Reports

There are numerous definitions of the notion of ‘Populism,’ a concept that is often difficult to capture. In his review of Benjamin Moffit’s ‘Global rise of Populism’, Kaçar (2017) argues how the notion of populism has changed over time, modifying its nature, contents and focal points, theorising contemporary populism as a political style “encompassing an appeal to ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite’, ‘bad manners’, and crisis, breakdown, or threat”. In Populism: A Very Short Introduction, Cas Mudde defines populism as “the idea that society is separated into two groups at odds with one another – “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite” (Molloy, 2018). Mudde also reported that most successful populists today are on the right, particularly the radical right […] Politicians like Marine Le Pen in France, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Donald Trump in the US, combine populism with [anti-immigrant] nativism and authoritarianism (Mudde as cited by Molloy, 2018). The present report aspires to shed some light on the increasing connections between the global phenomenon of populism and the spread of racist sentiments, stressing how these two phenomena often go hand in hand. Again, Mudde’s conceptualisation of populism is helpful for a better understanding of the relationship between populism and racism. The opposition between the “pure people” and the “corrupt elite” is at the very basis of the common discontent that commonly affects a nation. The discourses of populists lie around the presence of external or internal others who engage in the plunging fortunes of the “honest people” (Rattansi, 2020). It is in this context that racism has its roots: the idea that minorities, immigrants, refugees, economic migrants, or LGBTQIA+ communities are behind a nation’s discontent, resulting in the creation of “policies, behaviours, rules, etc. that result in a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race” (The Cambridge Dictionary). After this brief introduction to the concept of populism and racism, the present report starts with the regions of eastern and South-Eastern Europe, where the presence of populists and the spread of racism is rooted in the history of the regions themselves, as they were divided into numerous multi-ethnic empires. Later, the second section discusses Southern Europe, where the populist discourses of Italy and Greece are explored in connection with the notion of racist behaviours. Section three sheds light on South-Western Europe, where Spain and Portugal developed far-right populist factions very recently – unlike other European countries that have had far-right parties since the 1980s. Afterwards, the chapter on Western Europe explores the spreading of right-wing and populist governments amongst countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The fifth section investigates how central European countries such as Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic – i.e.: post-communist areas) are witnessing significant levels of democratic backsliding, with many attributing it to the spread of populism. Lastly, the report delves into the increase of populist as well as racist tendencies in Northern Europe, with a particular focus on Finland, Sweden, and Norway.

Mediterranean (European Commission, 2015). Following the European Agenda, the European Commission issued a Communication to promote a reform of the common European asylum framework, intending to develop a more fair system that will offer systematic, secure, and sustainable pathways to Europe for non-EU nationals needing protection (European Commission, 2016). In 2017, the European Parliament proposed a reform on the Dublin III regulation, which determines the European member country responsible for processing requests for international protection (European Parliament, 2020).