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Radical Left Voters in Western Europe

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Raul Gomez explores who votes for Radical Left Parties in contemporary Western Europe, and why.

Image courtesy of interviewee. June 18, 2024

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This video is a detailed discussion about a book analyzing the resurgence of radical left parties in Western Europe following the Great Recession. The authors, including co-author Luis Ramiro, sought to understand why support for these parties increased when many had predicted their decline. The book examines the characteristics of radical left parties, which are generally defined by their economic leftist positions, rejection of neoliberalism, and emphasis on wealth redistribution, yet often lack clear alternative proposals to the current capitalist system.

The radical left includes various parties, some stemming from traditional communist backgrounds, as well as newer movements like Podemos in Spain. While diverse, these parties share a rejection of neoliberal policies and are the most left-leaning electoral options in their respective countries. The book distinguishes these radical left parties from extreme anti-system factions, indicating that they do not reject liberal democracy or advocate for violent means to achieve goals.

The authors highlight several factors influencing voter support for the radical left, notably economic hardship, dissatisfaction with mainstream politics, and a progressive stance on social issues such as immigration and same-sex marriage. Voters tend to be generally more open to change and prioritize collective welfare over individual interests.

This video further points out that successful radical left parties effectively attract a heterogeneous coalition of voters, including both working-class and progressive middle-class individuals. The authors note that these parties perform well in contexts marked by high unemployment and dissatisfaction with the political status quo.

The main conclusions of the book include the adaptability of radical left parties to various political contexts and their ability to form diverse electoral coalitions united by common progressive values. It indicates a strong correlation between economic conditions—specifically unemployment rates—and support for radical left parties.

Additionally, the authors suggest that further research is needed to understand the role of party leadership in electoral success, recognizing charismatic leaders' potential impact on party performance. This video illustrates various examples from countries like France and Spain, where effective leaders have significantly influenced the success rates of radical left parties.

Overall, the book contributes to the understanding of the contemporary political landscape of Western Europe, emphasizing the resilience and adaptability of radical left parties amidst changing socio-economic conditions.

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The book is a culmination of a long project that started,

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in the aftermath of, of the, of the Great Recession,

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when, we saw that support

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for radical left parties increased

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across several West European countries.

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And so, my co-author Luis Ramiro,

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and I were interested in understanding this in under

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successful at that time when, only, you know,

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a few decades back, everybody was predicting these,

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these parties to, to, to become less, less successful,

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after the fall of the early war.

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And so, we were interested in this phenomenon.

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We, we were interested in explaining the survival of,

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of these parties also explaining why sometimes these parties

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were able to amass a significant amount

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of electoral support.

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Uh, but we also realized that there was very little

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research into these parties, as suppose precisely

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because, you know, as I said

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before, a few years back, everybody was thinking

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that they would become electorally relevant.

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The 10 radical left parties actually quite inclusive.

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Um, in the book, we focus on parties

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that have parliamentary representation,

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and they're mostly parties that are placed to the left

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of the greens and the social Democrats on economic issues.

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And so, what they all have in common is their rejection

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of neoliberalism and, and capitalist society,

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and their strong emphasis on,

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in common wealth redistribution.

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And also the often vague idea that they would like

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to replace the current consumerist capitalist society

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with something else, which they is something

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that they rarely provide details on in their

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documents and their manifestos.

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But this is, this is basically what they all have in common,

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and that means that the term is quite inclusive

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and it, it includes as well many different parties,

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from different traditions.

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So it includes the old communist parties,

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or at least the, the, the few of them

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that are still electorally relevant in Western Europe.

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So it includes the, the Greek communists,

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the Portuguese Communists, and the,

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and the French communists.

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It also includes parties

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that come from the communist tradition,

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but they change their names

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and they transform themselves into something even though

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they're still to the left of the mainstream left.

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Uh, so those are, the cases of parties in, in Finland,

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in Sweden, in Spain, and so on and so forth.

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And then there's also other parties which

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don't come from the communist tradition,

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but that including Mecho party in France

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or Podemos in Spain, et cetera.

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And so all of these parties remain as the most

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left-wing electoral option in their countries.

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And, I think it's important to remark that

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what we look at in the book is not extreme

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or directly anti-system parties.

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So there are very few very extreme left parties in

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contemporary Western Europe

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that voters find appealing nowadays.

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So these parties that we look at are radical in

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what they propose, but, they're not extreme in the sense

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that they reject, you know, liberal democracy

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or they, they want to achieve their goals by,

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violent revolution or anything like that.

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So these are not the source of parties

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that we concentrate on in the book.

