Populist Euroscepticism in Iberian party systems

Abstract

As the introduction to this special issue highlights, the Great Recession, along with the more recent phenomenon such as the refugees’ crisis and the Brexit referendum, has contributed to the success and strengthening of populist Eurosceptic parties across European party systems. The loss of legitimacy of governments and European institutions has opened a window of opportunity for parties expressing anti-establishment positions and populist orientations and criticizing the political-economic arrangements prevailing in Europe. Our study focuses on the rise of a specific left-wing populist Euroscepticism linked with the impact of the Great Recession and austerity measures in Portugal and Spain and the party system transformations. Thus, economic issues, bailouts, and, above all, anti-austerity measures were the main driving forces behind the transformations of Iberian party systems. The increase in populist reactions in both countries after the economic crisis and the implementation of austerity had to do with the transformation of the radical left emphasizing distributive issues in Eurosceptic populist directions. Finally, the analysis shows the distinctiveness of the populist Euroscepticism of the new challenger, Podemos, which illustrates the opportunities afforded with the economic crisis for the rise of new challenger parties exhibiting the contemporary link between populism and Euroscepticism in the radical left.

Keywords

Euroscepticism party system political parties populism radical left

Introduction

As the introduction to this special issue highlights, the Great Recession, along with the more recent phenomenon such as the refugees’ crisis and the Brexit referendum, has contributed to the success and strengthening of populist Eurosceptic parties across European party systems. The crises have fuelled a renewed political reaction against European integration and immigration that signals the emergence of a new transnational cleavage (Hooghe and Marks, 2017). While many scholars are interested in the transformations leading to the rise of challenging radical right parties (RRP), others focus on the impact of these crises on the rise of populist radical left parties (RLP) with distinctive ideological and programmatic stands (Hooghe and Marks, 2017). The crises diversify the nature of challenger parties, further undermine the pro-European consensus, and reinforce the constraining dissensus (Hooghe and Marks, 2009). Across European party systems, the new political space for right and left populist Eurosceptic parties is inextricably linked to the erosion of the representative function of mainstream parties (Hobolt and Tilley, 2016; Kriesi, 2014). The loss of legitimacy of national governments and European institutions has opened a window of opportunity for parties expressing anti-establishment positions and populist orientations and criticizing the political-economic arrangements prevailing in Europe.

The extent to which the different crises have played a role in the rise of populist Eurosceptic parties and the manner in which party systems have responded to them vary (Hooghe and Marks, 2017: 15). In Southern Europe, all countries suffered the blow of the Great Recession since 2008. Data from the Eurobarometers in Figure 1 show public opinion trends in four South European countries and reveal the utmost importance of socio-economic issues for Southern publics. The international economic crisis severely hit all Southern European countries, although each country faced its own social and economic challenges (Bosco and Verney, 2012: 136). The impact of the European sovereign debt crisis began in 2010 in Greece and followed in Portugal and Spain with the adoption of austerity measures and international bailouts to repay government debt in 2011.¹ However, Italy and Greece faced the immigration and the refugee crises unlike Portugal and Spain that remained relatively isolated from them.

Figure 1.

Evolution of voters’ consideration of the two most important problems faced by the country (2005–2016).

This article examines the impact of the Great Recession on the Iberian party systems and compares the transformations of Portuguese and Spanish party systems in a populist Eurosceptic direction. Before the crisis, both party systems were characterized by the absence of populist RRP (Alonso and Rovira-Kaltwasser, 2015). Before the crisis, one of the reasons to study Euroscepticism with a regional focus on Southern Europe was the widespread pro-Europeanism of parties and voters and the marginal inroads of Euroscepticism (Verney, 2011: 34). What made the South distinctive vis-à-vis other cases in Europe was not the causes or a different type of Euroscepticism but its relative low levels (Hooghe and Marks, 2007: 123; Llamazares and Gramacho, 2007: 123). In this regard, both Portugal and Spain were outstanding examples of the absence of major Eurosceptic forces in both party systems since they played a minor role in party mobilization and competitive dynamics (Llamazares and Gramacho, 2007). In both countries, ‘soft’ Euroscepticism was circumscribed to RLP and, in the Spanish case, some minority nationalist parties (Costa Lobo and Magalhães, 2011; Gómez-Reino et al., 2008; Llamazares and Gramacho, 2007). Party-based populist Euroscepticism in Europe was mainly the domain of the populist radical right, but both Portugal and Spain lack relevant parties of this party family (Alonso and Rovira-Kaltwasser, 2015; Llamazares and Gramacho, 2007). According to Treib (2014), the set of (soft) Eurosceptic parties includes in Portugal the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português, PCP) and the Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda, BE) and in Spain the United Left (Izquierda Unida, IU) and the newly born Podemos.

