Can populism be overcome? - Reflections in the run up to the European elections Marlene Wind, professor and Director of CEP at Department of ...

Can populism be overcome?
Reflections in the run up to the European
elections

Marlene Wind, professor and Director of CEP
at Department of Political Science and
professor at iCourts Center for International
Courts, University of Copenhagen

06-06-2019   2

Useful info: Some may have heard of the event that made me
famous (at least in Spain!): My meeting with Puigdemont in
                     Copenhagen 2018!

06-06-2019   3

By new book (so far) only in Spanish, Polity Press will publish it
in English as well

06-06-2019   4

                          What is Tribalization?
• Building new walls through
  cultural exclusion and ‘identity
  politics’
• Extreme case: Balkanization
• Using culture as a weapon to
  mobilize against ‘the other’

• ‘When dialouge is moved from the
  political to the cultural sphere, the
  discussion closes’
• I compare Catalan separatists, the
  extreme brexiteers and illiberalism
  in some Central- and Eastern
  European countries

06-06-2019   5

                         Todays talk
• The paradox
• The EU has become increasingly popular among Europeans after
  Brexit but we also have a rise in populist parties (who want to
  transform – maybe destroy - the EU from within) – how do we
  make sense of this?

• My normative take away:
• The EU has to provide more leadership on values to combat
  populism
• People are increasingly confused about what democracy is and
  should be. The EU will have to act as it preaches on values and
  democracy!

06-06-2019   6

After Brexit and Trump – most analysts thought that ‘this was
the end of the West as we know it’ (EX: Appelbaum Washington Post, March
2016)

06-06-2019   7

      The domino effect that never happened
• Brexit negotiations has been a
  scare example to Europeans
• To this comes 30 years of lies and
  scaremongering about the EU In
  the UK

• Citizens of EU27 have grown more
  and more fond of the EU - >
• And EU sceptics now want to stay
  (even in the euro)
• Salvini, Le Pen, AfD maybe Orban -
  > want to change Europe from
  within

06-06-2019   8

Populists play on the well-known ‘elite/EU - vs.
                people theme’

06-06-2019   9

A (small?) majority of Brits seems to have regretted their leave
vote (March 2019)

06-06-2019   10

And now the Brexit Party with Nigel Farage hits 34% of the
votes

• Mandates:
• Brexit Party 27
• Labour 14
• Libdem 12
• Tory 7

• NOTHING SUGGESTS THAT UK
  PARTICIPATING IN THE EP
  ELECTIONS WILL CHANGE BREXIT

06-06-2019   11

BUT: Brexit made Europeans love the EU
Development in views from 2007 to 2018

06-06-2019   12

How the Europeans feel about the Union – by country

06-06-2019   13

Leaveing the EU?

06-06-2019   14

Brexit have made people reflect on what it means to be a
sovereign state in the 21st century
 Do you want to be a:
 ‘Rule-maker’ or ‘rule´-taker’?

 No matter what arrangement the
  UK gets with the EU post-Brexit (if
  it happens!)
 They will become a ‘rule-taker’

 Lesson learned: Hard to ‘take back
  control’ if you are alone in a
  globalized world

06-06-2019   15

   This may be good – but not everything in Europe is good!

• Brexit referendum and the election
  of Donald Trump was both caused
  by a rise in populism but has also
  spurred it (Matthijs Rooduijn, University of
   Amsterdam)

• A new narrative: “the elite
  misjudged (and no longer
  understand) the people” ->
• Has this narrative almost
  legitimized populism?

06-06-2019   16

Living with populism in Europe
• The number of Europeans living under
  governments with a populists in cabinet
  has increased 13-fold

• 1998     12,500,517
• 2018                  170,244,766

06-06-2019   17

Professor Cas Mudde - Why the rise and why now?
• The great recession (financial
  crisis), which created a few strong
  left populist parties in the south,

• the so-called refugee crisis, was a
  catalyst for right-wing populists,

• and finally the transformation of
  non-populist parties into populist
  parties – notably Fidesz (Hungary)
  and PiS (Poland)

• Wind: They inspired and
  legitimized populism by not being
  challenged?

