europe populist parties. The research question is: what are the links between the Portuguese and the various populist parties in Southern Europe, and if and how different is the Portuguese populist solution, considering the electoral campaign for the early 2024 parliamentary elections? In methodological terms, we will follow the application of the content analysis technique to a selection of daily newspapers, during the two weeks prior to the Portuguese elections on March 10, 2024. The expected results consist of a comparative approach on how populism can adapt identical solutions in different national and cultural contexts, largely based on non-ideological and non-democratic disruptive solutions.