‘In Europe, extreme right-wing parties only do well when they are headed by a charismatic party leader'. Discuss with reference to extreme right-wing parties in two or more countries.

Résumé du document

In this essay, I will be referring to extreme right-wing parties and will widen my analysis to populist right-wing parties which often share similar aspects with the former ones (except they don't relate to an ideology for example). I will focus on three countries (France, Austria and The Netherlands) but I will also refer more broadly to other cases.

Extraits

[...] (1999) Single-Issue Party Thesis: Extreme Right Parties and the Immigration Issue', West European Politics, vol no - Fennema, M. (1997) ‘Some Conceptual Issues and Problems in the Comparison of Anti-immigrant Parties in Western Europe', Party Politics, vol no - Pedahzur, Ami Brichta, Avraham (2002) institutionalization of extreme right-wing charismatic parties : a paradox ?' Party Politics, Vol no.1, pp.31-49 - Courrier International, ‘PAYS-BAS : Un peuple déboussolé', 23/05/2002, no - Courrier International, populistes : Des xénophobes à la conquête de l'Europe', 04/12/2003, no - Van den Brink, Rinke (1995) la conquête du prolétariat Européen, menaçantes percées de l'extrême droite', le Monde diplomatique, December http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1995/12/VAN_DEN_BRINK/2081 - ‘L' Europe d'extrême(s) droite(s)', Interview with Pascal Perrineau, in Le Nouvel Observateur, 13/06/2002 - n°1962, special feature on the extreme- right http://www.nouvelobs.com/dossiers/p1962/a19338.html Samoobrana : Self defence President of Romania Mare Pedahzur, Ami Brichta, Avraham (2002) institutionalization of extreme right-wing charismatic parties : a paradox ?' Party Politics, Vol no.1, p quoting Morrow (2000) Van Holsteyn, J. [...]

[...] Then, in a second part, I will try to qualify this notion of charisma which (in my opinion) relates back to the pragmatic image of a strong man capable of resolving people's problems rather than to a simple power of fascination on the electorate. This could mean that there may be deeper roots (social demands, concrete issues), and therefore other determining factors than charisma, explaining peoples' votes. First of all, it is striking to notice that extreme right-wing political parties which obtain good electoral results, are all, without exception, headed by a charismatic leader. Charisma therefore seems to play a crucial role as it obviously has a major influence on voters' choices. [...]

[...] The fact that parties are headed by charismatic leaders shouldn't be considered as the major determining factor explaining why they do well in election times. In my opinion, the notion of charisma undestood as a power of fascination on the electorate, has only a small limited impact on election results. The image of a popular leader is certainly not sufficient to explain why a party obtains good results. Talents as orator and confident bearing may contribute to it but cannot be considered as the major factors for success. [...]

[...] On the other hand, what happens precisely to extreme right-wing political parties which are not headed by a charismatic leader ? There again, the correlation between charisma and electoral success seems to be confirmed. According to Widfeldt[7] (2000) the extreme weakness of the Swedish and Finnish Far Rights is due to the lack of appeal of their leaders (Vistbacka and Hakalehto). He believes that new charismatic leaders could easily take advantage of people's strong dissatisfaction, to come back on the political scene. [...]

[...] Europe, extreme right-wing parties only do well when they are headed by a charismatic party leader'. Discuss with reference to extreme right-wing parties in two or more countries For the last 20 years, the European political landscape has been characterized by a significant rise in extreme right-wing and populist parties. Their electoral successes have even lead some of them to hold public office. Each political party seems to be personified by a charismatic figure : Le Pen in France, Haider in Austria, Fortuyn in the Netherlands, Bossi in Italy. [...]