What’s left of the populist radical left? SYRIZA and Die Linke compared

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the discursive articulations of populism with egalitarianism in the parties of the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and the German The Left Party (Die Linke). I draw on tools of political discourse analysis and use a discursive-analytical perspective to develop an analytical framework for examining egalitarianism and populism as separate yet interconnected concepts in the examined cases. My data is drawn from speeches and interviews of each party’s leadership during the national and European Parliament elections from 2009 to 2019. The aim is to make an argument for the analytical utility of ‘the elite’ term and its importance within each party’s socio-political context to separate egalitarian from populist elements in each party’s discourse and offer a renewed understanding of the distinction between egalitarianism and populism as two concepts that are often conflated in radical left parties. The analysis showed that there was a distinction between egalitarian and populist discursive elements in both parties’ discourses, with each party employing them on different levels depending on their respective contexts.

Introduction

During the 2010s, many scholars used the term ‘populism’ to describe mainly European radical right parties and their role in the contemporary political landscape.¹ At the same time, the term was also used as an analytical tool for the examination of radical left parties that featured a form of ‘left-wing populism’.² The experiences of SYRIZA in Greece, Podemos in Spain and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the UK created significant literature on the importance of left-wing populism in the strategy of those actors³ and have advanced the academic understanding of populism’s role in European radical left parties.

Despite the academic endeavours to conceptualize left-wing populism in European radical left parties (RLPs), the latter have not received the same level of analysis as the respective radical right parties (RRPs). Indeed, while there have been studies that examine how populism and nationalism interconnect in RRPs and RLPs,⁴ a similar examination of how populism and the constitutive elements of a radical left identity exist in RLPs has been given minimal attention.⁵ As a direct result, most studies focusing on contemporary European RLPs have been conducted under the scope of examining left-wing populism,⁶ without further investigating how populism and the radical left aspects of RLPs, connect.

This paper aims to examine how populism is connected to the radical left elements in European RLPs based on the cases of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) in Greece and the Left Party (Die Linke) in Germany. The comparison between the two cases aims to address possible conflations that may exist between the radical left identity and populism and examine both as distinct yet interconnected concepts in the discourses of SYRIZA and Die Linke. To do so, the goal is to emphasize the role of ‘the elite’ in distinguishing the two concepts, as a notion that can offer more analytical clarity to the populism term, thus separating it from the radical left identity of each of the examined cases. The article will first offer an overview of the relevant literature that has focused on how SYRIZA and Die Linke have been regarded as left-wing populist parties in an almost uncritical manner that equates populism with the radical left. The following section will propose an analytical framework that will examine populism and the core element of radical left identity, egalitarianism as two separate yet interconnected phenomena in European RLPs. This section will be followed by the methodological framework which takes inspiration from Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s theoretical work on political discourse theory (PDT) and will be presented along with the empirical material of the examined cases. The next section will examine populist and egalitarian elements in the discourses of SYRIZA and Die Linke by looking at how the political subject (the people), the constitutive other (the elite) and the socio-political field are discursively articulated. Finally, the article will conclude by offering some lessons from examining populism and egalitarianism as two distinct yet interconnected terms in European RLPs.

Radical left parties as ‘populists’: surveying left-wing populism in SYRIZA and Die Linke

The issue of populism and its connection to the European radical left gained popularity during the 2010s as the most prominent cases of SYRIZA, Podemos and the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, prompted scholars to examine each actor’s variation of left-wing populism.⁷ A part of the literature on the multiple RLPs has often focused on exploring their populist aspect more than their radical left one and in some cases, the literature has leaned toward equating the radical as synonymous to populism.⁸ Two of the most exemplary cases in that part of the literature are SYRIZA and Die Linke who have often been described as left-wing populist parties but have not been extensively analysed on what part of them is populism and what is their radical left identity. Surprisingly, the academic discussion about populism in SYRIZA and Die Linke became prominent when both parties had significant electoral gains in their respective countries. Indirectly, this interest brought forth a question that has not been sufficiently answered: is the radical left inseparable from populism in studies that focus on the cases of SYRIZA and Die Linke?

The most prevalent example of a populist RLP is that of SYRIZA in Greece. Undeniably, the emergence of an RLP from a marginal political force to the main expression of the political left in Greece became the focus point of a discussion revolving around the connection between populism and radical left as a way to explain the party’s success. Indeed, the seminal journal article by Stavrakakis and Katsambekis⁹ on SYRIZA’s left-wing populism initiated a new understanding of the party as an actor that featured the core elements of populism- people-centrism and anti-elitism- with elements of the party’s radical left identity.¹⁰ As a result, the subsequent literature on SYRIZA explored aspects of this connection between populism and radical left elements in the party but without delving deep into a systematic analysis of how these concepts co-exist in SYRIZA and to what extent. Often enough, the overseeing of that connection has led to attributing populism as the only factor responsible for the party’s success in both academic and media circles,¹¹ leading to a semi-conflation between the two terms.

A similar conflation can also be found in the case of the German Die Linke. The emergence of a new radical left party in Germany during the late 2000s, sparked an academic interest that saw in Die Linke a mixture of populist and radical left elements and a possible challenger to the hegemony of the Social Democratic Party on the left side of the political spectrum.¹² The short-lived success of the party in the period between 2009 and 2011 led many scholars to brand Die Linke as a ‘populist’ party first and then as a radical left one,¹³ thus conflating populism and the radical left as one and the same. Like SYRIZA, the literature on Die Linke has focused on several aspects of the relationship between populism and radical left elements, either directly or indirectly,¹⁴ without providing an in-depth examination of distinguishing the two concepts and exploring their nuances in Die Linke.

