Syriza, M5S and Podemos: The Three Champions of the Angry Southern European Voter
| Autor | Guillermo Cordero - Lluis Orriols - Eftichia Teperoglou |
| Cargo | Guillermo Cordero es Profesor Ayudante Doctor en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Correo electrónico: guillermo.cordero@uam.es. Lluis Orriols es Profesor Visitante en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Correo electrónico: lluis.orriols@uc3m.es. Eftichia Teperoglou es Profesora en la Aristotle University de Tesalónica. Correo electrónico:... |
| Páginas | 105-131 |
Page 105
Guillermo Cordero, Lluis órriols y Eftichia Teperoglou**
Abstract: The article examines the profile of the electoral basis of the three most successful examples of anti-establishment parties in Southern Europe, namely the Coalition of Radical Left (SYRIZA) in Greece, the Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) in Italy and Podemos in Spain. These parties share the implementation of a non-right populist discourse rooted in the social-protest mo-vements in each country. Using data from the European Election Study 2014, our analysis reveals that despite the fact that these voters have been described as 'euro-critical' and 'non-ideological', our main finding is that their electoral support mostly rests on ideology and on the distrust and disapproval of the national establishment.
Keywords: economic crisis; anti-establishment parties; euroscepticism; populism; left-wing parties
Resumen: El artículo examina el perfil de las bases electorales de los tres ejemplos más exitosos de partidos "antiélite" de izquierda en el Sur de Europa: la Coalición de Izquierda Radical (SYRIZA) en Grecia, el Movimiento Cinco Estrellas (M5S) en Italia y Podemos en España. Estos partidos tienen en común la implementación de un discurso populista no de derechas con conexiones en los movimientos de protesta de cada uno de sus países. Utilizando datos de la European Elections Study 2014, nuestro análisis revela que a pesar del hecho de que estos votantes han sido descritos como "eurocríticos" y "desideologizados", nuestro principal hallazgo es que su apoyo electoral descansa principalmente en la ideología y en la desconfianza y falta de apoyo a las élites nacionales.
Palabras clave: crisis económica; partidos "antiélite"; euroescepticismo; populismo; partidos de izquierda.
* Fecha de recepción: 16 de abril de 2018. Fecha de aceptación: 24 de mayo de 2018.
** Guillermo Cordero es Profesor Ayudante Doctor en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Correo electrónico: guillermo.cordero@uam.es. Lluis Orriols es Profesor Visitante en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Correo electrónico: lluis.orriols@uc3m.es. Eftichia Teperoglou es Profesora en la Aristotle University de Tesalónica. Correo electrónico: efteperoglou@polsci.auth.gr.
Page 106
Sumario: I. INTRODUCTION; II. CONTEXTUALIZATION; III. THE EMERGENCE OF SYRIZA, M5S AND PODEMOS; IV. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHE-SES; 1. The Economic Crisis Hypothesis; 2. The Political Crisis Hypothesis; V. DATA AND METHODS; VI. RESULTS; VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS. VIII. REFERENCES.
The sovereign debt crisis generated an ongoing transformation of the political and electoral landscape in some of the countries that had to implement harsh economic measures. Three of the most prominent examples are Greece, Italy and Spain. In these countries we can also observe increased political disaffection and disillusion with politics1.
Both the Greek and the Italian national elections of 2012 and 2013 could be considered as 'earthquake' elections2, while also in Spain we can observe signs pointing to dealignment in the General Elections of 2015 and 20163. Moreover, a main common feature of the electoral contests in the last years in these three countries is the remarkable rise of a populist reaction to the Eurocrisis, linked to the movements of social protest and crystallized in non right-wing parties which have been able to become pivotal in their national political arenas. The Greek case is perhaps the most characteristic with the meteoric rise of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Erjvaomouòç tt|ç PiZoonaoTuaíç Apiorepáç; SYRIZA), which won the national election of 25 January 20154 confirming the complete collapse of the old two-party system between the centre-left PASOK (üave^^^vio Eooux)aoTVKÒ Kívnua; Panhellenic Social Movement) and the centre-right ND (Néa AnuoKpaTÍa; New Democracy) that under-pinned the Greek Third Republic since its establishment in 1974. SYRIZA became the major governmental party in coalition with the right-wing populist ANEL (Ave^ápT^xoi TXbyveç; Independent Greeks). In Italy, the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Movement Five Stars; M5S) obtained 25.5 per cent of the vote in the national elections of February 2013 and 32,2 per cent of the vote in 2018, while in Spain the party of Podemos (We Can), which was formed
Page 107
just a few months before the 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections, managed to obtain 1.25 million votes. Its rise has continued in the municipal and regional elections held in 2015 and in the General Elections of 2015 and 2016 obtaining 20,7 and 21,1 percent of the vote (considering Podemos and and close left-wing regional platforms), challenging the duopoly ofthe conservative PP (Partido Popular; People's Party) and the Social Democratic PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español; Spanish Socialist Worker's Party).
