The Emergence of Right-wing Populist Parties in France: A Comparative Study of Causes

Stage One

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Introduction

Right-wing populism is a political ideology that focuses on the welfare of the common man as opposed to the interests of the elites in the society. It is a great political tool that combines various economic concepts to promote specific economic interests in the society. In this relation, right-wing populism comprises of and combines economic ideas of laissez-faire, ethnocentrism, and anti-elitism (Alexander, 2014). Right-wing populism has gained great attention in the society, and this is because it is enacted in some countries but lacking in others. In this relation, examination of the needs and impacts of the same helps in appreciating its role in the modern society. In addition to economic terms, right-wing populism is also used to refer to political parties or groups that oppose immigration and specifically from the Islamic countries and European nations. Right-wing populism also entails the ideas of traditional right-wing chauvinism which relates to opposition to the higher support for the welfare state, increase in the luxurious lives which are more restrictive and social spending schemes on domestic items.

Right-wing populism has been in existence since the year 1990s and legislatures that have had a stipulation of the same in history include Israel, France, Poland, Russia, Romania, Chile among others. Additionally, countries that have employed the use of the same include Austria, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Italy. In other countries, the right-wing populism has in the past been referred to as radical right although they contain the same ideas. However, there is a need for the population to separate right-wing populism from the historic right which mostly deals with the preservation of status quo and has limited relation with political parties of respective countries. Analysis of the role of right-wing populism helps in understanding the conditions that fuel development of such an idea in various counties and the role of the society in promoting the same.

Right-wing populism is greatly dependent on various factors in different countries mostly the nationally-specific factors such as the political history of a country, the culture of the people and system of governance. This is because such factors affect the lifestyle of the people and their daily living conditions. However, there are similarities on factors that promote the system in different countries across the globe. There are factors that are likely to introduce the system in countries, and such include the placement of corrupt leaders in a system, the availability of political classes, elite and an establishment of people that are mainly concerned with the promotion of the populist party bills. In this case, it becomes easier to examine the role and the genesis of right-wing populism and the role that it has on the population and the society in general. In this case, understanding of such makes it easy to identify the benefits of such, making it easier to appreciate the role of the idea and correct the weaknesses of the system.

The intent of right-wing populism encourages the discussion of and promotes antagonism of us versus them where the main focus is placed on defining the people as culturally homogeneous. Such is because people that conform to the idea of right-wing populism encourage the spirit of togetherness where they put the interest of the society key above most of the pressing matters in the society. The common interest of the society that right-wing populism encourages is thought to be strongly based on common sense which promotes identity and interests of others mostly the minorities and such as immigrants that are favored by the elites in the society. However, there is need to understand that right-wing populism is not extremism and extremism is also not right-wing populism. People who are more ethnocentric usually tend to be more xenophobic with the intent to position one idea against others and to make it clear the correlation between the same and democratic system of governance. There is, however, more likelihood that a more populist system of governance is more likely to be an extremist.

Right-wing populism is gaining attention in the society because of the fact that it, in most cases, focuses on the negativity in political communications although there are times when political correctness and the major discourses prove to be the biggest enemies and friends of right-wing populists at the same time. In this relation, the movement usually focuses on the staging of the well-calculated provocations and scandals and breaking away from the laid down taboos in a population. It is in this manner that the intent of the movement greatly agrees with the needs of the media because it mostly focuses on highlighting challenges in the society such as the market demand. Spain and France are European countries that have different academic, cultural and social framework which lead to lack of right-wing populism while the other person does not conform to the same ideology.

Right-wing populism attracts different meanings in different countries and efforts to classify right-wing populism into one political family has proven to be difficult. Such is because political analysts differ on whether there is existence of a meaningful category or there is a cluster of categories. The challenge of categorization of right-wing populism is due to the differences in political ideologies, leadership rhetoric and organization of political parties. The right-wing populism differ from the traditional parties because they lack common ideas and agendas and do not employ the use of similar terms to describe themselves. One similarity that the right-wing parties share is that they are more right-wing as opposed to the other political parties that exist on the left-right axis. It a matter of great importance to appreciate the fact that experts and political analysts use right-wing populism in various ways where other researcher tend to make it mean a radical right. To help in understanding division of the right-wing parties, there is the need to divide them into two which are traditional right-wing parties and the post-industrial parties. The former is resulted from the historical right whereas the latter are those that had independent development. Division of both is a way of understanding the origin of both and examining their roles separately.

