Populism and crisis: Evidence from the periphery of Europe

ABSTRACT

This article explores the interplay between populism and crisis from a comparative perspective. While the dominant literature largely takes crisis for granted, and thus neglects its underlying nature, we undertake a detailed investigation of the crisis of representation in Turkey and the 2009 Greek crisis. Adapting Benjamin Moffitt’s model of the populist performance of crisis to Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) (Turkey) and Tsipras’ Syriza (Greece), we argue, first, that the ideological core of populist parties plays a crucial role in almost all stages of the populist performance of crisis. Second, we show that structural political – economic conditions put certain limits on the populist performance of crisis. Finally, we suggest that Moffitt’s model needs to be revised in light of our findings.

KEYWORDS:

• AKP
• crisis
• populism
• populist performance of crisis
• Syriza

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and the editorial team of Mediterranean Politics for their attention to the manuscript. We also want to thank Benjamin Moffitt, Seraphim Seferiades, and Grigoris Markou for their constructive feedback on our paper. We are grateful to Anne Gelling for her wonderful copy-editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For a critical overview and ideological implications of these perspectives, see Seferiades (2020) and Gerim (2022).

2. For instance, hyperinflation can qualify as a systemic economic failure or an objective crisis condition. Therefore, political agents need to perform or frame it as a crisis.

3. Alternatively, Stavrakakis et al. (2018) have adopted a slightly more complex version of the choreography suggested by Moffitt to analyse Syriza’s progressive left populism.

4. Since populism has a ‘chameleonic nature’ (Taggart, 2000), it can, like nationalism, merge with different ideological/political positions in an eclectic manner. One may, therefore, differentiate between the populist left and right. In general, the populist left is historically influenced by traditional left-wing values such as the supremacy of labour, social justice, egalitarianism, and multiculturalism, whereas the populist right is inspired by authoritarianism and nativism (see Mudde, 2007; March, 2011). Accordingly, the former mainly focuses on socio-economic areas such as unemployment, poverty, and inequality, while the latter relies on socio-cultural issues such as identity, security, crime, and immigration.

5. Despite adverse social consequences, the government used financial assistance to repay national debts to Germany and France.

6. A morbid symptom of the crisis was the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party, which racially politicized the crisis.

7. Erdoğan successfully mobilized his supporters and immediately imposed a state of emergency, which remained in force for two years. As Pınar (2021) convincingly argues, the AKP government instrumentalized the state of emergency not only to re-establish ‘security and order’ but also to institute a ‘new order’, in which, for instance, the government can restrict strikes and other forms of working-class protests in line with neoliberal authoritarianism (also see Arslanalp & Erkmen, 2020).

8. However, unlike these cases, the Turkish government did not establish a constituent assembly (Roberts, 2015; De la Torre, 2017).

9. Like Chávez (Venezuela) and Morales (Bolivia), Erdoğan restricted public contestation and liberal checks and balances; unlike them, he failed to stimulate the marginalized masses to political participation (for a comparison, see Hawkins, 2010; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013; De la Torre, 2021).

10. Contrary to the exclusionary populist right, the inclusionary populist left, for instance, strictly opposes welfare chauvinism and hence supports the distribution of social support to all segments of people without distinguishing between individuals.

11. The government conducted operations such as Ergenekon and Balyoz with the help of coup-plotter Gülenists, who were very influential in state bureaucracy at the time. However, following December 2013 corruption allegations against the AKP government, Gülenists were reclassified as ‘the enemy of the people’.

12. The Gezi uprising erupted as a spontaneous reaction to various issues, including the Islamization of society and politics, the ecological destruction caused by fetishizing growth, the rise of inequalities, and the marginalization of the working class (see Akçay, 2018; Kaya, 2015).

13. Mainstream politics typically demonizes any opponent of neoliberal austerity as a ‘populist’. Discrediting alternatives to elitist liberal democracies and neoliberalism as populist, anti-populism can be seen as a ruling strategy of dominant elites.

14. Nor is Turkey a stranger to the depoliticization of ideological decisions. For instance, following the eruption of the 2001 economic crisis, AKP governments maintained ‘depoliticized macroeconomic management’ imposed by the IMF (see Akçay, 2021).

15. The party’s main slogans for May 2012 election campaign, including ‘they decided without us, we’re moving on without them’ and ‘it is either us or them: together we can overthrow them’, can be seen as a reaction to this tendency (see Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014).

16. Ironically, PASOK used left populism in the late 1970s and early 1980s to capture power. Like Syriza, it called for popular sovereignty, national independence, and social justice for the marginalized masses.

17. In fact, the mobilization of the discontented was a response to the monopolization of the electoral arena by the AKP and the unresponsiveness of the system to alternative societal demands. One may therefore conclude that it was the AKP itself which caused ‘the crisis of representation’ in Turkey.

18. Although the populist left is ‘transformative’ in that it tries to build a more egalitarian and solidaristic society, structural political economic conditions put certain limits on Syriza’s ability to implement an alternative programme. This starkly contrasts with the inclusionary populist left in Latin America, where governments in Venezuela and Bolivia introduced, for instance, social missions and cash transfer programmes to materially strengthen the most vulnerable groups (see Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013).

19. The failure of the populist left project can also be seen as the defeat of ‘social Europe’ by ‘capitalist Europe’.