The study of Llamazares and Gramacho (2007) showed that low levels of Eurosceptic orientations displayed by the Portuguese and Spanish citizens were connected to the historical positive associations with the European Union (EU).² A possible outcome, although very unlikely in Portugal and Spain, would be a new niche party emphasizing the cultural sources of dissatisfaction with European integration (Llamazares and Gramacho, 2007: 229). Instead, the Great Recession triggered changes in citizens’ political attitudes in the countries most affected by its negative consequences. In Southern Europe, political trust was undermined (Van Erkel and Van der Meer, 2016: 177), especially regarding European institutions (DottiSani and Magistro, 2016; Ehrmann et al., 2013; Roth et al., 2014), opening a window of opportunity for new and old Eurosceptic forces. Public opinion concerns illustrate the centrality of these issues. According to the Eurobarometer, the economic crisis had a crucial impact on the most important concerns for South European societies (Figure 1).

Portugal and Spain were less exposed to the refugee crises than Italy and Greece, and therefore, they did not experience the crises politically exploited by populist RRP elsewhere in Europe. Thus, economic issues, bailouts, and anti-austerity measures were the specific issues behind the transformations of Iberian party systems. Portuguese and Spanish publics did not express a special concern about migration or terrorism, but they were much more concerned about unemployment, the economic situation, and public debt, traditional issues exploited by left-wing parties. Thus, the impact of the Great Recession in Portugal and Spain held wide repercussions for the transformations of the party systems.

The impact of populist Eurosceptic parties in Portuguese and Spanish elections was marginal in 2011 (Bosco and Verney, 2012). However, the electoral impact in subsequent elections in Portugal (2015) and Spain (2016) shows the political potential of populist Eurosceptic parties. The Portuguese BE jumped from 5.2% of the vote and 8 seats in the 2011 general elections to 10% and 19 seats in 2015; and the newly born Podemos in Spain between the European and general elections in 2014–2016 became the third party in Spanish politics. In this article, we are not concerned with the electoral success of these parties in Portugal and Spain. Rather, we investigate the configuration of the supply of populist Eurosceptic parties after the crises in both countries. We follow Van Kessel (2014) in the specification of populism as a type of discourse that can be expressed by any political actor. We analyse data on the degree to which the main political parties in Portugal and Spain exhibit populist and Eurosceptic features. Our main objective is to map and describe the configuration of populist and Eurosceptic orientations on both Portuguese and Spanish party systems. In particular, we examine the inroads of left-wing populist Euroscepticism on the supply side on both party systems and its diversification: the rise of populist Eurosceptic orientations on the left–right political spectrum, the emergence of new challenger parties, and the mutation of the radical left in a specific Eurosceptic populist direction.

The rise of populist Euroscepticism: Opportunities and challenges to Eurosceptic parties

Theories about party-based Euroscepticism identify the radical left and the radical right as the most Eurosceptic party families (De Vries and Edwards, 2009). Euroscepticism, earlier treated as a secondary feature of party core ideologies, has increasingly moved to the fore to define the programmatic positions of populist (Gómez-Reino and Llamazares, 2013). Euroscepticism is concentrated on both radical party families, but its content is different. Opposition of RLP to the European integration process and its opening of national borders is mainly an opposition to economic liberalization and the threat that European integration suppresses welfare achievements at national level (De Vries and Edwards, 2009; Kriesi et al., 2008: 18). In turn, the Euroscepticism of the populist radical right has a cultural dimension closely associated with nationalism and reflects an anti-immigrant sentiment (Marks and Steenbergen, 2004: 890, Kriesi et al., 2008).

During the Great Recession, the denationalization process was increasingly politicized by new challengers from the left in socio-economic terms (Kriesi, 2014: 369). As Kriesi (2014: 367–369) suggests:

it is quite likely that these new challengers do so in a populist manner: the erosion of the representative function of governing parties – responsible of taking the responsibility to face economic pressure – invites populist reactions, to give voice to the conflicts that have been neglected by mainstream parties and to channel the protest against them. (Kriesi, 2014: 367–369)

This is why we expect the Portuguese and Spanish party systems to show the transformation of the radical left emphasizing distributive issues in a Eurosceptic populist direction.

The depth of the crisis of representation and party system change in Europe is intimately linked to the decline of bipartisanship, a rising phenomenon caused by the voters’ perceptions that governing parties are alike (despite their different ideologies, being in office or in opposition) and deserve to be electorally punished (Kriesi, 2014). This context triggers the rise of non-mainstream political forces, being the populist radical right, radical left, and new anti-establishment parties (Hernández and Kriesi, 2016: 221) the most benefited by this instable scenario. Magalhães (2013) stresses that sharing government obligations is the variable that explains better party system collapse. The end of the main patterns of electoral competition between dominant parties – either because concertation or national unity governments or because programmatic profiles are undistinguishable to electorates – opens political space to new challengers.