Background

The modern society and the current political settings do not give much thought on the meaning of right-wing populism and political ideologies associated with the same. Much confusion arises when there is need to define populism and right-wing populism, this is because the former appeal to the representation of the general interests while the latter represents the interests of a certain group of people. It is in this regard that it is proven that the occasional use of strategies does not necessarily make a party to be populist. Political analysts claim that parties that use such strategies are better called opportunists. Moreover, consistent ideology is not the primary reason, or the most important factor that makes a party populist and which determines its success. With regards to political positions, the right wing political parties are mostly considered to be more flexible more than the programmatic parties because the main determining factor as to whether a party is populist is the placement of the corrupt, political class, elite people that are only concerned about the bills of a populist party. It is in this light that the populist parties are aligned towards promotion of democracy.

Additionally, the examination of the right-wing populism requires the analysis of antagonism of us versus them where there is a unique style of political communication of political agenda to the population. The right wing populism is seen to be promoting a culturally homogeneous people where it identifies itself with the people that have common identity and are mush focused toward promotion of the interests of the people. In this style of governance, the minorities in the group are mostly favored by the elites to help in bridging the gap between the rich and the poor. Besides, the right-wing populists use negativity in a strategic and tactical manner to aid political communication.

Tools that the right-wing populism use in their communication are such as the break of supposed taboos and disrespect of a formal and informal rules and emotional appeals and personal insults.

In the modern society, there have been recent cases of rise of right-wing populists and there is need to appreciate that the right-wing populists are not necessarily extremists and that extremists are not necessarily populists. However, there is a very high probability for the populists to become extremists because extremists lend themselves to populists. In this light, if the conception of the people is more ethno-centric, there is high likelihood that the population tends to have a more xenophobic positioning against other communities. Furthermore, if a party is more focused on overthrowing a democratic governance, there is high likelihood of a right-wing populist party to be an extremist. Right-wing populist parties in Europe are increasingly becoming extremists and this is also apparent in their pragmatic flexibility. Right-wing populism in Europe is largely evident in the France where the party the Front National leads in championing the right-wing populism ideals. The party has been evidently spreading right-wing extremist ideas which are composed of anti-Semitic elements, another evidence is that the party greatly receives support from the middle class, from small businessmen and farmers due to the neo-liberal economic positions that relate to the social Darwinism.

The Front National (FN) has had a number of successes in the electoral processes and some are evident in the elections in the European Parliament in the presidential race of the year 2002. The current president of the party, who is also Le Pens daughter, Marine Le Pen has recently been making efforts to de-demonize the party with the view of expanding partys base. The normalization process not only involved ousting of the long term party leader and his radical followers but also led to a shift from the antisemitism to an anti-immigrant, islamophobic position. The same also led to a shift from economic liberalism to the protection of the French people to from globalization and the main backbone of the Front National programs are anti-EU nationalism and anti-elitism. It is evident that the party has strongly grown and there has been a shift in the supporters of the party where the current support bases comprises of the white working class and the unemployed. It is factual that such a component of the population comprises the biggest percentage of the population and this makes the party to enjoy a wide support in the society. The growing support of the party is due to its focus on the right-wing populism which has made it to become the third strongest party in France. The party only failed to gain seats on the second round of regional elections because of the republican alliances, however, with the wide support that it enjoys currently, it is expected that the party leader, Marine Le Pen would proceed to second round of the next presidential election.

It is evident that the spread of right-wing populism in France is unstoppable and this is due to the policies that relevant parties champion. However, there are various differences that promote right-wing populism in France and which do not exist in Spain, and such are the causal agents of differe...