Populist Voters in the Periphery: Ireland, Portugal and Spain

Periphery states in the EU were severely impacted by the Great Recession from 2008. Unemployment surged, public spending was cut and taxes were increased. Ireland and Portugal were bailed out by the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) and while Spain avoided formal financial assistance, its banking institutions were beneficiaries of extraordinary support. The economic conditions laid the foundations for a sharp increase in populist political attitudes resulting in a rise in support for populist political parties and a corresponding reduction in the representational gap. This paper asks who is the periphery populist voter? A surface examination of the political history of these countries would suggest a predilection for right wing populism. These countries have conservative Catholic populations, twentieth century experience of authoritarian government in the case of Portugal and Spain and an authoritarian bent to decision making in the case of Ireland, and deep rooted nationalism in all three. Furthermore, they have all experienced high levels of inward migration, most especially Ireland and Spain. Yet, it is left-wing populist parties that have gained traction in all three. This paper will use comparative data from the European Social Survey to identify populist voters and it will demonstrate that it is economic conditions which are driving the populist surge (see Inglehart and Norris, 2017) in the periphery. We will also explore the role played by the accumulation of discontent towards the performance of democracy within those countries. The picture is complex, very often it is anti-system attitudes that emerge as the unifying characteristics of the populist voter and not views on redistribution or other left wing issues. In that sense, we propose the calculation of a scale of populist attitudes for both the right and the left wing in order to facilitate the comparison. The evidence suggests that the voters in the periphery have a deep rooted performance based view of democracy and the economic failures of the last decade have delivered a boon for left wing populist parties. But this support may erode quickly in the face of economic recovery.