PRRPs on governing and government. The ideology of democratic backsliding in Europe

Existing research has analysed, to a considerable extent, the effects of Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) on democratic politics and on processes of democratic backsliding. We complement these studies with an analysis of the government and governing ideology which PRRPs in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Poland and Hungary postulate in party programs and statutes. Government and governing ideology, in the conceptualization introduced in this paper, encompasses the following elements: (1) the polity’s (national & EU) capacity to govern effectively through the concentration or division of power, (2) homogeneity or pluralism within the people and the nation, and (3) the actors deemed qualified to govern. The paper’s empirical investigation will identify cross-country similarities and differences between PRRPs’ government and governing ideologies. Finally, the paper will discuss the contribution that both the conceptual innovation proposed here and the empirical findings make to the literature on populism and democratic backsliding. We argue that a better understanding of PRRPs’ government and governing ideology sheds light on what motivates these parties to engage in democratic backsliding and to support it in other countries. Moreover, we examine to which extent this ideology provides explanatory leverage to account for the concrete - institutional, societal and political – measures PRRPs have taken to concentrate power in the executive in actual processes of democratic backsliding.