Abstract
In their new edited collection, Populism and New Patterns of Political Competition in Western Europe, Albertazzi and Vampa apply an adapted typology of party competition to analyse the responses of non-populists parties to the emergence and success of populist parties, as well as the responses of populists parties to other populists. Building on existing literature it defines populism according to Cas Mudde’s definition (2007), as ‘A thin centred ideology that considers society to be separated into ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’. While populism may be referred to in the publication’s title, it does not feature as the primary scope of interest, rather it is used to overcome the issues associated with identifying parties as ‘mainstream’ and ‘challenger’. Furthermore, the book’s title also refers to ‘New Patterns of Political Competition’, but they are not necessarily new ways in which parties compete, but rather that this book incorporates them into a new typology of party competition.
By evaluating how parties react to each other, the editors and their contributors seek to apply a novel typology of party competition. The foundations of this typology seek to highlight that it is becoming more difficult to apply labels such as ‘mainstream’ and ‘challenger’ in general terms to political parties. Thus, the book focuses on the relationships and interactions between populists and non-populists and/or the interactions between competing populist parties. The first section focuses on the novel typology which builds upon the categories defined by Meguid as dismissive, adversarial and accommodative, by expanding the application to any actors within the system, and considering how parties relate to each other as actors. Therefore, not only is their understanding of co-optation broader in that competition for votes and influence takes the form of ‘stealing’ each other’s proposals or style, they also propose the adoption of subcategories within the adversarial and accommodative strategy.
The adversarial strategy is about Party A presenting hostility to Party B’s policy stances, the party itself or both, and further defined by three subcategories clashing, marginalization and co-optation. When clashing, Party A may oppose Party B’s policy stances, and/or engaging with arguments involving the character and credibility of Party B. The second subcategory refers to marginalization in which Party A marginalizes Party B through ostracizing it, silencing it through restrictions on public funding for the party, and/or restricts its access to the media. The final subcategory involves co-optation of a party’s policies or style to try to occupy the same political space of the competitor and weaken it. These subcategories enable this typology of party competition to recognize the different responses within an adversarial strategy. What does not appear to be addressed but an important avenue for future research is whether any of these subcategories are more significant in terms of showcasing hostility, and whether they have a greater effect on the electoral success of populists.
The accommodative strategy is when Party A looks for ways to work alongside Party B and further outlines two subcategories, cooperation and fusion. Cooperation between Party A and Party B entails joint action in the legislative, governmental or electoral arenas, as well as working together to remove a government. Whereas fusion concerns the relationship between actors which may follow from cooperation to something which involves the parties joining forces on a permanent basis. In this sense, the case of Germany is interesting given the CDU voted with the AfD in the regional parliament of Thuringia, albeit unintended, which resulted in outrage, rather than cooperation as the fusion strategy lays out. That being said, this typology is usefully designed to be specific and all encompassing, which helps to set up the following section of the book.
Part 2 of Populism and New Patterns of Political Competition in Western Europe, with chapters generally containing 20 pages, an in depth analysis and application of the typology is provided in ten different countries. While this section provides important contributions, particularly in relation to acknowledging the different contexts within each country, the concluding chapter is significant. It identifies a pattern that the responses of right-wing non populists to populists consists of mostly cooperation and co-optation strategies. In contrast, marginalization and dismissive strategies are used less, and generally featured as a first response. In comparison, the responses of left-wing non-populists appear to be much more varied, but clashing is the most frequent response, similar to populist responses to other populists. This importantly allows the book to emphasize the different relationships non-populists have with populists, and populists with populists in different countries.
While the new typology helps to further address the ways in which parties compete, there could have been greater focus on the use of language as part of the co-optation strategy. That being said, this book represents a clear development in the way that party competition is understood.