Both cases show that the connection between populism and radical left elements in RLPs is not a clearly defined one and at times becomes indistinguishable to separate one from the other in terms of how ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ are signified. With this in mind, this paper proposes that a step towards understanding how populism and the radical left intertwine in RLPs is to highlight the importance of anti-elitism as the key factor to examine both concepts in a separate yet interconnected manner.

Separating populism and egalitarianism in the radical left: an analytical framework

To assess how populism and radical left elements are connected in the discourses of SYRIZA and Die Linke, it is important to offer a set of criteria that will allow the examination of both concepts on an equally analytical level. Despite its shortcomings,¹⁵ the discursive approach to populism is the most suitable one for the aims of the paper compared to the ideational approach for two reasons. The first is its ability to allow for a more intricate analysis of the relationship between populism and radical left elements in RLPs’ discourse. Considering the relevant studies on the examination of populism and nationalism in European RRPs,¹⁶ the discursive approach has proved that it can analyse populism and other concepts as two separate yet interconnected phenomena. The second lies within the discursive approach’s gradational understanding of populism. Instead of following the ideational approach’s binary perception of populism,¹⁷ the discursive approach allows the examination of populism on different levels and can determine the extent of it in the discourse of RLPs.¹⁸

The paper follows the Essex-School discursive approach to populism, focusing on two minimal criteria, people-centrism and anti-elitism.¹⁹ The first refers to the examination of ‘the people’ as the main point of reference in the discourse and the second to the discursive articulation of the socio-political field as divided between ‘the people’ (the many, the underdog) and ‘the elite’ (the establishment, the 1%).²⁰ The use of the two minimal criteria can also be regarded as the most suited for conducting empirical comparative research as their application does not require additional elements that can be found in various definitions of populism.²¹ In this sense, the comparative examination of two cases that originate from different socio-political contexts such as the Greek SYRIZA and the German Die Linke can offer the best possible results of how and to what extent is populism evident in each party’s discourse and how it connects with the radical left aspect of those parties.

To examine each party’s discourse on the same level and in accordance with the discursive approach to populism, a similar approach must be taken for conceptualizing and utilizing the notion of the ‘radical left’ from a discursive perspective. The accounts of what constitutes the ideological core of the radical left have all leaned towards the prominent position of egalitarianism as the main component of that core that is different from traditional social-democratic perceptions as well as traditional communist ones.²² In this context, the centrality of egalitarianism in the form of ‘equality’ on the radical left signifies the support and promotion of an egalitarian perception towards society and politics that is contrasted against the hierarchical understanding of right-wing politics.²³ In contemporary European RLPs, the focus on equality takes predominantly the form of economic inequality that defines existing social and political arrangements and is accompanied by an anti-capitalist and/or anti-neoliberal criticism, and the demand for significant change to the existing liberal democratic institutions.²⁴ Within this context, RLPs advocate against inequalities in the area of social and political rights and a fairer treatment towards those who have been visibly excluded from the public domain (immigrants, unemployed, minorities, etc.), to bridge these inequalities in all aspects of economic, social and political life.

To re-interpret egalitarianism through a discursive approach and to offer an operational version for the comparative examination of SYRIZA’s and Die Linke’s discourses, a conceptual framework is needed to establish the differentiating criteria between populism and egalitarianism A first step towards that distinction is to separate the different meanings of the political subject in each concept or to put it in simpler words, understand how ‘the people’ are defined in a discourse. In the case of populism, the main point of reference is ‘the people’ which acts as an empty signifier and represents multiple social demands and social groups.²⁵ Similarly, the centrality of ‘the people’ is also seen in the radical left populism concept which incorporates inclusivity and egalitarianism²⁶ but there has not been a distinguishing factor that would separate and highlight the populist and the egalitarian aspects of ‘the people’. This creates a certain level of difficulty in defining the political subject to which egalitarianism refers. Normally, the main referent would be ‘the working class’ as RLPs belong to the broader left family that traditionally uses the working class as their main political subject capable of social and political change with ‘equality’ at its centre and which has been evident in traditional communist parties and traditional social-democratic parties.²⁷ In the case of RLPs though, a more contemporary perception of the working class should be considered as its political subject, since the decline of the traditional working class in previous decades²⁸ has led to the emergence of a new working class with different characteristics. For this reason, the conceptualization of ‘the working people’ as the political subject that can correct economic inequality in the context of the radical left will be used and it will adhere to contemporary interpretations of ‘the working class’ notion, including the so-called ‘precariat’.²⁹ With that as the main goal of egalitarianism’s political subject, the broader categorization of the ‘working people’ includes the working class and extends to ‘the youth’, ‘intellectuals’, ‘laborers’ and wage earners,³⁰ defining the political subject in economic terms and differentiating it from the populist conceptualization of ‘the people’, which prioritizes its political aspect.

While populism pits ‘the elite’ against ‘the people’ in an antagonistic relationship that divides the socio-political field, the respective perception in a discursive approach to egalitarianism will be based on those between ‘the working people’, or the forces of labour and those who do not belong to it. As RLPs emphasize the struggle between the forces of labour and the capitalist economic system and its representatives,³¹ an egalitarian discourse is focused on the antagonism between ‘the working people’, as the representation of the forces of labour against the political and economic forces that represent the capitalist and/or neoliberal economic system which is responsible for the growing socio-economic inequalities on the national and supranational level. Hence, the articulation of ‘the elite’ in egalitarianism is intrinsically connected to the various forms that the capitalist/neoliberal economic system can take which is represented through institutions, politicians, parties and major economic interests. In terms of spatial discursive architectonics,³² this antagonism takes a down/up dimension that is different from the respective one in populism,³³ as populism sees the socio-political field as vertically divided between ‘the underdog’ and ‘the elite’ or ‘the establishment’, and egalitarianism perceives the socio-political field as a contemporary form of class struggle between working people and the higher socio-economic class that represents the capitalist/neoliberal economic system. While the distinction between populism and egalitarianism in RLPs seems less evident in spatial terms, an egalitarian discourse stresses the inequality that exists in economic relations as the primary element of antagonism between the working people and the capitalist/neoliberal system, where the political aspect of the said antagonism comes in as a secondary dimension and is the product of economic inequality. This aspect includes the emphasis on social and political inequality and how certain groups of ‘the working people’ are excluded from areas of social and political life. Based on this distinction, the proposed analytical framework for studying populism and egalitarianism as two separate yet interconnected phenomena takes the form presented in Table 1:

Table 1. Egalitarianism-populism analytical framework.