Moreover, the important role that the European Union played in the economic and financial crisis in these three countries, has contributed to the fact that these parties emphasize in their discourse the EU dimension of political contestation5. However, we can observe some differences between the three parties as far as it regards their views about Europe. M5S belongs to the group of soft Eurosceptic parties and the EU membership of Italy is evaluated as negative6. SYRIZA could be also classified as a soft Eurosceptical party7, even though like Podemos did not develop clear Eurosceptic stances against the membership of the country in the EU. Both SYRIZA and Podemos adopt more eurocritic stances, linked with negative perceptions about the management of the EU. They have fiercely criticized the management of the crisis by the supranational -and also national- institutions8.
Page 108
These parties share also their capacity to successfiüly give voice to the protest move-ments. Both M5S and Podemos find their origin in the new forms of social protest (the 'V-day' in Italy, and the 'Indignados' in Spain) in which, canalising political discontent and distrust, creating institutionalised channels and discourses 'from the people' and 'against the elite'9. SYRIZA also draws strength from the Greek protest movement ofthe Indignants ('Aganaktismenof). From the onset of the economic crisis in Greece, in contrast to the Communist Party of Greece (Ko^uouvioTUcò Kòfiua E^^áôaç; KKE), SYRIZA promoted the openness to the civic society and supported the new forms of social protest in relation to the crisis. Even though the roots of the Greek movement of the Indignants are not linked directly to SYRIZA, the party tried to claim leadership of the movement10.
The main aim of this paper is to analyse the profile of the voters of SYRIZA, M5S and Podemos in 2014, right after the European Parliament elections, focusing in their differences and similarities. Our analysis represents a case study of the three most prominent examples -all being able to quickly become one of the most voted parties in their countries- with a non-right anti-establishment discourse in Southern Europe. The economic difficulties in the three counties rapidly derived to a slump in citizens' trust in the main political actors and institutions. Hence, the initial economic crisis led to a deep political one. We argue that both crises may have had important consequences in citizens' voting decisions. We are using two -partially- complementary explanations. The first one is that of economic voting, given the negative consequences of the crisis and the pessimistic evaluations of its management. The second one is related to the political crisis, considering the lack of confidence in the political institutions. These two explanations, however, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. This paper wants to shed some light on this very new and complex context, analysing the varying degrees of importance of these explanations in the support for SYRIZA, M5S and Podemos.
The next section is focused on a brief contextualization of the economic and political Eurocrisis in these countries, followed by a presentation of our arguments and hypotheses. The data and the method are presented in the fourth section, while the fifth one is focused on our findings. Finally, the paper ends with some concluding remarks.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 marks the beginning of the well-known story about the Eurocrisis11. The subprime mortgage crisis and the subsequent
Page 109
financial crash did not circumscribe to the United States12, raising the alarm bells in the EU when Greece's ability to refund its debt was questioned days later. The solution was provided by a joint collaboration between European Union governments and institutions together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)13, agreeing to provide Greece with a loan of 110 billion euros signed in May 201014. The risk of contagion and the debate about bailouts were already realities with evident consequences in 201115. Ireland and Portugal signed bailout agreements, while Spain requested in December 2012 40 billion from the EU to recapitalise its financial system.
Graph 1 shows the trends of some indicators, since the beginning of the crisis (2008) until the moment in which the fieldwork of the survey used in this article was carried out (2014). As shown in Graph 1 (a), Greece and Italy departed from high levels of sovereign debt (in terms of percentage of the GDP), which dramatically increased (especially in Greece) during the first years of the crisis16. The starting point of the story in Spain is quite different, as its public spending was much more limited during the years prior to the crisis, being below the EU average. Despite this, the...
Para continuar leyendo
Solicita tu prueba