The decline of anti-establishment parties in Greece, Italy and Spain

Abstract

After a stunning wave of gaining swathes of seats and percentages in national general and legislative elections and European elections, anti-establishment parties around Europe, one after another began to drop that support in a similar length of time that they gained it. From knocking on the doors of power and holding the key to the formation of governments in numerous European countries, these parties suddenly began to lose that kind of influence. This research zooms in on the cases of three southern EU member states and four anti-establishment parties within those countries – the Five Star Movement (Italy), Podemos (Spain), Syriza and Golden Dawn (both Greece). This research pieces together empirical observations and the common patterns with the literature of party support, public opinion and leadership to answer the question of what explains this decline for anti-establishment parties in these countries. In line with the bottom-up approach, this research combines the empirical observations in Greece, Italy and Spain with the theories relating to party support, public opinion and leadership to enable the presentation of two hypotheses – one arguing that political parties now come second behind the image of individual politicians (H1), and the other that anti-establishment parties lose support when their message no longer matches the public opinion concerns (H2). Through two detailed case studies examining the operations of the Five Star Movement and Golden Dawn, as well as two further case studies on public opinion in Greece and Italy, H1 is supported whereas H2 is disproven. The research question is, therefore, able to be answered by the phenomenon of politicians before political parties.