Formal Criterion	Egalitarianism	Populism
Nodal point of chain of equivalence and claim to represent	The working people and/or the people-as working class	The people-as underdog
Subject position offered	Forces of Labor (wage earners, precariat, working class, small-business owners, etc.)	Members of ‘the people’
Constitutive other to the creation of chain of equivalence	Members/representatives of the capitalist/neoliberal economic system	The elite/establishment
Spatial orientation between nodal point and constitutive other(s)	Vertical: Down/Up (class struggle defined by economic relations)	Vertical: Down/Up (hierarchy, power, recognition, incorporation, socio-economic and/or socio-cultural position)

The presented table offers the analytical framework that will be used for the examination of populism and egalitarianism in the discourses of SYRIZA and Die Linke. Understandably, some of the notions entailed in the table may sound unfamiliar. It is for this reason that the following section will present the preferred method of analysis, that of Political Discourse Theory (PDT) as pioneered by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe.

Using political discourse theory for the examination of populism and egalitarianism in radical left parties

Political discourse theory

To address the research questions and effectively apply the analytical framework for populism and egalitarianism in SYRIZA and Die Linke, this paper will use a discursive analytical approach based on the theory of Laclau and Mouffe.³⁴ Drawing from the Wittgensteinian ‘language games’ where language is used to describe notions and actions,³⁵ PDT understands discourse as a way of interpreting the world through different bits of information and their articulation into coherent stories.³⁶ In this context, discourse is a ‘system of meaningful practices that form identities of subjects and objects’ (and a way of perceiving and changing the social reality and the political reality which are seen as intrinsically connected.³⁷ To do so, PDT focuses on mapping, capturing and examining the mechanisms that partially fix the identity of objects and subjects in an antagonistic environment through discursive articulation.³⁸

Laclau and Mouffe’s theory offers specific discursive analytical tools that allow an in-depth examination of party discourses as constructions that consist of different parts.³⁹ The first tool in this regard is the notion of ‘demand’ as the discursive representation of different social and political struggles in society.⁴⁰ When these demands become more simplified because they remain unaddressed, then the logic of equivalence permeates the discourse and creates an equivalential chain among the demands that simplifies the political space.⁴¹ As the discourse takes a certain form (including articulating the demands), it also acquires specific meaning and limitations, which take place through the main points of reference in the discourse that are called ‘nodal points’⁠.⁴² When the meaning of the nodal points becomes contested and can acquire multiple interpretations then the nodal point becomes an ‘empty signifier’ or a ‘signifier without a signified’ that provides the discourse with a temporary meaning.⁴³

Populism, egalitarianism and applying discourse analysis

The often-criticized methodological tools and abstract understanding of the populism concept in the discursive approach⁴⁴ have been addressed by a portion of scholars who created an operational methodological framework for the study of populism and its connection to other concepts.⁴⁵ The said methodological framework studies populist discourses through two minimal criteria: people-centrism and anti-elitism⁴⁶ and adheres to a gradational perception of the concept of populism⁠.⁴⁷ The framework first examines if ‘the people’ have a central position in a discourse and if they act as the representation of multiple social demands and secondly, how the socio-political field is articulated in the discourse as a juxtaposition between two opposing camps, ‘us’ and ‘them’. The latter will also allow the examination of how ‘the elite’ is articulated and how its analysis can determine the extent of populism and egalitarianism in each case’s discourse.

Research design and case selection

Within the suggested theoretical and methodological framework, I will proceed into analysing how ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ are articulated in the discourses of SYRIZA and Die Linke. The main goal is to determine how and to what extent populist and egalitarian elements intertwine in the articulations of ‘the people’, ‘the elite’ and the socio-political antagonism between them, using the analytical framework that was presented above on the cases of SYRIZA and Die Linke. By employing the minimal criteria of the populism concept, the paper will examine the following research questions: (1) how are ‘the people’ signified and what position do they hold in each party’s discourse? (2) how does each party articulate the socio-political field in its discourse and how is ‘the elite’ signified? These questions also address issues that are pertinent to the examination of populism and egalitarianism in SYRIZA and Die Linke, such as the centrality of ‘the people’ in each discourse, the importance of ‘the elite’ as a distinguishing factor for both concepts and if each of the discourses are predominantly defined as populist or egalitarian.

The choice to examine the connection between populism and egalitarianism in two dissimilar parties such as SYRIZA and Die Linke is based on the paper’s aim to offer a comparative perspective in the study of populism in European RLPs. For this reason, the preferable research design for examining the discourse of SYRIZA and Die Linke will be based on the most dissimilar or most different systems design or MDSD.⁴⁸ The purpose of using this design is to acknowledge the dissimilarities that exist between the examined cases and benefit from it exploring how populism and egalitarianism exist in contemporary European RLPs.⁴⁹ Aside from the fact that SYRIZA and Die Linke belong to different socio-political contexts and have different trajectories, both parties feature certain elements that make their comparison more justifiable for the purposes of the paper. The first is that both parties have been classified as members of the radical left party family and have been analysed as such.⁵⁰ The second is that SYRIZA and Die Linke are the most prominent RLPs in their respective countries and have featured moderate to very successful electoral results. This not only shows that both parties had a considerable number of supporters in the period between 2009 and 2019 but also that they created ties with their respective societies, making the examination of notions such as ‘the people’ or ‘the elite’ easier as part of each party’s strategy to address demands and appeal to the electorate.

