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but several different forms. They call this the “overall diversity of populism”
when they differentiate between right-wing and left-wing populisms. This is a
very important distinction, usually not made by other scholars, though both
the overgeneralisation of the term and its mixing up with far-right extremism
and post-fascism have been discussed elsewhere (Art 2020; Ziegler 2016).
Taggart and Pirro compare researches based on the 2019 European
Parliament elections and on the roles of populist parties in national political
systems. Their results show that “Europe has generally witnessed a growing
tide of support for populist parties in recent years” and that
[t]here have always been significant variations in the fortunes of populist parties
across the continent, but now they are almost ubiquitous and increasingly important
to many of their respective party systems and institutions of supranational governance.
(Taggart and Pirro 2021, 291-292)
In their research, they also find that populist parties performed best and
received the most votes in Central and Eastern Europe, but this does not mean
that in other countries populism would not be relevant. On the contrary,
“over one-third of European populist parties were in government at some
point in 2019”, which confirms “the trend that European populist parties have
moved from being insurgent parties to being potential and existing parties
of government” (Taggart-Pirro 2021, 289).
Right-wing populism seems to be stronger and the Europe-wide cooperation
(both in the European Parliament and at other levels) of these actors has
become now an everyday reality in European politics. However, they have
not managed to create a strong pan-European alliance so far. One possible
reason for this is that Euroscepticism is no longer commonly shared by right¬
wing populist parties.
Left-wing populism is less relevant at the European level, but these parties
can also gain significant popular support at the national level, especially in
Southern Europe, like in Greece (Syriza) or Spain (Podemos), even if “the
populist left has not made anything like the same electoral inroads of the
populist right into national party systems” (Taggart-Pirro 2021, 288).
Though the rise of populist parties is usually seen as a threat to democracy,
Marlene Mauk claims that
despite previous findings evidencing a negative relationship between populist party
support and political trust on the individual level, the electoral success of populist
parties may still increase political trust among the general public. It argued that
populist parties may be perceived as a corrective force finally giving voice to and
tackling concerns about the political system that had long been prevalent among
citizens. (Mauk 2020, 54)