Giovanna Campani – författare

The results of the last European Elections of 2014 confirmed the rise of right and far right ''populist'' parties across the EU. The success of a range of parties, such as Denmark’s Dansk Folskeparti, Slovenia’s Slovenska demokratska stranka, France’s Front National, Greece’s Golden Dawn, the United Kingdom Independence Party, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy and the Austrian FPÖ, has been perceived as a political wave which is transforming the face of the European Parliament, and challenging at some level the hegemony of the ''big four'' well-established European political forces that lead the Strasbourg’s assembly: the ALDE, EPP, S&D and Greens/ALE.

This international volume combines extensive transnational comparative data analysis, as well as research at discursive, attitudinal and behavioural levels.

During the European elections of 2014, one of the main issues raised by the media was the electoral performance of so called ‘populist parties’. The electorate confirmed its deep dissatisfaction with mainstream political parties, voting for far right parties in parliamentary elections in Northern Europe (Austria, Denmark, Sweden), Eastern Europe (Hungary, where the deeply anti-Semitic Jobbik party gained votes) and in France (where the French National Front won about a quarter of the vote), while in the Southern European countries, battered by austerity policies, it was the radical right and left in Greece (Golden Dawn and Syriza) and the radical left in Spain (Podemos) that obtained excellent scores.

This book examines the growing trend towards far and extreme right populism that has emerged prominently in Northern (Finland), Western (Austria, Denmark, France, the UK), Southern (Greece, Italy) and Central/Eastern Europe (Slovenia, Bulgaria) since the 1990s. Providing a critical understanding of current European trends and analysing the complex phenomena covered by the notion of populism, this book will be of interest to students and scholars researching right-wing politics, as well as European politics more generally.