The data of analysis include the discourses that each party developed during their national elections and during the European Parliament elections between 2009 and 2019. The choice of focusing on the discourse that is articulated during the two different elections is based on the importance of the latter for political contestation and debate in the public sphere. The elections on the national and the supranational level constitute moments where issues of political identity, popular and national sovereignty and blame attribution towards political and economic elites become more prevalent than in a non-electoral period, where parties tend to focus more on policies, parliamentary voting, and criticism towards the government. At the same time, the discourse that is articulated in both types of elections is examined combined. A comparison between the similarities and differences of the discourses that each party developed on the national and the European Parliament elections would require a deeper level of analysis that exceeds the aims and scope of the paper. Instead, the paper opts to offer an overview of each party’s discourse and allow for more in-depth analysis in future research. The material that is used consists of each party’s manifesto for each election, three speeches by the party leadership, and two interviews in media outlets also by each party’s leadership. The reason for choosing the material is based on the fact that it acts as a representative sample of the discourse that each party produces since the inclusion of the entire electoral period discourse for each party would exceed the limitations of this paper. Table 2 shows the number of examined documents that were used for the analysis:

Table 2. Number of Examined Documents.

Documents	SYRIZA	Die Linke
Total Number of Manifestos	9	6
Total Number of Speeches	27	18
Total Number of Interviews	18	12
Total Number of Documents per party	54	36

Examining ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ between populism and egalitarianism

The paper’s aim for the analysis of SYRIZA’s and Die Linke’s discourses is two-fold: first, to examine how the political subject is articulated in the discourse combining populist and egalitarian discursive elements, and second to analyse how the constitutive other is also constructed on an equally analytical level, leading to a dichotomized perception of the socio-political field. Regarding the first aim, the purpose is to clarify if the political subject has a central role in each case’s discourse and whether its meaning is primarily populist or egalitarian. On the second aim, the purpose is to explore the same aspects in the constitutive other and present how its signification can be the distinguishing factor to define the discourse of each party as primarily a populist or an egalitarian one.

SYRIZA and the dislocation of the party system in Greece: shifting from radical left to center-left through populism

SYRIZA was founded in 2004, as an electoral alliance among political forces that ranged from the centre-left to extra-parliamentary social and political forces⁵¹ with the purpose to act as the noncommunist left-wing alternative to the then bipartisan system, consisted of the centre-left PASOK and centre-right New Democracy, and address social groups that were feeling disconnected from the two major parties.⁵² When the Greek debt crisis erupted, SYRIZA gradually gained the trust of the Greek electorate by positioning itself against the Memorandum of Agreement (MoM) between the Greek government and EU institutions, which included structural reforms in the Greek economic system and the implementation of austerity measures. SYRIZA became the main force of the anti-Memorandum camp in Greece and created broad social alliances that included social movements, solidarity networks, and detached voters who were feeling betrayed by the two major parties.⁵³ SYRIZA presented itself as a viable option for many voters, who were attracted to the party by its anti-austerity stance, and its promise to restore democratic popular will. These factors led the party to power in 2015, when it formed a coalition government with the radical right-wing party of Independent Greeks (ANEL), based on their mutual anti-Memorandum stance.⁵⁴ After the SYRIZA-ANEL government failed to renegotiate the terms of the Memorandum, the two parties formed a new coalition government in September 2015 that stayed in power until early 2019 when ANEL left the coalition. SYRIZA’s tenure in power came to an end in July 2019, when the party lost the legislative election to New Democracy.⁵⁵

SYRIZA’s trajectory from a marginal RLP to government power was also evident in how the discourse of the party shifted from articulating its political subject and constitutive other amidst the Greek debt crisis. In 2009, SYRIZA spoke about the ‘needs and benefits of the many against the privileged few’, and how ‘workers’, ‘small-business owners’, ‘the unemployed’ and ‘the underprivileged’ were part of SYRIZA’s ‘identity’.⁵⁶ By doing so, the party aimed to represent mainly demands that can be described as part of its egalitarian agenda: social and working rights, environmental demands, and more broadly, demands of wage earners and lower social classes that were not satisfied by the major parties of PASOK and ND. The party also wanted to distinguish itself from the established bipartisan system and present itself as the political formation capable of representing the demands of ‘the many’ against those of ‘the few’. In SYRIZA’s discourse, the latter included the government of ND, PASOK, bankers, and major business interests who promoted ‘financial gambling’, ‘glorified financial markets’ and addressed the Eurozone crisis with ‘more neoliberalism, more inequalities and more poverty’.⁵⁷ While this articulation between ‘the many’ and the ‘few’ may seem a populist one, SYRIZA’s signification of ‘the many’ appears to be connected with a particular form of ‘the working people’, since ‘the many’ are primarily defined in economic terms (unemployed, wage-earners, small-business owners, etc.) and are the victims of economic, social and political inequalities. It is only on a secondary level that the populist understanding of ‘the many’ takes place in the form of ‘the people-as underdog’ since SYRIZA articulated their demands against an unresponsive bipartisan system (underprivileged). As with ‘the many’, ‘the few’ are also articulated primarily in egalitarian terms as the amalgamation of various domestic and European actors that share the fact that they represent the neoliberal economic system. Actors such as ND, PASOK, bankers etc. are part of an economic model that leads to the impoverishment of social classes, including workers, the unemployed and the underprivileged, and broadens the gap of economic inequality. ‘the few’ are signified as an illegitimate elite only on a secondary level, since in SYRIZA’s discourse they come to represent an established economic and political system that acts against the demands of ‘the many’.