Studies exploring the impact of European issues on the structure of party systems’ competition conclude that Euroscepticism appears mostly in the fringes of party systems and its incidence varies for both ideological and strategic reasons (Ray, 2007; Taggart, 1998). Research on party-based Euroscepticism involves two different perspectives, what Mudde (2012) calls Sussex and North Carolina schools. These schools differ in definition, scope, and findings on the position on European integration. They both offer interesting insights for our work, and here we combine Taggart’s framework on ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Euroscepticism typological approach with North Carolina’s definition as a continuum that ranges from ‘very positive to very negative dispositions towards European integration, its policies, its institutions or its principles’ (Hooghe and Marks, 2007: 120).

Conceptual developments in the literature dwell on the minimal number of features and properties of populism (Meny and Sorel, 2000; Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2002). According to Mudde (2004: 543) and Mudde and Rovira-Kaltwasser (2012), populism is a thin ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’. Moreover, politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (Stanley, 2008; Van Kessel, 2014). Hawkins’ analysis of populist discourse offers a universal analytical framework superimposed on right or left distinctions. The presence or absence of populism in party discourse is linked to the occurrence of populism to five distinctive elements: Manichaean outlook, identification of Good with the will of the people, identification of Evil with a conspiring elite, and two other elements: an emphasis on systemic change and anything-goes attitude towards minority rights and democratic procedure (Hawkins, 2009; Hawkins and Riding, 2010). Among the five characteristics, the ‘Manichaean outlook’ stands in first place.

Both RRP and RLP are associated with the label ‘populist’. The existence of different variants of European populist parties of the right and the left is a matter of recent theoretical and empirical research. Up to recently, the analysis of populist Euroscepticism in European politics is inextricably linked to RRP, reducing and essentializing the characteristics of the populist phenomenon in the European arena (Stavrakakis, 2013). However, populism is also linked with the radical left as highlighted by different authors.³ March and Mudde (2005) advance the proposition that the radical left is in mutation in Europe, and the emerging new radical left employs a new ideological approach in the form of social-populism. March (2011) identifies a specific left-wing populism among the radical left: the populist socialists and social populist parties. Populist Socialists add populist claims to their socio-economic positions, and Social Populists give priority to the anti-establishment rhetoric. Here, left populism shows the same demystification of the political elite, political resentment, and external challenges to identity, so it is as a universal populist Zeitgeist in Europe.

Mudde and Rovira-Kaltwasser (2012) expand the definition of populism to identify inclusive and exclusive forms of populism that would correspond to left and right populisms.⁴ Stavrakakis (2013) also emphasizes the distinctive nature of a left populism in the European arena and the rise of a left-wing inclusionary populism in Greece (Stavrakakis and Katsambekis, 2014) as defined by Mudde and Rovira-Kaltwasser (2012: 167). Thus, the conceptualization of a left populism exhibits mainly a socio-economic dimension (including the poor), in contrast to the predominant populism of the radical right in Europe, based on a cultural dimension (excluding the foreigners). Both the Portuguese and Spanish party systems were characterized by the presence of radical left soft-Eurosceptic parties not linked to populist forms and the absence of populist RRP before the crises.

In this regard, we hypothesize the different trajectories of the Portuguese and Spanish Social Democratic parties after the crises offered distinctive opportunities for the reconfiguration of populist Euroscepticism in both countries. The Portuguese party system exceptionally preserved the traditional confrontation between the government and opposition (Fernández-Albertos, 2015: 24). Mainstream parties participated in a coalition government in Portugal in 2011 since the Partido Socialista (PS) did not hold a parliamentary majority in the Chamber. The PS was forced to pact with the Conservative opposition Partido Social Democrata (PSD) the first fiscal consolidation plans, immediately before calling to snap elections. Thus, the PS fully participated in the implementation of the austerity messages. Yet the abrupt change in the image of the PS against austerity, as well as the change in party leadership, allows the mainstream PS to appear ideologically far from the parties implementing the measures in the first place (Fernández-Albertos, 2015: 24; Lisi, 2015: 107). In contrast, bipartisanship was eroded in Spain, among other factors, because the participation of both Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) and Partido Popular (PP) in the implementation of austerity policies and their involvement in corruption scandals contributed to the perception promoted by the 15M or Indignados Movement that the mainstream parties, PP and PSOE, were alike and their programmatic profiles and policies proposals undistinguishable. New political parties appeared in scene, Ciudadanos and Podemos, occupying new spaces on the political spectrum and radically changing the Spanish party system, which moved from a two-party to a multi-party system (Orriols and Cordero, 2016: 8). In particular, a new challenger party, Podemos, emerged exhibiting a distinctive and new populist Euroscepticism.

