\ref{127074} The classification of populist parties mainly relies on the party classification provided by Wolfram Nordsieck according to which populist parties are part of the right-wing political spectrum: “right-wing populist parties are protest parties that appeal to the fears and frustrations of the public. They appeared first in the early 1970s. These parties combine national stances with an anti-elitist rhetoric and a radical critique of political institutions. They usually prefer strict law-and-order and anti-immigration polices”. However, the limitation of the populist parties’ definition encompassing right-wing parties only is problematic, since we can often see centre or centre-left oriented parties employing the same, anti-establishment, and anti-elitist rhetoric, as in the case of Podemos in Spain. Morever, we can also find instances where the left-right cleavage is less marked, as in the case of the Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy, which proposes both leftist and rightist policies, framed by an anti-establishment rhetoric. We decided to leave aside the left-right classification and to simplify the definition of populist parties by considering more relevant the presence of strong antisystem and anti-elitist instances.
Authors’ BIOs:
Daniele Archibugi : Director at the Italian National Research Council, Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies in Rome; Professor at Birkbeck College University of London.
Marco Cellini : PhD student in Political Science at LUISS University, Rome; Research fellow at the Italian National Research Council, Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies in Rome.