The effects of the Greek debt crisis (2010–2015), prompted SYRIZA to articulate its discourse differently. The party perceived the crisis as the time were ‘the elite’ ‘decided for all of us, without us’ and that it was ‘the time for all of us, the many, the Greek people, for Greece itself to carry on without them’.⁵⁸ Tsipras’ reference to ‘the people’ is exemplary of how SYRIZA articulated the demands of those who were the victims of ‘the Memoranda policies’⁵⁹ and ranged from pensioners, and unemployed to social movements, and solidarity networks. SYRIZA came to express the ‘great majority, the 99% against the 1% of the big economic interests and of plutocracy’,⁶⁰ against the political establishment and ‘their clientelist state, their media owners, the state-supported bankers’ who serve ‘the Memorandum and the creditors’.⁶¹ SYRIZA articulated ‘the people’ as an empty signifier that represented various popular demands such as economic stability, popular sovereignty and social justice that had one thing in common: the fact that the established bipartisan system didn’t meet them. The formulation of ‘the people’ as a popular subject became possible when these demands were permeated by the logic of equivalence which connected and simplified them on the basis that they are not answered. According to the examined data and the socio-political context, these demands not only covered both material (economic stability) and immaterial (democracy, popular sovereignty, etc.) aspects but allowed for ‘the people’ to act as the representation of these demands. Against them, SYRIZA articulated the ‘Memorandum’ that acted as the populist understanding of ‘the elite’. Indeed, ‘the Memorandum’ had a central place in constructing the constitutive other, as it brought together economic and political actors who opposed ‘the people’ and their demands. Articulated as such, ‘the Memorandum’ represented a chain of equivalence that linked PASOK, ND and supranational organizations (IMF, ECB, EU) with austerity measures and fiscal reforms, signifying the broader power bloc in Greece that was dominant at the time and wanted to implement its power through austerity politics. This articulation is also evident of how SYRIZA’s discourse was predominantly defined as a populist one with the party’s egalitarian elements being articulated on a secondary level and incorporated within the party’s broader populist understanding of the socio-political field. These elements can be found in the demands that focus on improving economic conditions and bridging existing inequalities mainly at the economic and social level.

In 2019, and having completed the austerity programme, SYRIZA attempted to reconnect with its electorate in the post-crisis context. Tsipras stated that his government’s plan was to ‘serve the interests of the many’, represent the demands of ‘the great social majority’ and lead Greece out of economic supervision and ‘the Memoranda’.⁶² Nevertheless, the party acknowledged that there were political and economic forces that wanted more austerity and a return to the old establishment’s practices. One of these forces was ND, which was described as responsible for ‘bankrupting the country’ and that it was the people’s choice not to lead the country again ‘into the hands of an ultra-conservative, corrupt elite’ that was represented by ND and challenged the very notion of ‘legitimacy’.⁶³ The party spoke once again on behalf of ‘the many’, ‘the people’ or ‘the great social majority’, similarly to its discourse before 2015. While the use of populist elements overshadowed egalitarian elements in this articulation, the peculiarity of the political subject’s formation laid in the met and unmet demands that are represented by ‘the people’.⁶⁴ The latter acted as an empty signifier that brought together both demands that have been fulfilled by SYRIZA’s implemented policies⁶⁵ and a new set of demands that need to be fulfilled such as political, constitutional and economic reforms that were as traits of the party’s egalitarianism and its transformation from an identity characteristic to a policy agenda. This peculiarity also can be found in the party’s perception of the socio-political field as divided into two camps: ‘the many’ against ‘the few’, ‘‘the new’ against ‘the old’, and SYRIZA against ND. The party of ND acted as an empty signifier that represented the old political establishment that wanted to bring Greece back to the period before 2015, with further Memoranda, more austerity measures and more political and economic backwardness, an era that had seemingly ended for SYRIZA. While the influence of the governmental experience is notable, SYRIZA’s discourse showed that it primarily employed populist elements (many- few, new-old) to construct the political subject, the constitutive other and the socio-political field during the national and European Parliament elections of 2019.

Die Linke and the gradual erosion of the German party system: economic demands, the working class and populism in Germany during the 2010s

The Left Party (Die Linke) was the product of the union between the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (WASG) that joined forces in 2005.⁶⁶ The party promoted an agenda that combined democratic socialist values, an office-seeking strategy, and criticism towards neoliberalism and the social market economic model of Germany, bringing together different groups from the marginal far-left to social democracy.⁶⁷ Despite its initial electoral breakthrough in 2009, the party’s appeal declined and the impact of the refugee crisis accentuated the differences within Die Linke between hardliners and progressives on the issue of asylum-seeking policy.⁶⁸ These differences persisted and were partially the cause for Die Linke’s result in the European Parliament election of 2019, where the party gained 5.5% of the vote.⁶⁹

