Democratic Backsliding and the Rise of Radical Right and Populist Parties

Since the onset of the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-8 and accelerating in response to economic sluggishness, pandemics, rising cost-of-living crises, and the transition towards an information space dominated by social media, liberal democratic systems across the world have faced significant political transformations. Voter apathy, mistrust of establishment parties and political systems, and disenchantment with democracy itself, have increased significantly. Coinciding with, and filling, this political vacuum, radical right-wing and populist political parties have moved towards the political centre in various regions of the world, including Europe. While populist anti-establishment left-wing parties saw a surge in the 2010s and continue, to a lesser degree, in the 2020s, radical left challengers have not gained the affective support afforded to anti-establishment radical right actors.In many countries, including EU and non-EU member states such as Italy, Hungary and Poland, radical right-wing and populist political parties have come to power. In some countries, such as Austria, the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom, radical right-wing and populist political parties are influencing election results and shaping national political agendas, forcing centrist and traditional parties to adopt much of their rhetoric and policy platforms. Such political parties are also edging closer to power in these countries. Political leaders such as Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orbán and Geert Wilders demonstrate how political movements once viewed as anti-establishment or extreme have, over time, gained democratic legitimacy and have become key actors within the political system, either gaining power or influencing political discourse. Where such leaders do not gain power, they nevertheless capitalise on voter appeal and mass media to enact metapolitical change by setting the political conversation, opening the door for new, and often significantly more radical, right-wing populist actors to dominate electoral and political cycles. Beyond Europe, populist political parties and radical or far-right actors have consolidated power in countries as diverse as the United States, India, Russia and Turkey. This transformation is increasingly being discussed in political science literature as ‘liberal democratic backsliding’. This backsliding in liberal democracy refers not to the sudden weakening of democratic institutions and norms through a regime change, but rather to their gradual erosion through institutional processes originating from within the system. In this process, elections continue to take place, yet the functioning of democratic institutions and liberal democratic values are progressively eroded in an increasingly toxic atmosphere defined by mistrust in establishment politicians, parties, and systems; disillusionment and despair at declining standards for citizens at a time of immense gain for small elites; and growing anxieties over failing social infrastructure, economic downturns and potential collapse, the vocational and philosophical challenge of AI; polarisation over historical legacies of empire, nationhood, and race; and a worsening international military and political situation which feeds visceral domestic political cultures dominated by narratives of post-truth, victimhood, and blame.The rise of radical right-wing and populist political actors has played a significant role in the decline of liberal democracies and the hollowing-out of institutions. Moreover, this global transformation is not limited to electoral successes and the political sphere alone. As radical right-wing and populist parties increasingly become the actors shaping the direction of public policy, they are simultaneously transforming sociology. Areas such as migration, national identity, cultural protectionism, welfare policies, and relations with supranational institutions are being reframed in line with the ideological perspectives of these political movements; and rising unemployment, exacerbated by technological developments in the information society, digitalisation and artificial intelligence, is further accelerating this change and transformation. In this process, mainstream political parties are failing to develop solutions to these problems and are progressively losing influence in both the political and social spheres. Unable to keep pace with this multi-layered and rapid change and transformation and failing to formulate policies in the face of growing challenges, mainstream political parties, media organisations and digital communication platforms often contribute indirectly to the normalisation and legitimisation of radical right-wing politics. In some cases, traditional political parties adopting radical right-wing rhetoric or policy proposals leads to ideas that were once viewed as outside the political system and considered marginal gradually gaining acceptance within mainstream politics. The late 2020s and 2030s are witness to a widespread decline not just in citizen trust in governments or specific parties, but apathy and anxiety surrounding the core values of democracy, free markets, and liberal values. In this vacuum, the radical right’s malleable and fluid discourses of victimhood, blame, and promises to remake society according to nostalgic or anemoic narratives of the ‘good old days’ offer voters a thrawn vision of hope – even as those same radical right actors exacerbate the very problems they promise to resolve.This special issue, which aims to examine the ideological polarisation and democratic backsliding occurring in parallel with the growing strength of far-right and populist political parties, also seeks to explore how far-right and populist political actors have gained legitimacy and moved towards the centre of politics – and how political actors can respond. Topic editors: Murat Aktas, Russell Foster Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80771/democratic-backsliding-and-the-rise-of-radical-right-and-populist-parties