This is confirmed by the very low levels of the scores of populist discourses of Portuguese and Spanish political parties in 2011 using holistic grading (Table 1). By far, the highest populist scores in 2011 correspond to the Spanish IU (1) and the Portuguese Coligação Democrática Unitária (CDU) (0.67), which exhibits a medium position on holistic grading categories: its speeches include clearly populist elements but either does not use them consistently or tempers them by including non-populist elements. The rest of Spanish and Portuguese parties, regardless of whether they are mainstream parties, challenger, left, or right, scored too low on holistic grading. It means that, in general, in 2011 parties used few, if any, rhetorical populist elements.

Table 1.

Populism scores 2011.

Country	Party	Manifesto	Speeches	Party score
Portugal	PS	0	0.05	0.033
	PSD	0.05	0.1	0.083
	CDS-PP	0.05		0.05
	BE	0.4	0.2	0.267
	CDU	0.7	0.65	0.667
Spain	PSOE	0		0
	PP	0.4		0.4
	IU	1		1
	UPyD	0.1		0.1
	CiU	0.25		0.25
	ERC
	PNV	0.25		0.25

Source: Hawkins and Castanho da Silva (2016).

PS: Partido Socialista; PSD: Partido Social Democrata; CDS-PP: Partido do Centro Democrático Social – Partido Popular; BE: Bloco de Esquerda; CDU: Coligação Democrática Unitária; PSOE: Partido Socialista Obrero Español; IU: Izquierda Unida; UPyD: Unión Progreso y Democracia; CiU: Convergència i Unió; ERC: Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya; PNV: Partido Nacionalista Vasco.

Our starting point is that populist Eurosceptic forms in Portugal and Spain were absent before the crises since there were low levels of Euroscepticism and no presence of populist parties. For the convergence of populist Euroscepticism to emerge on the supply side on the Portuguese and Spanish cases, we argue that there was a necessary mutation of the old radical left in new populist forms, as suggested by March and Mudde (2005), or the entrance of new challenger parties. We hypothesize that the Great Recession provided incentives to political parties on the left to adopt Eurosceptic positions, and to a lesser extent, populist orientations, to enter the political arena and mobilize public opinion against mainstream parties and austerity. However, the impact of the crisis was mediated by the main competitive dynamics in the Portuguese and Spanish political parties offering different opportunities for challenging parties.

The stimulus introduced by populist Eurosceptic parties consists of the capacity to change course of events, which might develop differently otherwise (Williams, 2006: 42). This stimulus may be looked at the interaction between (populist) radical parties and their mainstream competitors (e.g. Meguid, 2005; Minkenberg, 2001). We hypothesize that in the Iberian party systems where the incidence of Euroscepticism and its salience was low and remained limited, the interaction and strategies of mainstream parties cluster around the isolation of populist Eurosceptic parties (Spain), downplaying EU issues or the cooptation (Portugal) and government participation.⁵

Operationalization and data

Our objective is to identify, describe, and explain the emergence of the convergence of Euroscepticism and populism on the supply side of Spanish and Portuguese politics in the new context of the Great Recession. For populism, we use the definition advanced by Hawkins (2009, 2010) and Mudde and Rovira-Kaltwasser (2012), and holistic grading to measure the levels of populist discourse across parties and actors.

To build our arguments on level of parties’ Euroscepticism, here we combine Taggart’s framework on ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Euroscepticism typological approach with Hooghe and Marks’, as the one side of a continuum that ranges from ‘very positive to very negative dispositions towards European integration, its policies, its institutions or its principles’ (Hooghe and Marks, 2007: 120), and examine saliency levels and position of parties towards European integration. To provide some empirical evidence of the politicization of EU matters in the period of study, we make use of the data from Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) (1999–2014). In terms of EU position, we use POSITION defined as ‘overall orientation of the party leadership towards European integration’ on a 7-point scale ranging from complete opposition to complete support. The variable EU_SALIENCE is defined as the ‘relative salience of European integration in the party’s public stance’ on an 11-point scale ranging from no importance to European Integration as the most important issue (for more information about CHES see Bakker et al., 2015).

To give account of how the positions and rhetoric of left-wing parties have changed in Portugal and Spain, we implement the ideational approach operationalized and measured through holistic grading (Hawkins, 2009, 2010): a human-based coding approach that grades texts and speeches evaluating them as a whole. We apply this method of discourse analysis to the electoral manifestos with which parties run in 2014 European elections. Holistic grading allows a quantitative assessment of the degree to which parties and party leaders are populist and a comparative examination of the levels of populist discourse longitudinally across parties and countries. Degree of populism adopts two decimal scores and ranks from 0, non-populist, to 2, entirely populist.⁶

By doing this, we can describe the new ideological populist forms among its ideological features, as suggested by March and Mudde (2005) of the old and new Iberian radical left regarding Europe. We will complement our arguments regarding the contours of populist Eurosceptic parties on data on the variable salience of anti-establishment rhetoric introduced in the 2014 CHES. A new variable, salience of anti-elite and anti-establishment rhetoric, introduced in the 2014 CHES for the first time also allows locating the level of party rhetoric. We are aware that anti-establishment rhetoric only covers one feature of the concept of populism we have developed above. Still, we believe this indicator provides useful information to identify populist Eurosceptic parties in both systems. Moreover, while this variable only partially taps into populist discourse, the results are consistent with the populist scores of holistic grading, although, overall, they indicate higher level of rhetoric.