Die Linke’s discourse featured a greater level of consistency in its articulation from 2009 to 2019. In 2009 the party talked about ‘the workers, the pensioners, the socially deprived, the small and medium-sized enterprises’ who were the victims of the economic crisis and advocated ‘for social justice, the interests of wage-earners and the equal participation to politics and the economy of those excluded and rejected by capitalism’.⁷⁰ With the Eurozone crisis affecting more and more countries, Die Linke acknowledged that the profound ‘high concentration of capital in large corporations and banks’ was responsible for the crisis and that the Merkel government was only making it worse since it served the ‘logic of neoliberal financial capitalism’.⁷¹ As the refugee crisis started to impact the German party system, the party talked about how the growing gap between the rich and the poor ‘caused stress and uncertainty for the everyday lives of many people’ and how it supported the ‘lower and middle incomes, the employees and the economically insecure’ for an inclusive ‘solidarity-based immigration society’.⁷² Blame was once again attributed to Merkel’s government and the EU who leaned toward the ‘direction of authoritarian capitalism’ and was the center stage between those who were ‘below’ and were hit by austerity and those from ‘above’ who were profiteering from the crisis.⁷³ The latter were aided by the federal government which prioritized the ‘trust of the markets and not that of the citizens’ and an EU that advocated for profit and corporate interests.⁷⁴

Die Linke’s discourse shows that the articulation of the political subject, the constitutive other, and the socio-political field happened on different terms than that of SYRIZA’s. Throughout the 2009–2019 period, Die Linke highlighted the issue of economic inequality as the defining element that pertained to all other issues, such as the importance of the welfare state, environmentalism, social justice, and further democratization in the workplace and public life. For the party, the realization of economic demands (higher wages/pensions, lower economic inequality, etc.) would improve the working and living conditions of people and would reverse the democratic deficit and economic downturn in Germany and the EU. It was through the articulation of these demands that Die Linke understood the political subject primarily as ‘the working people’. The party claimed to represent specific social groups, based on their working or economic status (wage-earners, workers, etc.), including immigrants, to highlight the improvement of economic rights as crucial to the re-institution of social rights and democratic rights and their extension towards immigrants Die Linke also used populist elements in its discourse to construct the political subject in an attempt to talk about the growing democratic deficit in Germany and in the EU the party spoke for those who were excluded from democratic decision-making by the established party system and the German and European political structures. However, the party articulated these demands as dependent on the development of economic demands, since only the improvement of the latter would also fulfil the former demands. As a result, Die Linke emphasized the predominance of ‘the working people’ and signified the political subject as those that are unrepresented and excluded from political decision-making, only on a secondary level. This became evident also by the fact that Die Linke refrained from talking about ‘the people’ but frequently referred to a ‘people’ or other vaguely defined terms such as ‘humanity’ or ‘crowd’.⁷⁵

The articulation of the constitutive other and the socio-political field also followed similar employment of populist and egalitarian elements. Die Linke labeled different actors (Merkel government, markets, EU) as those that followed and implemented the economic and political logic of the capitalist economic system, articulating the constitutive other not as ‘the elite’ but as the broader capitalist/neoliberal economic system. It is only on a secondary level that Die Linke used populist elements to articulate the constitutive other as an established political and economic system that was unresponsive to the popular demands and acted against the working people. In this context, Die Linke articulated the socio-political field as a distinction between the lower social classes and those who profited from the crises (Eurozone crisis, refugee crisis), that took the form of a vertical juxtaposition between the forces of labour as victims of the crises (the working people) and those positioned in the centres of political and economic power. While this articulation resembles a definition of a socio-political antagonism in populist terms, in Die Linke’s discourse ‘capitalism’ redefined the socio-political field and allowed its construction in economic terms. Put simply, the party’s discourse used primarily egalitarian elements to understand the economic inequalities of capitalism as ‘the basis of existing political and social arrangements’⁷⁶ with the issue of unrepresentativeness between the political subject and the constitutive other existing on a secondary level.

Conclusion

SYRIZA’s and Die Linke’s discourses showed the intricate combination of each party’s populist and egalitarian elements in contemporary European RLPs with different trajectories. The use of the analytical framework allowed the examination of populism and egalitarianism as two separate yet interconnected concepts in the discourses of RLPs, based on two prominent cases of the RLP family: SYRIZA and Die Linke. Both cases highlighted how they used populist and egalitarian elements on different levels in their discourses through the articulation of the political subject, the constitutive other, and the socio-political field.

As a marginal RLP, SYRIZA used primarily egalitarian elements to understand a socio-political reality that was defined by the Eurozone crisis in 2009. As the Greek debt crisis defined economic, social and political developments in Greece, SYRIZA articulated its discourse mainly in populist terms and became one of the two major parties in the Greek party system and the major partner in a coalition government. During the end of his governmental period, SYRIZA continued to employ mainly populist elements to articulate its discourse and offered a different iteration of the Greek socio-political reality that did correspond to the Greek electorate’s demands.

The case of Die Linke featured a more consistent employment of egalitarian and populist elements in its discourse. The party focused on articulating the political subject as a contemporary version of the working class in the form of ‘the working people’ that is exploited by the capitalist economic system and its representatives. Die Linke also used – rather hesitantly – populist elements on a secondary level to highlight the representation gap that deepened between people and the political establishment in Germany and Europe. The party articulated both the socio-political context of the Eurozone crisis and that of the refugee crisis, mainly as class-based antagonisms between the working people and the capitalist economic system rather than as populist antagonisms between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’.

The examination of SYRIZA’s and Die Linke’s discourses showed how we can understand the connection between populism and egalitarianism in European RLPs. Indeed, the use of a discursive analytical framework provided an in-depth account of the intricate relationship between populism and egalitarianism in the parties mentioned above and highlighted their often-overlooked connection. It also showed how and to what extent each had its ‘populist moment’, as both SYRIZA and Die Linke employed populist elements in their discourse according to their respective socio-political contexts. In Greece, the debt crisis and subsequent crisis of representation allowed the meaning of ‘the people’ to become contested and created the political opportunity for SYRIZA to re-articulate the socio-political field primarily in populist terms. The respective ‘moment’ for Die Linke was less prevalent as the established political and party system remained virtually intact by the repercussions of the Eurozone crisis and the refugee crisis. Instead, the party primarily developed an egalitarian discourse to secure its initial electorate and attract as many supporters as possible through a new re-interpretation of a class struggle between the working people and higher socio-economic classes. As a direct result of the intricacies between populism and egalitarianism in SYRIZA and Die Linke, this analysis furthered the cause of establishing the analytical clarity of the populism term beyond its existing conflations with other terms. More importantly, it showed that a thorough examination of how ‘the elite’ is articulated can help towards distinguishing populism from other concepts and therefore should be considered of equal analytical importance to the ‘the people’ term when we study cases that are considered as populist.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Seongcheol Kim, Aurelien Mondon and Jacopo Custodi for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The German Research Foundation (DFG) supported the work [under Grant 469527186] for the project ‘Between Populism and Radical Democracy, between Political Party and Movement: the discursive afterlife of square movements’.

