Conspiracy & Populism by Eirikur Bergmann

Author:Eirikur Bergmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319903590
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Integration into the Mainstream

Conventional wisdom constructed by many scholars said that populist political movements would not last, that they had the inbuilt difficulty of persistence. Many argued that they were bound to be only short-lived demagogues’ protest movements flaring up briefly in wake of a crisis, before dying out (Canovan 2005), especially quickly after landing in government. The resilience of, for example, Front National in France, The Freedom Party in Austria, Progress Party of Norway and The Danish People’s Party has, however, proven those predictions to be wrong. Rather, much of their conspiratorial message has prevailed over many decades. In many cases, they have been able to find legitimacy and sway the general national discourse in their own direction.

In fact, populist politics were fast being integrated much tighter into the mainstream. In Austria, for example, far-right populism was becoming firmly established as a prevalent element. Not only did the fully populist FPÖ re-enter government after winning more than a quarter of the vote in 2017, but the previously mainstream People’s Party adopted much of the FPÖs hard-line stance on migration. The leading party in the collation of the two, the mainstream People’s Party, had indeed almost fully adopted and internalised a rhetorical frame that previously was reserved only for describing a populist discourse (Opratko 2017).

Right-wing nationalist populism is well established in European politics, as has been illustrated here. In fact, recent years have seen an increased merging of populism into mainstream politics, to the extent that disentangling the two proves to be increasingly difficult. Contemporary Europe-wide opinion polls have, for example, shown that two thirds of the population think that their country has reached its limit in accepting migrants, and a staggering 85% agree with the following statement: ‘Nowadays there is too much tolerance’ (Mudde 2016). Anti-immigrant and authoritarian sentiments are, thus, not isolated on the fringes of society; they are no longer removed from the ordinary population. These are not views kept only within the minority ranks of the conspiratorial radical-right.

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