By analysing changes in ideological stances of political parties, we determine if and how populism and Euroscepticism are now tied as a result of the contemporary European crisis.

Figures on populism and Euroscepticism allow us to identify populist Eurosceptic parties, by combining populism and Euroscepticism index (Table 2). In the case of Portugal, the figures show that the traditional parties BE and CDU are populist Eurosceptic, along with the Green Partido da Terra (MPT). The CDU is the most Eurosceptic, while the levels of populism and salience of anti-elite rhetoric are similar for both RLP. Although the MPT can be categorized as populist Eurosceptic, for this party European issues are not salient. In the Spanish case, we find among the category of populist Eurosceptic parties IU and, in particular, Podemos: both are moderate Eurosceptic (positions within the range of 4 and 5 on the 7-point scale), although they differ in the scores of anti-elite rhetoric salience. As for the salience of anti-elite rhetoric, Podemos is the most important issue in their public interventions, according to 2014 CHES data, and the most populist according to the 2014 analysis with holistic grading. Conservative parties in the government (PP, PSD, Partido do Centro Democrático Social – Partido Popular (CDS-PP)) show a positive orientation, achieving their highest level after the crisis in 2014. Surprisingly, the mainstream left-wing parties (Social democrat) in both countries and their position on European integration, although still positive, have suffered after the Great Recession. Overall, in Spain, Euroscepticism is more difficult to identify than in Portugal. Minor and peripheral parties mildly showed pro-European position in 2010 and surprisingly higher levels of support for European integration after the crises. The newly born Ciudadanos, whose scores are only available for 2014, also exhibits clear pro-European orientations.

Table 2.

Populism Euroscepticism scores – Spain and Portugal 2014.

	Party	Populism Holistic grading (0–2)	Anti-elite rhetoric (0–10)	EU_position (0–7)
Portugal	PS	0.2	2	6.37
	PSD	0	0.5	6.87
	CDS-PP	0	0.667	6.87
	BE	0.7	7.5	3.12
	CDU	0.8	7.5	1.87
	MPT^b	0	8	3.4
Spain	PSOE^a	0.21	3	6.7
	PP^a	0.23	1.4	6.8
	IU	1.2	5.6	4.6
	CiU^b	0	1.9	6.3
	ERC	1.1	4.22	5.55
	PNV	0.2	1.9	6.44
	Podemos^a	1.33	10	4.44
	Ciudadanos	0	6.33	6.67

Source: Authors’ elaboration.

EU: European Union; PS: Partido Socialista; PSD: Partido Social Democrata; CDS-PP: Partido do Centro Democrático Social – Partido Popular; BE: Bloco de Esquerda; CDU: Coligação Democrática Unitária; MPT: Movimento o Partido da Terra – Partido da Terra; PSOE: Partido Socialista Obrero Español; IU: Izquierda Unida; CiU: Convergència i Unió; ERC: Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya; PNV: Partido Nacionalista Vasco.

Data from the Hugo Marcos-Marné and Carolina Plaza-Colodro analysis on populism grading in Spanish party system (2011–2015) that use campaign speeches, TV interventions, and manifestos.

Manifestos not available, thus holistic grading not conducted.

The inroads and characteristics of populist Eurosceptic parties in Iberian party systems

The previous section has identified the political space for populist Eurosceptic parties in the Iberian party systems after the Great Recession within the old and new radical left. The empirical evidence shows the different combination of populist Euroscepticism in both countries after the crisis. In Portugal and Spain, the electoral success of Populist Eurosceptic parties opened up a new political space after the crisis, although their inroads were limited in comparative European perspective.

In Portugal, the BE has similarities with the new politics profile elaborated for left-libertarian parties in old democracies (Lisi, 2011: 132; March, 2011; March and Freire, 2012). By its side, the CDU (a coalition among PCP and Partido Ecologista ‘Os Verdes’ (PEV)) usually has more radical positions at the level of the economic policies (March, 2011; March and Freire, 2012), very similar to those of IU, a federation of small parties articulated around the Spanish Communist party (Partido Comunista de España, PCE), although the latter moderated its political positions and adopted the Eurocommunist principles (Ramiro, 2004). In turn, a new party, Podemos, emerged in 2014 after the Spanish economic and political crisis of the previous years. The political discourse of the new party was directed against the economic and political establishment – the caste, in the language of the party.

