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A Comparative Case Study of Lega Nord and Podemos Voters

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A Comparative Case Study of Lega Nord and Podemos Voters A comparative case study of Lega Nord and Podemos voters Voter attitudes of Left- and Right-Wing Populism in South- ern Europe Cem Tarhan Supervisor: Thomas Persson Bachelor Thesis, 15 Credits Field of Study: Political Science Department of Government Spring 2020 Pages: 38 Words: 11437 Abstract As populism in Europe is on the rise there are two sides of populism contesting to make an impact on their societies. In connection with existing research, this study is focusing on the most prominent left-wing populist party in Spain, Podemos, and the most prominent right-wing populist party in Italy, Lega Nord, and examines differ- ences in their voters’ attitudes regarding a couple of crucial indicators of populism. The study is influenced by a previous study that examined the attitudes of left-wing and right-wing voters. The main distinction between this previous study and the cur- rent one is that my study also includes voters from the Spanish left-wing party Po- demos, which was not included in the previous research. The result of my study show that Podemos voters are more positive towards the EU and towards immigra- tion in difference to Lega Nord voters, whereas they have comparable attitudes to- wards material deprivation and elitism. Key words: Populism, Left-wing populism, Right-wing populism, Attitudes, Voters, Podemos, Lega Nord Abbreviations RWP Right-Wing Populism LWP Left-Wing Populism LN Lega Nord WWII World War 2 EU European Union ESS European Social Survey SPSS Statistical analysis software Table of content 1.Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 A Brief Background ........................................................................................ 1 1.2 The Purpose of the Study .............................................................................. 2 1.3 Outline ........................................................................................................... 4 2. Theoretical framework and previous research ........................................................ 5 2.1 Populism ........................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Left-Wing Populism .......................................................................................... 8 2.3 Right-Wing Populism ...................................................................................... 10 2.4 RWP in Italy: Lega Nord ................................................................................. 13 2.5 LWP in Spain: Podemos ................................................................................. 16 2.6 Demands from Populist Voters ....................................................................... 18 3. Methodology and research design ........................................................................ 22 3.1 The choice of method and data material ........................................................ 22 3.2 Delimitations ................................................................................................... 23 3.3 Operationalization and Selection of variables ................................................. 23 3.4 Regression Model........................................................................................... 25 4. Results and analysis ........................................................................................... 26 4.1 Descriptive table ............................................................................................. 26 4.2 Descriptive results and analysis ..................................................................... 27 4.3 Regression results and analysis ..................................................................... 29 5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 31 6. References ........................................................................................................... 33 7. Appendix ............................................................................................................... 35 1.Introduction 1.1 A Brief Background Populism is on the rise in Europe and has increased tremendously since 2007 with an estimated national vote for populist parties in European countries from around 7% to more than 25% today, according to a research presented by The Guardian in 2018 conducted by the help of several prominent researchers and in partnership with Mat- thijs Rooduijn, a known political scientist from the University of Amsterdam.12 The term populism has been defined by many reputed researchers such as Cas Mudde or Jan-Werner Muller, but the term lacks consensus in the academic community, just like the term democracy. But in most cases populism is presented as an opinion ac- cording to which ‘’the people’’ stand against ‘’the elite’’.3 In general, populism is seen as a negative term, which is being described by most critics as an undermining force against democracy while other sees populism as an opportunity for the ‘’excluded minority’’. But in most cases, we tend to label the term populist to a politician which we do not prefer.4 However, in the case of European populism we can see something interesting going on. The rise of populism in Europe is both on the left-wing side as well as on the right- wing. For instance, in Southern Europe such as Italy the far-right Populist Party Lega Nord has been dominating the political scene, while on the western side of the Medi- terranean Sea in Spain the left-wing populist party, Podemos, has been most success- ful. Podemos was created in early 2014, right before the European Parliament elections and made an unanticipated impact on the Spanish traditional two-party system, and 1 How populism emerged as an electoral force in Europe, Jon Henley 2018 (accessed 2020-05-19) https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2018/nov/20/how-populism-emerged-as-electoral- force-in-europe 2 https://www.uva.nl/en/shared-content/faculteiten/en/faculteit-der-maatschappij-en-gedragswetenschappen/news/2018/11/uva- researchers-contribute-to-the-guardian-series-on-populism.html (accessed 2020-05-19) 3 The Populist Zeitgeist, Mudde Cas 2004, pp 543 4 Mudde, Cas, and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, eds. Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or corrective for democracy? Cambridge University Press, 2012. pp. 1 1 won 1.3 million votes in the elections which ultimately gave them a foothold in the European Parliament with five seats. Later on, in 2015 the unexpected success hap- pened for Podemos as they managed to end the two-party system through which PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol) and PP (Partido Popular) ruled in Spain, which had been preserved since the re-establishment of democracy in 1977.5 In the case of Lega Nord, which was established in 1991, they managed to regain success after not having the same success in previous elections prior to 2008. The general election in 2008 improved their position in Italian politics and additionally in 2009 during the European elections, they reached the highest share of national votes with 10.2 percent.6 1.2 The Purpose of the Study The main objective of this study is to empirically test and present explanations of dif- ferences in the attitudes of the voters of Podemos and Lega Nord, which belongs to the left- and right-wing spectrum in the two political systems of Italy and Spain. Both parties have been very successful in attracting dissatisfied voters in their respective countries. The reason why I want to study these two parties is because they are among the most successful parties in their countries and therefore makes it interesting to com- pare them. The two parties belong to two countries which can be considered as quite similar when it comes to geographic location, economic situation, social culture, religion etc. The important thing to note is that the comparison is not involved on a national level be- tween the two countries, but between two parties that are associated with populism and are opposite to each other on the ideological scale. Although some scholars say that it is not useful to distinguish between left- and right- wing populism, there are indeed many scholars such as Rooduijin and Akkerman that 5 Lluis Orriols & Guillermo Cordero (2016) The Breakdown of the Spanish TwoParty System: The Upsurge of Podemos and Ciudadanos in the 2015 General Election, South European Society and Politics, 21:4, 469-470 6 Daniele Albertazzi & Duncan McDonnell (2010) The Lega Nord Back in Government, West European Politics, 33:6, 1320 2 argues that the left and right-wing populist parties do not differ significantly from each other when it comes to their populism and that they have the same message which is that the corrupt elite neglects the interest of ordinary people.7 Other researchers like Robert A. Huber and Christian H. Schimpf also emphasizes that there is some differ- ences with regards to political inclusion between the left- and right-wing populism, but that they share similarities in their ideas of political contestation and control of power. In short, many scholars have taken on the task to compare differences between left- and right-wing populists and therefore this gives me the motivation to take on this study between the differences of Podemos and Lega Nord voters which belongs to left- and right-wing populist parties.8 The analysis will be mostly based on a recent study presented by José Rama and Andrés
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