Analysis & Opinions - Diplomatic Courier

The Future of Populism in a Trump Era

| Jan. 30, 2017

As Donald Trump begins his term as President, he can claim victory in more ways than one: Not only was he able to secure the electoral college majority, but Trumpism is already having a significant impact on the stability of democracies an ocean away.

Already emboldened by the Brexit vote in June, the election of “an outsider” as President of the world’s oldest democracy has given particularly core Europe’s right-wing populist parties a rather vainglorious halo. These three—France’s Marine LePen, the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, and Germany’s Frauke Petry—stand to create a political environment which could ultimately eclipse the European project. All in 2017, the same year in which the Union plans to celebrate its very founding with the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. The European Union can survive Brexit. Frexit—Marine LePen’s goal in her planned referendum on EU membership—would be Europe’s death knell.

To be sure, populism of both the left and the right is not a new phenomenon across Europe and its roots, breadth, and strength are significantly nuanced by national circumstance, as Cas Mudde points out. The conditions that lead to their creation have a few things in common, however: Western European countries’ general inability to continuously transform their labor markets and welfare systems in a sustainable manner from the 1960s onward, the gradual fraying of the elite-consensus around the purpose of European integration and the usurping of once classical social democratic party programs by moderate conservatives are common elements for European countries with strengthening right-wing populist parties.

The effects of these structural weaknesses, the ongoing reverberations of the Euro crisis and the fraying of the liberal economic consensus coupled with the strong backlash to globalization and the mobility of people, products and capital that accompany it have given momentum to seductive extremes: fringe parties hijacking—nay, setting—the mainstream political agenda. Populist parties of the right and left currently control the largest share of parliamentary seats in six EU countries, and are part of governing coalitions in three.

Hungary’s Victor Orban has been turning his country into an “illiberal democracy” since 2010European sanctions in 2000 couldn’t stop Austria’s Freedom Party from reinvigorating to send a far-right candidate into the December Presidential vote (ultimately a loss) and to sign a “cooperation pact,” with Vladimir Putin’s party in late 2016. Meanwhile, European Commission efforts to reign in Poland’s leadership from dismantling the constitutional court seem tepid. Thus while leftist populist parties such as Greece’s Syriza and Spain’s Podemos have seen their wings clipped by economic realities, right-wing populists are gaining strength, aided by either outright outside funding from Russia partially in return for promised support of the annexation of Crimea, or by Russian meddling in the electoral process itself. Sound familiar?

Lessons from Brexit

Brexit should be a case study for mainstream parties in the Netherlands, France and Germany. UKIP and the “Leave” campaign, it has now been conclusively proven, lied to the British electorate, handing the responsibility of what will be treacherous negotiations toward “hard Brexit” to mainstream conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May. It mattered less that the Independence Party all but collapsed after the vote, because the Conservative party has “UKIP-ised” and the Labour Party seems unsure it wants power in the near future.

Leaders of mainstream parties on the continent should take note – and fast. An inability to provide timely and effective responses to a need for economic and physical security will open the playing feel to a populist mudslinging. While the French campaign, for example should be about addressing critical fiscal issues and the implementation of far-reaching labor reforms to create growth and innovation, it will “be eclipsed by a populist debate about churches, mosques, headscarves, pork meals and what it means to be French.” In a neck-and-neck race with populist Geert Wilders, newly convicted of a hate crime, embattled Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, decided to stop making a positive argument for increased European integration. Though she has remained largely steadfast, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was recently cornered by right-wing of her party to make abolishing dual citizenship regulations part of the electoral program for 2017. With the same conservative party wing echoing Petry’s party’s sentiments that the victims of the Christmas Market attack were “Merkel’s dead” we can already see the direction in which parts of this campaign could be heading.

Established continental parties must take heed, and quickly. External events stand to disrupt the election cycle in these EU founding member states, and the Netherlands go to the polls in a matter of weeks. Russia, similarly emboldened by a Trump victory will not stand idly by—its missile deployments in Kaliningrad, threats to the Baltics and cyber advances indicate just how far it might be willing to go. Other external forces could have lasting impact: the collapse of the Italian banking sector, another terrorist attack over the next nine months could be likely.

There is much good to build on: Germany is an example of what complex labor market reform can accomplish. NATO and the EU have never worked as closely or effectively together on border security and the protection of individual Europeans than today. As President Trump, Vladimir Putin and Marine LePen argue for a greater nuclear arsenal, European leaders must remain committed to the NPT and explain to voters how important nuclear weapons reduction is. A new European Global Strategy promises inclusive security and gains from globalization for Europeans. Member State politicians need to connect Europe’s successes with individual citizen’s lives. They must find effective means of linking European economic advances, to national policies to individual advancement. If they fail or let their campaigns be hijacked, the Union will cease to exist 60 years after its inception.

About the Author: Cathryn Cluver is an EU, digital diplomacy, and cities expert at Dūcō and the founding Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. She served on the management team of the European Policy Centre in Brussels, where she was the Deputy Editor of its public policy journal, Challenge Europe.

For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation: Clüver Ashbrook, Cathryn.“The Future of Populism in a Trump Era.” Diplomatic Courier, January 30, 2017.

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