The opening up of this new political space for populist Euroscepticism within the radical left also shows differences in both party systems. In both Iberian party systems, RLP are, in general, soft-Eurosceptic (scores between 3 and 5 in a 7-point scale). The only exception is the CDU, which punctuation in the CHES 2014 dataset permits to categorize it as hard-Eurosceptic (score between 1 and 2.9). Regarding Europe, qualitative analysis of manifestos points out that they are critical with the neoliberal nature of the European integration and are betting on a new institutional architecture for a new, more democratic, social Europe, able to overcome the consequences of the Great Recession. They denounce the effects of the debt crisis and expand the process of European integration to cover other political dimensions, absent in the political discourse of mainstream parties. Moreover, they criticized the lack of democratic accountability of the EU. The differences between party scores on position towards the EU may be a matter of intensity and language bellicosity but not scope, as it is identified in the manifesto analysis. In Portugal, the language used against the EU is harder than in Spain, claiming that sovereignty has been undermined by the imposition of the austerity plans, and highly morally charged, continuously mentioning the ‘financial occupation’ and national humiliation that followed the bailouts in Southern Europe. Crucially, the systemic change required by Portuguese populist Eurosceptic parties to ‘liberate’ the people is related to the Troika agreements, its neoliberal nature, and especially to the threat it means to national sovereignty. Their claims are related to the end of the adjustment programmes and Memorandums of Understanding (MoU), and even exit the single currency. In contrast, Spanish parties’ proposals for European integration imply changes in the institutional architecture aimed at democratizing and promoting a more social, fair, and pacifist Europe. Their proposals are critical with current EU but do not include leaving the EU, neither the Euro; however, they also want to end the MoU and reject the Lisbon Treaty.

Political stance of Populist Eurosceptic parties in Iberian systems conveys a Manichaean, moral, and dualistic vision of the world, dividing between the evil embodied in the political powers currently in force – traditional incumbent parties and the EU institutions, mainly the ‘Troika’ – and the good embodied in the people and workers. The speeches of Iberian Populist Eurosceptic parties, beyond including a Manichaean discourse and other clearly populist elements, do not use them consistently and/or temper them by including non-populist elements, as shows their median position in holistic grading measurement of populism (around 1). In contrast, they temper the level of populism by incorporating pluralist elements, as, for instance, the recognition of majority shifts and their belief in democracy, besides the explicit recognition of the differences of political opinion with those on the right and on the mainstream left. Interestingly, they also assume that their own stance is as RLP in a peripheral country. However, at this point, differences in the articulation of populism also arise. BE, CDU, and IU show the typical radical left conception of the people as the good embodied in workers and poor, ascribing some notion of the common people. Among ‘traditional’ RLP, only the CDU refers directly to the ‘povo’ (people). In contrast, Podemos shows a stronger Manichaean vision of the world, opposing the people with those who are ‘above’ – the elites and the privileged, which also include European elites. The idea of the populist people is very present in its speeches and media interventions through constant allusions to the disadvantaged, who are those not part of the ‘caste’ and suffer the crisis harder. Podemos introduced a romantic idea of the common people – the working class, also ‘la gente’ or ‘la mayoría social’ – who are described as the guarantors of the economic stability of families, the cornerstone of Spanish society.⁷

Finally, the analysis shows the distinctiveness of the populist Euroscepticism of the new challenger, Podemos, when we focus on the anti-elite dimension. The Hugo Marcos-Marné and Carolina Plaza-Colodro’s holistic grading analysis highlights that Iglesias’ discourses portray a Manichaean vision of society referring to the difference between the people and ‘the caste’ (la casta), the political and economic elites that occupy a privileged social position and lead the government and the economy (Gómez-Reino and Llamazares, 2017). In Laclau’s (2007: 70, 80–83) terms, the caste works here as the excluded other, that, through its ‘demonization’, allows the constitution of the people. In this interpretation, professional politicians are more interested in maintaining their privileges than in serving the interests of the people. For this reason, they propose left and right divisions have become irrelevant and are used as manipulating devices by political elites (Mouffe, 2016). Thus, unlike other Portuguese and Spanish pre-existing parties of the radical left moving towards populist traits during the Great Recession, the genesis of Podemos is inextricably linked to the introduction of populist discourse analysis in party mobilization (Gómez-Reino and Llamazares, 2017). Podemos illustrates a clear-cut example of the opportunities afforded by the economic crisis for the rise of new challenger parties exhibiting the contemporary link between populism and Euroscepticism in the radical left.