06-06-2019   18

Many mainstream parties took the populist rhetoric on board
and invited them into government (or parliamentry safety net)

06-06-2019   19

Lets first define populism
• Populists champion the ordinary
  person against ‘the elite’ or vested
  interests

• But research shows that populists
  in power often subvert democratic
  norms, by corruption and by
  undermining the media, judiciary
  and minority rights.

• While the EU as an institution
  cannot easily counter this at the
  national level, has it done enough
  to defend its own liberal values?

06-06-2019   20

Populist solutions?

06-06-2019   21

      How will populism influence European Elections?
Research shows that Europeans DO speak about and prioritize
                 many of the same issues
• (ECFR data):
• Climate
• Migration
• Tax fraud
• Access to jobs (for the younger
  generation)
• Corruption
• But also huge concern about the
  protection of European values and
  populism

06-06-2019   22

The Parliaments estimated distribution of seats after the
Elections (without the Brits!)

Estimation, February 2019
(without the UK)

06-06-2019   23

Voter Turnout in European democracies

06-06-2019   24

Populist vote share in EU

06-06-2019   25

Problem: Populism has made Europeans less sure of what it
takes to be a democracy: ‘the elite-people’ divide have put
referenda and unlimited majorites at the centre as
democracy’s main components

06-06-2019   26

But democracy is MORE than referenda and majorities - > it is
also rule of law and minority rights – and insisting on these as
European values is where the EU could make a difference

06-06-2019   27

The scaling of democracy model (MW)

06-06-2019   28

Critique: Because the EU has not insisted on its own values we
today have two types (at least) of democracy – that some
consider equally legitimate……But are they?

• A liberal democracy is a representative democracy with protection for
  individual liberty and property by rule of law.

• And some kind of

• Illiberal democracy which has weak or no limits on the power of the
  elected representatives to rule as they please.

06-06-2019   29

According to V-dem (Gothenburg, Freedom House, Venice
Commission and many others)
• Democracy in Europe is in decline,
  even by the more conventional
  measure.

• When weighted by population, the
  trend is again much more
  apparent. By the latter measure,
  the level of democracy in Europe
  has fallen back forty years, to
  where it was in 1978
• (S. Lindberg 2018).

06-06-2019   30

Advice: Backsliding of democracy in some European countries
should not be ignored but acted on if the EU wants to counter
populism
• The Commission and the European
  parliament has been in dialogue
  with for instance Poland and
  Hungary for years
• Infringements procedures (ECJ
  cases)
• Art. 7 (Commission and
  Parliament)
• Proposal of linking structural funds
  to a binding rule of law monitoring
  mechanism
• BUT WHERE IS THE COUNCIL?

06-06-2019   31

The EU as such will have to act as its preaching in rule of law
matters, if it convinsingly wants to fight populism
• We cannot critize Russia, Turkey
  and others in our foreign policies,
  if we are afraid to defend our own
  values

• Demand that countries sign up to
  a common European prosecutor
  and rule of law monitoring to
  receive EU funds

• Show the electorate that the EU is
  a community of values and of
  democracies

06-06-2019   32

Will this not be seen as the EU elite/Brussels bubble picking
on the people?
•   Sure – it will be exploited by populist
    politicians

•   But what is left of our Common Union if
    we do not insist on – as a minimum to
    have:

•   Independent and impartial courts
•   Free and critical press, freedom of
    expression
•   An independent (EU) prosecutor to fight
    state corruption (and EU funds)
•   Academic freedom and freedom of
    NGO’s to operate without restrictions?

05-01-2017   33

Europe – is a shrinking continent. We have to stick
together – also when in comes to defending our basic
democratic values. Will be even have liberal democarcy
in our region in 2050 and beyond if we are only 8% and
cease to stand up for them now?

06-06-2019   34

06-06-2019   35

Thanks

06-06-2019   36

Populism in Europe is on the rise – how do we explain it – and
can our own lack of willingness to defend liberal democracy
explain parts of it?

• Although it is commonly assumed that democratic backsliding starts with
  electoral problems, other political elements—such as the infringement of
  individual rights and the freedom of expression—are at the core of
  Europe’s democratic woes.