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And then when it comes to their voters, regardless

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of the heterogeneity of this party family,

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which I think it is slowly becoming less heterogeneous

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anyway, what we find is that there is a,

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a common core of values

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and opinions that these voters tend to have.

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So across parties, and even across parties are maybe very

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different, in their, you know, electoral trajectories,

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but also in their, in their, historical trajectories

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and their or origins and, and what they think

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and what they stand for as well sometimes.

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Um, but they, those people who vote for these parties tend

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to be progressive on both economic

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and non-economic issues as well.

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So, you know, including immigration

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and, you know, same sex marriage, et cetera, et cetera.

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So even though these parties are quite diverse when it comes

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to non economic issues, their voters tend

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to be quite progressive on those as well.

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And also something that we find across

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almost every single country when we,

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when we look at these parties, is

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that psychologically speaking, their voters tend

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to be much more open to change, than the average voter.

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And they also tend to prioritize values that place concerns

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for, for the welfare of others.

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Above individuals have interest,

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and they do so,

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much more than the average voter in in their countries.

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So when it comes to, to the social stratification

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of the radical left and the, you know, the kinds

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of social classes that, that, that vote

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for the radical left, we are quite surprised to find

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that these, these parties, the majority of them have managed

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to put together a,

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a relatively heterogeneous electoral coalition.

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So they've been able to attract on the one side,

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on the one hand, you know, working class voters.

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So some of them are more successful among the traditional,

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production, side of the working class.

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So they are more successful among the,

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the new service working class,

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but it's not the only group of voters

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among which they are relatively successful.

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So they attract both, sectors

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of the progressive working class

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and sectors of the middle class,

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of the progressive middle class as well,

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particularly professionals.

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And so there's some exceptions to these rules.

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So it doesn't happen absolutely everywhere,

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but we tend to see those kinds of combinations of sectors

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of the middle classes and sectors

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of the working classes everywhere.

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Some of those countries where we find exceptions are,

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for example, countries

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where more than one radical left party exist

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and they compete with each other.

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So there's some sort of, you know,

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electoral specialization with one party targeting,

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you know, working class voters more,

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whereas the other focuses more on,

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on the middle classes.

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But, but as I said, in general, for, for most

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of these parties, what we try to, what we tend to find is,

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them being able to attract,

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those different kinds of voters.

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So the factors that lead to support for the radical left,

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well, there are many factors,

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and of course, it's, attitudes and, and, and, you know,

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and political preferences

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and all of those are very obvious people have in common.

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So despite of, of their, of their having

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very different social backgrounds,

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what they have in common is those attitudes

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and those, those political preferences.

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But there are, there are some things

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that are very important for, for radical left parties.

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Uh, one is people's attitudes towards,

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political parties, towards politicians, towards,

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democracy as well.

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So people who are more dissatisfied,

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with the way democracy works

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and dissatisfied with, mainstream politicians,

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with political parties, et cetera.

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Those people tend to be more likely to vote

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for radical parties in general,

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but also more likely to vote for the radical left.

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Um, something else that we find in the book,

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which is also very important, is that those people

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who are in a situation of economic hardship

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and also those who care about people who are in a situation

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of economic hardship, those people are, more likely

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to vote for the radical left.

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So then you get a few hints from that, from this, right?

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So, this all means that when you have some sort of,

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you know, combination of, bad economic conditions,

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particularly when it comes to unemployment

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and also low levels of trust in political elites, in,

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in political or in mainstream political parties, then

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what you get is a context that is quite favor favorable to,

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to the radical left.

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And something that we find in the book,

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but also in previous work.

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And it's very consistent. We looked at this

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with different kinds of data, with different kinds

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of countries, different timeframes,

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and we always find the same.

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We find a very strong correlation between unemployment rates

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and support for the radical left.

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That's very, very, very clear.

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Um, it's also important to highlight

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that despite radical left par radical left parties,

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emphasis on economic issues, something

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as we find in the book is that those radical left parties

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that are more successful, the, the biggest ones are parties

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that are focused not just on economic issues,

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but also non-economic issues.

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So those parties that also emphasized a lot issues,

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regarding their progressive stances on, you know,

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cultural issues, feminism, sex, same marriage,

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and immigr also parties that focus on,

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on the eu, for example.

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These parties tend to be slightly euroskeptic, most

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of them, some are hard europs,

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but most, most of them are, what we call soft europs.

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So they're kind of critical of the EU,

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even though they're not completely

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against European integration.

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And when these parties use those issues as well,

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besides economic issues, that enables them

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to compete better with other parties.

