The battle of ‘us’ versus ‘them’; the rise of populism in Europe and the United States.
Is there an association between the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of populism in the US and Europe?
The 2008 financial crisis was caused by the risk-taking of the financial elites who evaded responsibility. The people ended up bearing the consequences of the elites. So they turned towards populism which promised immediate and radical economic change. Therefore, it can be argued that the rise of populism is caused by economic factors and this essay seeks to analyse this argument further.
In Greece, George Papandreou and the PASOK party mismanaged domestic funds during the financial crisis which led to the country having debts that reached €300 billion. The Greek economy took a harder hit with austerity measures. This led to the grassroots protests in 2011 which were known as aganaktismenoi (Ibid). The only party at the time that supported these protests were SYRIZA, a well-established democratic socialist, pro Europeanist and secularist party led by Alex Tspiras.
The party capitalized on demands such as the negative sentiments of the people towards the political elite who were involved in negotiating the Greek bailout package with the European troika, being against austerity measures as well as the rejection of foreign involvement. The party also sought to unite the Greek people during the difficult times of the crisis. While SYRIZA did not want a Grexit, they were critical of the EU for its neoliberal economic policies that made the financial crash worse. As a result, the SYRIZA party became quite popular amongst ordinary greeks. In October 2009, before the crisis, the party received 4.6% of the vote and votes gradually increased in 2012 to 26.9% and 36.3% in 2015 (Halikiopoulou,2020). However, votes were reduced in the 2019 elections as they lost to the centre-right party ND (Ibid).
In Spain, the crisis worsened due to the country already having a range of domestic economic problems such as trade deficits, high inflation and growing debt. As a result, the unemployment rate rose from 8.2% in 2007 to 26.2% in 2013, higher than the EU average at the time (Ramiro and Gomez,2016). This dissatisfaction led to protests in 2011 against the political and economic failures of the PP government which was supported by university lecturers and students. This movement eventually formed a political party in 2014 which was called Podemos. PODEMOS sought to target the two-caste political system that exists as well through promoting direct democratic representation, being strongly against austerity and neoliberal economic policies without alienating immigrants which accounted for 12% of the Spanish population. Like SYRIZA, Podemos was also highly critical of the EU economic policies.
Podemos also capitalised on the Gürtel corruption that was happening within the government to further polarise the people against the political elites. Although the party was new at the time, the party won 1.2 million votes and obtained 5 seats in the Spanish parliament (Jones,2014). However, in 2015, the party ranked third after PP and PSOE with 20.7% of the vote (Katsambekis and Kioupkiolis,2018). The party ranked third again in 2016 which was factored in due to the gradual mainstream approach that PODEMOS took which lost a core tenet in its populist rhetoric: anti-establishment. (Ibid). Podemos did form a coalition with PSOE but left mainstream politics. Both Podemos and SYRIZA were similar in their regard for the inclusion of the masses through sharing a common identity.
France also bore witness to Jean Luc Mélenchon. He was a politician who was a part of the Mitterand administration and mainstream politics. He has run for Premiere Ministre three times. He has never denied the fact that he is a populist leader (Katsambekis and Kioupkiolis,2018). In 2012, he won 11.10% of the vote and in 2017 he won 19% of the vote. He officially formed the France Insoumise in 2016 with the slogan Qu’ils s’en aillent tous (they all must go). The party advocates for wealth redistribution, changing European economic policies, raising the minimum wage from € 1,149 to € 1,436, pro-immigration and secularism as well as ecosocialism which makes him popular with younger voters and voters with immigrant backgrounds.
In the 2022 election, his popularity shined through as he won 22% of the vote which did not allow him to make it through the primaries. This was a disappointment to a number of his supporters who were anti Macron and anti Le Pen as his supporters felt that they were not represented (Chrisafis,2022). He also ensured that his supporters did not vote for either candidate as these candidates do not have the interests of the French republic at all. In June, Mélenchon will be attempting to make a majority in the French parliament through a coalition of left-leaning parties (Ibid).
Like Mélenchon, Corbyn and Bernie were also politicians turned populists. Jeremy Corbyn ascended to Labour leadership in 2015. In his first parliamentary election, he won 59.5% of the popular vote and in 2017, he gathered 40% of the vote which is higher than any Labour politician (Katsambekis and Kioupkiolis,2018). In his surge to popularity during the financial crisis, he went against the establishment with his humility and radical politics that made him popular (Ibid). Despite his resignation from Labour, he runs as an independent and continues to have the interests of the people.
Bernie Sanders has similar views on the establishment as he aims to hold Wall Street accountable. He also supports affordable healthcare and eradicating student debt. During the 2016 election, Bernie proved to be a formidable candidate as he earned a victory in 23 states, winning 43% of the vote but lost due to his resignation from campaigning (Beckswith,2021). In the 2020 election, his popularity was consistent but he exited from party politics completely due to his ‘lack of faith in the democratic party. Although he left party politics, he continues to be involved in the interests of the people through participating in unionising companies like Starbucks and Amazon and advocating for wealth taxes and climate change.
Therefore, the rise of populism could be caused by economic issues as these movements sought to hold the political elite accountable and provide security for the working class without being xenophobic or anti-pluralist. However, it can also be argued that the rise of populism is not solely due to economic issues but cultural issues such as immigration and the rise of globalisation.
Returning to the case of Greece, one of the other populist movements that rose to prominence was the Golden Dawn, a violent, neo nazi street gang turned a political party that rose to prominence in 2009. (Hume, 2021). The party focused on creating hatred for social globalization, immigrants and political dissidents (Trilling,2020) The party won 21 seats in the 2012 election in May, making it the third biggest party in Greece (Halikiopoulou,2020). Since then, the party has used violence, polarization and its alliance with the police to silence dissidents like Pavlos Fyass who was killed by Golden Dawn members (Hume,2021). From 2015 to 2020, the party was tried for violence and its ties to neo-nazi ideologies which led to the incrimination of all members associated with the party (Trilling,2020).
The United Kingdom, the country bore witness to Nigel Farage in 2016 (De Lange et al,2016). He sought to be against the political elite who failed to make Brexit happen and to blame the EU for mass immigration into the UK. He sought to be an all-encompassing populist as his biggest supporters came from primarily white, older, GCSE educated and male voters (Ibid). Using the Dunning-Kruger effect, he used it to his advantage to spread misinformation about the role the UK has in the EU without having any specific policies to improve the UK post-Brexit. Due to his success, 52% of the population voted Leave with higher voter counts in rural areas like the West Midlands (59.3%) and Wales (52.5%) where immigration rates are low (BBC,2016), rendering his movement to be successful. While Farage is no longer in party politics, the impact of the populist Brexit vote remains in British politics.
Donald Trump also used the Dunning-Kruger effect to attract ordinary white Americans who were neglected by the political system (Gauefroy,2021). He did not have any formal policies at the time but he drew voters in through the belief of the declining Western civilisation and polarising people against immigrants. As a result, he won the election in 2016 with 304 votes from the electoral college. In 2021, the insurrection in the Capitol was fully due to the populist rhetoric of ‘saving America’ as Trump has the majority of the Republicans still believe the lie that the election was stolen from him which was not true at all (Gauefroy,2021). The legacy of Trump remains through the culture wars and the war against the political elite (Edsall,2022).
Therefore, populism is not only caused by economic factors but also cultural factors. While these populist movements are anti-establishment and unite the people for a common purpose, these movements are different across countries and political spectrums.
This essay was for a Year 2 Module; Global Political Economy and International Development which was convened by Dr Athanasios (Thanos) Gkoutzioulis