Arguably, the rejection of the EU increased in Portuguese and Spanish publics and both the radical left in Portugal and Spain acquired populist Eurosceptic traits after the crisis, although their contours on these party systems differed. Two main contextual and political factors seem to influence the different weight of populism and Euroscepticism. First, the fact that the austerity plan in Portugal was partially managed by the EU created incentives for a harder anti-European discourse than it was the case in Spain. Portugal and Spain faced similar sovereign debt problems and current account deficits during the Great Recession and austerity measures followed in 2010. However, they were differently exposed to international intervention by the troika. In Portugal, the bailout by the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) embodied in the signature of a MoU, similar to the Irish and Greek ones, included direct control and measures in public finance, structural reforms, and banking sector. In contrast, the Spanish government requested formally a loan (aid), and not a bailout (rescue) as such, to recapitalize its banking system. In return for the loan, the Spanish government had to introduce a range of reforms aimed at making the economy more efficient. The visibility of the intervention and political responsibility of European and international institutions’ on national economies vis-à-vis national governments was different in both countries. As a result, in Portugal, the role of international institutions (the troika) and macro-economic issues (some of them EU competences) such as bailout agreement, public investment, spending and Welfare State were more salient (Magalhães, 2014: 181). In Spain, public debates during the same period tackled similar issues but stressed not only the economic crisis but also corruption scandals and ‘the democratic “regeneration” agenda’ (Orriols and Cordero, 2016: 13). Second, the position of mainstream parties regarding austerity packages and bailouts in both party systems offered contrasting scenarios for the rise of new challenger parties with a populist outlook in Portugal and Spain. Traditional parties and electoral alignments were less threatened in Portugal than in Spain. In Portugal, mainstream parties initially agreed to support the austerity measures introduced by the Socialist minority government in 2010, but the withdrawal of support led to new elections in 2011. The success of the PSD in the 2011 legislative elections led the PS in the opposition, which allowed a renewal of the party’s elite and the adoption of an anti-European discourse (despite having requested the bailout) that now stressed the differences with the PSD-CDS government and its economic and political stand. It provided renewed importance to the socio-economic dimension in the structuring of the electoral competition (Magalhães, 2014). In 2015, the PS formed a government supported by the BE, PCP, and PEV (after signing the Joint Agreements) demanding the end of austerity measures in Portugal (Ferreira and Fonseca, 2018: 134). In Spain, first the PSOE and then the PP implemented austerity measures, besides reaching other political agreements, as the Constitutional reform to guarantee the payment of the public debt in 2011. Both parties were severely punished in polls, mainly due to corruption scandals and public perceptions of the ‘alleged joint responsibility in the mismanagement of the economy and their inability to ameliorate the worst consequences of austerity’ (Cordero and Montero, 2015: 358). Thus, the erosion of bipartisanship in the Spanish party system offered a more open political opportunity structure for the rise of a new (populist) party, Podemos, whereas in Portugal party competition remained structured along the left–right dimension.

Concluding remarks

After the Great Recession, public discontent with austerity policies triggered changes in citizens’ political attitudes – mainly in the countries most affected by its negative consequences such as Portugal and Spain. The loss of legitimacy of national governments and European institutions has opened a window of opportunity for parties expressing anti-establishment positions, populist orientations, and critics of the political-economic arrangements prevailing in the EU. The crises have fuelled a renewed political reaction against European integration and immigration that signals the emergence of a new transnational cleavage (Hooghe and Marks, 2017). In Southern Europe, the denationalization process was increasingly politicized by new challengers from the left in socio-economic terms and in a populist manner (Kriesi, 2014: 367–369), and during the Great Recession, the economic crisis acquired an extra dimension with the Euro and bailouts crises, in an Eurosceptic manner.

Our study focuses on the rise of a specific left-wing populist Euroscepticism linked with the impact of the Great Recession and the austerity measures that followed in the transformation of the party systems of Portugal and Spain. Thus, economic issues, bailouts, and, above all, anti-austerity measures were the main driving forces behind the transformations of Iberian party systems. The increase in populist reactions in both Portugal and Spain after the economic crisis and the implementation of the austerity measures had to do with the transformation of the radical left emphasizing distributive issues in Eurosceptic populist directions.

This research provides empirical evidence of the mutation of the old radical left in new populist forms, as suggested by March and Mudde (2005), as well as the entrance of new challenger populist parties on the left. By analysing changes in ideological stances of political parties, we have also determined if and how populism and Euroscepticism are now tied as a result of the contemporary European crisis. The Euroscepticism displayed by Iberian parties is in line with the traditional opposition of RLP to the European integration process and its opening of national borders: mainly an opposition to economic liberalization and the threat that European integration suppresses welfare achievements at national level.

The Great Recession and the bailouts and austerity policies that followed provided incentives to political parties on the left to adopt Eurosceptic positions, and to a lesser extent, populist orientations, to enter the political arena and mobilize public opinion against mainstream parties. Data analysis confirms it in the Portuguese case, where the position on European integration of Portuguese RLP is more negative than their Spanish counterparts are, and was further accentuated during the period of the implementation of the austerity measures. Paradoxically, most Spanish political parties did not tap into European integration and their positions after the crisis have even improved.