Notes

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19. Y. Stavrakakis, ‘Discourse theory in populism research: Three challenges and a dilemma’, Journal of Language and Politics, 16 (2017), 523–34, p. 528.

20. Stavrakakis et al., Extreme right-wing populism … op. cit. Ref.16, p. 424.

21. Stavrakakis et al., Ibid. p.424–425.

22. L. March, Radical Left Parties in Europe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), p. 8; G. Katsambekis and A. Kioupkiolis, ‘Introduction: The Populist Radical Left in Europe’, in Katsambekis and Kioupkiolis, The Populist Radical Left in Europe… op. cit. Ref. 2, p. 13; P. Chiochetti, The Radical Left Party Family in Western Europe, 1989–2015 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), p. 72.

23. N. Bobbio, Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p. 60–2; Katsambekis and Kioupkiolis, Introduction … op. cit. Ref.22, p. 12.

24. J. Olsen et al., ‘From Pariahs to Players? Left Parties in National Governments’, in J. Olsen et al.. (Eds.) Left Parties in National Governments (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2010), 1–15, p. 5; March, Radical Left … op. cit. Ref.22, pp. 8–9.

25. E. Laclau, ‘Populism: What’s in a Name?’, in F. Panizza (Ed.) Populism and the mirror of democracy (London: Verso, 2005), 32–49, p. 40.

26. Katsambekis and Kioupkiolis, Introduction … op. cit. Ref.22, p. 13.

27. L. March and C. Mudde, ‘What’s Left of the Radical Left? The European Radical Left After 1989: Decline and Mutation’, Comparative European Politics, 3 (2005), 23–49, p. 34; S. Cullenberg, ‘Socialism’s Burden: Toward a “Thin” Definition of Socialism’, Rethinking Marxism, 5 (1992), 64–83, p. 81.

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29. Moffitt, Populism … op. cit. Ref.18, p. 56; E. O. Wright, Understanding Class (London: Verso, 2015); G. Standing, The Precariat. The new dangerous class (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011).

30. For a use of the ‘working people’ see S. Kim, ‘On Populism and Class Politics: The Polish Union of Labour and the Workers’ Party of Belgium’, Representation, (2023), pp. 1–9. While this conceptualization establishes a precedent, it is the first time that the term of ‘the working people’ is associated with the radical left in the context of the paper.

31. Chiochetti, The Radical Left Party … op. cit. Ref.22; March and Mudde, What’s Left of … op. cit. Ref.26, p. 34.

32. Discourse theory emphasizes political architectonics to understand how different discursive elements connect to each other in order to create specific structures of meaning that are then presented through the use of spatial metaphors. The most prevalent example of this is the left-right spectrum but these metaphors can also take the form of in/out, down/up, center/periphery and many more.

33. T. B. Dyrberg, ‘Right/left in the context of new political frontiers: What’s radical politics today?’, Journal of Language and Politics, John Benjamins 2 (2003), pp. 333–60; P. Ostiguy, ‘A Socio-cultural approach’, in C. R. Kaltwasser et al.. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Populism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 73–97; Moffitt, Populism … op. cit. Ref. 18, p.50.

34. E. Laclau and C. Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards A Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 2014).

35. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967).

36. J. S. Dryzek, The Politics of Earth: Environmental discourses (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 8.

37. D. Howarth, ‘Introduction: discourse, hegemony and populism: Ernesto Laclau’s political theory’, in D. Howarth (Ed.) Ernesto Laclau: Post-Marxism, Populism and Critique (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 1–20, p. 6–7; D. Howarth and Y. Stavrakakis, ‘Introducing discourse and political analysis’, in D. Howarth et al. (Eds.) Discourse theory and political analysis. Identities, hegemonies and social change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 1–23, p. 3–4.

38. Populismus, Methodological Orientation, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2014), 30, p. 16.

39. J. Glynos et al., Discourse Analysis: varieties and methods, Working Paper, NCRM (2009), p. 10.

40. E. Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005), p. 72–3.

41. Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony And Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, pp. 115–7.

42. E. Laclau, Emancipation(s) (London: Verso, 1996), p. 36.

43. Laclau, Ibid; Howarth and Stavrakakis, Introducing… op. cit. Ref.36, pp. 12–3.

44. Dean and Maiguashca, Did somebody say populism… op. cit. Ref.15, pp. 17–8; Moffitt, Populism … op. cit. Ref. 18, p. 24.

45. Stavrakakis et al., Extreme right-wing populism … op. cit. Ref.16, pp. 424–5; Stavrakakis and Katsambekis, Left-wing populism … op. cit. Ref.2, pp. 119–42.

