Crises as Catalyst for Populist Success?

This paper aims to expand knowledge on recent developments and mechanisms in party competition across Europe in light of the role played by populist parties. Our analysis will be based on tracing shifts in issue salience and position across established dimensions of conflict and among different ideological profiles and types of parties paying specific attention to the competition between populists and non-populists. Five main questions are posed that pertain to potentially shifting patterns of competition through changes in party issue salience and positions. First, have the different crises that have affected Europe influenced party issue salience and positions in terms of the chief dimensions of party competition and political conflict? Second, have those crises favoured the ascendance of populist parties? Third, since crises and their effects were considerably more pervasive in some countries than in others, are there differences in party competition between regions that reflect crisis patterns? Fourth, what are the main determinants of the flagship issues of populist parties? Fifth, is the success of populist parties associated with the positions and salience they assign to transnational opposite national issues? In answering these questions, we aim to bring into conversation different literatures: cleavage theory, which studies deep divides within society and why these structure socially distinct electoral constituencies; saliency theory, which studies the causes and consequences of shifting issue salience among political actors; more general accounts of party strategy and strategic positional adaptation in response to public demands and in the context of exogenous shocks such as a systemic crisis; party-voter congruence theory, which studies democratic representation and if a fully-fledged party-voter linkage on different issues exists.