Our findings on the categorization of populist Eurosceptic parties through its ideological features are in line with those defined as inclusionary left-wing populism (Mudde and Rovira-Kaltwasser, 2012: 167; Stavrakakis, 2013, Stavrakakis and Katsambekis, 2014). Populism in the Iberian Peninsula is, unlike in other European countries, inclusionary, inasmuch as all populist Eurosceptic parties record favourable positions regarding lax immigration laws and multiculturalist orientations. Thus, the left populism in Iberian party systems exhibits mainly a socio-economic dimension (including the poor and those hit by economic crisis and austerity), in contrast to the predominant populism of the radical right in Europe. However, despite these countries having not dramatically experienced the recent refugee crisis, it should be noted that the more relevant changes regarding party programmatic positions are related to cultural issues, with few exceptions, in both countries. All parties are now more distant from the pole GAL (Green - Alternative - Libertarian) in the GAL-TAN scale than in 2010, especially the CDU.

Finally, the analysis shows the distinctiveness of the populist Euroscepticism of the new challenger, Podemos, on the populist dimension in comparative perspective. Unlike other Portuguese and Spanish pre-existing parties of the radical left moving towards populist traits, the genesis of Podemos is inextricably linked to the introduction of populist discourse analysis in party mobilization. In this sense, ‘Podemos’ illustrates the opportunities afforded to new parties exhibiting the contemporary link between populism and Euroscepticism in the radical left.

We have stressed the different outcomes on the supply side of populist Euroscepticism in Iberian party systems – in Portugal, populist Eurosceptic parties are more Eurosceptic than populist; in Spain, the weight of Euroscepticism is lower for all the identified populist Eurosceptic, radical left, and nationalist alike. These differences are related to the visibility of the intervention of international and domestic actors in the implementation of the measures and bailouts adopted to manage the economic crisis and the role played by bipartisanship and crisis of political representation in both countries during the economic crisis. In this regard, the different trajectories of the Portuguese and Spanish Social Democratic parties during the crisis opened up a new political space for the reconfiguration of populist Euroscepticism in both countries. These political and contextual factors have influenced the differential issues politicized in public debates and electoral campaigns. In Portugal, political conflict was articulated around macro-economic issues connected to the supranational (European) level, while in Spain new and minor parties emphasized the anti-elite rhetoric oriented against mainstream parties and their management of the crisis.

Further investigation is necessary to explore the extent to which the discourses of populist Eurosceptic parties in Portugal and Spain have also influenced positioning strategies of mainstream traditional parties, especially those of Social Democrats. Divergent scenarios arise when we observe the impact of populist Euroscepticism on coalitions and government formation. While in Portugal PS and Populist Eurosceptic parties cooperate as government partners since 2015, isolation appears to be the response to Podemos in Spain at the national level. Further research is needed to examine the mutation of the radical left in both countries and the ideological changes and strategic factors that shape the success of populist Euroscepticism in Iberian politics and its comparison with its impact in Southern Europe and the EU at large.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the participants of the panel ‘The Populist Politics of Euroscepticism amidst Critical Junctures’ celebrated in the General Conference of the ECPR in September 2016 at Charles University in Prague, as well as Referee 1 and Referee 2 for their attentive readings and insightful comments and suggestions.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Research funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the research project CSO2013-47667-P “Economic crisis, social change and new political parties” coordinated by Professor Iván Llamazares Valduvieco.

Notes

Author biographies

Margarita Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) in Madrid. She is part of the research project, ‘Economic crisis, social change and new political parties’ and belongs to Teampopulism since 2014. Her areas of research include the study of nationalist parties in Europe, the Europeanization of parties and movements, and populist parties. She has recently published Nationalisms in the European Arena: Trajectories of Transnational Party Coordination (Palgrave, 2017). She is also the author of Ethnicity and Nationalism in Italian Politics (2002) and co-editor with Lieven de Winter and Peter Lynch of Autonomist Parties in Europe: Identity Politics and the Revival of the Territorial Cleavage (2006). She has published in journals and contributed to edited volumes on party Europeanization, populist parties, and party voter links and European integration.

Carolina Plaza-Colodro is PhD candidate at the Universidad de Salamanca. She is part of the research project, coordinated by Iván Llamazares, ‘Economic crisis, social change and new political parties’. She also belongs to the Comparative Politics permanent research group of the Universidad de Salamanca and Teampopulism coordinated by Kirk Hawkins since 2016. Her research lines are related to the radical, populist, and Eurosceptic reactions of political parties and publics since the beginning of the Great Recession, paying special attention to parties within the most financially affected countries.

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