46. Stavrakakis, Discourse theory in populism … op. cit. Ref.19.

47. Moffitt, Populism … op. cit. Ref.18, p. 24.

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50. Katsambekis and Kioupkiolis, Introduction … op. cit. Ref.22; L. March and D. Keith (Eds.), Europe’s Radical Left: From Marginality to the Mainstream? (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

51. G. Katsambekis, ‘The Populist Radical Left in Greece: Syriza in opposition and in power’, in G. Katsambekis and A. Kioupkiolis (Eds.) The Populist Radical Left in Europe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), 21–46, p. 25; Y. Balafas, ‘It took 20 years’: the chronicle of SYN’s endeavour (Athens: Nisos, 2012).

52. Balafas, Ibid … pp. 286–9; C. Eleftheriou, ‘Greek radical left responses to the crisis: Three types of political mobilisation, one winner’, in L. March and D. Keith (Eds.) Europe’s radical left: from marginality to mainstream (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 289–309, p. 293.

53. Katsambekis, The Populist Radical Left … op. cit. Ref.50, p. 30; M. Tsakatika and C. Eleftheriou, ‘The radical left’s turn toward civil society in Greece: one strategy, two paths’, South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis 18 (2013), pp. 81–99, p. 92–3.

54. Aslanidis and Rovira Kaltwasser, Dealing with populists … op. cit. Ref.8, pp. 1077–91.

55. L. Rori, ‘The 2019 Greek parliamentary election: retour à la normale’, West European Politics, 43 (2020), pp. 1023–37.

56. SYRIZA, Electoral Programme- ‘Strong SYRIZA in Parliament and in the streets’ September 2009, available at http://www.syn.gr/ekl2009/ekldiak0910.pdf; A. Tsipras, ‘Speech of SYN leader, Alexis Tsipras in SYRIZA’s Piraeus campaign rally’ 11 May 2009, available at http://www.syn.gr/gr/keimeno.php?id=14708; A. Tsipras, ‘Speech of SYN leader, Alexis Tsipras in SYRIZA’s main campaign rally in Athens’ 29 September 2009, available at https://www.syriza.gr/article/id/39151/—-OMILIA-TOY-PROEDROY-TOY-SYN-AL.-TSIPRA-STHN-KENTRIKH-PROEKLOGIKH-SYGKENTRWSH-TOY-SYRIZA-STHN-AThHNA-(PL.-KOTZIA).html.

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60. A. Tsipras, ‘Speech of SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras in Volos’ 18 January 2015, available at https://www.syriza.gr/article/id/60139/Binteo—Omilia-toy-proedroy-toy-SYRIZA-Aleksh-Tsipra-ston-Bolo.html.

61. Tsipras, Ibid.

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63. Tsipras; A. Tsipras, ‘Interview of Alexis Tsipras on the Sunday edition of the newspaper Ethnos’ 23 June 2019, available at https://www.syriza.gr/article/id/81797/Synenteyksh-toy-Aleksh-Tsipra-sthn-efhmerida-To-Ethnos-ths-Kyriakhs-kai-sthn-dhmosiografo-Boyla-Kechagia.html; A. Tsipras, ‘Alexis Tsipras: we will win, because now, we are deciding for our lives’ 6 July 2019, available at https://www.syriza.gr/article/id/82086/Al.-Tsipras:-Tha-nikhsoyme-giati-twra-apofasizoyme-gia-th-zwh-mas.html.

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67. Hough and Koß, op. cit. Ref.14, p. 82; March, op. cit. Ref.22, p. 124; Hough and Keith, A case of pragmatic populism … op. cit. Ref.13, p. 132.

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71. B. Riexinger, ‘Speech of the party chairman’ 10 May 2014, available at http://www.bernd-riexinger.de/fileadmin/lcmsbriexinger/Dokumente/20140510_Berliner_Perteitag_Rede_Riexinger.pdf; Die Linke, 100% Social. Electoral Program for the Federal election of 2013 14–16 June 2013, available at https://www.mehr-demokratie.de/fileadmin/pdf/DIE_LINKE-Wahlprogramm_2013.pdf.

72. Die Linke, Social. Justice. Peace- For All. Long version of the electoral program for the 2017 Federal Election 9–11 June 2017, pp. 9–10, p. 13, p. 25, p. 108, available at https://www.die-linke.de/fileadmin/download/wahlen2017/wahlprogramm2017/die_linke_wahlprogramm_2017.pdf; K. Kipping, ‘Speech of party chairman Katja Kipping at Hannover Party event’ 9 June 2017, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWqikwTfgAw&list=PLMOQ3zlqCcKGO5IKg_782Yca70Xen535x&index=4&ab_channel=DIELINKE; B. Riexinger, ‘“Redistribute Wealth” Action Day: end the pampering of the rich and superrich’, 15 September 2017, available at https://www.die-linke.de/start/presse/detail/aktionstag-reichtum-umverteilen-schluss-mit-dem-kuschelkurs-mit-reichen-und-superreichen/?no_cache=1&cHash=bacc6e30e5dcf9ac22200e5cdf43eae1.

73. Die Linke, Europe, through solidarity. Electoral program for the European Parliament election of 2019 22–23 February 2019, p. 59, p. 103, available at https://www.die-linke.de/fileadmin/download/wahlen2019/wahlprogramm_pdf/Europawahlprogramm_2019_-_Partei_DIE_LINKE.pdf.

74. Die Linke, Ibid p. 108; B. Riexinger, ‘For a strong left in the entire Europe! Speech of Die Linke party chairman, Bernd Riexinger’ 23 February 2019, available at https://www.die-linke.de/partei/parteistruktur/parteitag/bonner-parteitag-2019/detail/news/fuer-eine-starke-linke-in-ganz-europa/.

75. Hough and Keith, A case of pragmatic populism … op. cit. Ref.13, pp. 136–7.

76. March and Mudde, What’s Left of … op. cit. Ref.26, p. 25; Olsen et al., From Pariahs to Players … op. cit. Ref.24, p. 6.