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So when radical left le when radical left parties

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or those radical left parties that, that, basically

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only talk about economic issues

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or mostly talk about economic issues, they tend

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to have a very narrow electorate

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and they struggle to compete

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with other parties when other issues come at the forefront

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of, of voters' minds.

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So, so this is something very important as well

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that we saw in the book.

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I think that was very evident in the, in the,

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great recession we saw, for example, the, the series

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of the coalition, of the radical left in Greece,

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which at the time had, so, so that was a, it used

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to be a very small, radical left party that

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that competed with the, with the Communist party in,

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in Greece.

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And, and, and it suddenly became more and more

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and more successful, in the aftermath of the,

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of the Great Recession at the expense

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of the social Democrats.

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The same happened as well in, in Spain, for example,

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and in the both cases where,

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at some point there were very high levels of unemployment

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and that, that there was this clear correlation.

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Um, as well, we have seen support

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for the radical left also emerge in other cases.

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Uh, and in those cases it has been either related

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to economic conditions

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or related to, to distrust in, in the,

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in the political elites or both.

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So, France

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and Belgium, for example, one of those cases

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where the radical left has been increasing,

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you know, in the past.

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The main conclusion of the book, I'd say is, well,

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I would say there are two, two main conclusions.

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So, so one is that these parties, the radical left,

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they, they've been relatively skillful in, surviving

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and adapting to different circumstances.

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So, it is true that extraordinary levels of support

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for the radical left are relatively rare.

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So they happen sometimes,

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but they don't happen all the time.

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But when the conditions are, are ripe for it, and, and the,

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and these parties apply the right strategy,

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sometimes they're able

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to maximize their electoral potential,

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and then we see their support,

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go up at least in a short time.

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It doesn't always last for long,

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but we, we can see that in many cases.

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Um, another conclusion is that

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I was mentioning this

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before, that, you know, they, they're also very skillful in

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being able to put together a relatively heterogeneous group

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of people with different kinds

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of interests from different social backgrounds.

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And they do that because of their common views on,

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on issues, their progressive views on different kinds

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of issues, their, the common values as well.

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And that means that, you were mentioning,

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the radical right before, that means

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that in western Europe nowadays, the overwhelming majority

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of radical left parties don't really compete

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for the same kind of electorate as the radical, right?

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There are a couple of vote exceptions

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where there is potential for that,

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because you can see that their voters are

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relatively different to those of other, I mean, majority

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of these parties, they're just not competing

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for the same sort of voter.

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They're, if they were to try

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and attract those who vote for the radical left, sorry

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for the radical, right,

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they would most likely lose the current voltage.

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Um, then in terms of future research,

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I think there are many different avenues, many areas

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for future research, of course.

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Um, but something that we didn't get to do in the book is

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to look at the, the role that leaders play in,

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maximizing the success of radical left parties.

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And I think this is very important, not just

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for the radical left, but for radical parties in general.

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How important are leaders?

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So we know that they have been cases, of leaders

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who have been claimed to be, very popular.

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And these leaders are often, you know,

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behind their electoral, the,

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the electoral success of these parties.

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The problem is that it's very difficult to, first of all,

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when people talk about leaders

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and they think, well, these leader is very popular,

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it is usually because the party is actually successful

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and then they attribute the popularity

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of the leader to the success.

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So, that is a problem.

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And the second problem is it's very different di difficult

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to, to, to separate the effect of leaders

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and leader evaluations from the effect of other things

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that may lead people to vote for the radical left.

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However, even though it is something very difficult to do,

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I think it is terribly missing from our knowledge of how

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and when radical parties succeed.

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And, and, and that's, that's one of the main areas

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for further research that I definitely think,

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that we need to make an effort to try and, and, and,

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and well and get to know more about this, more about,

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about the effect that, that the leaders,

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leaders have on their support,

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for these parties on the electoral success of these parties,

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which we didn't

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Manage to do in the book, but I think

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it's something that has to be done.

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It has to be done because of what I was saying before.

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So if you look, for example, you look at France

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and you look, you see hun, right?

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Uh, so you know, somebody with this kind of personality,

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with this kind of charisma, that, that has managed to bring

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support for the radical left in, in France to

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above 20% in the last, presidential election,

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just 2 million voters away from, the candidate who,

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who came first in that, in that election.

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Uh, you look at, at Podemos, for example,

15:24.705 --> 15:28.365
the Podemos success as well with public less in, in,

15:28.705 --> 15:30.685
in Spain, you look at all of those cases

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of charismatic leaders

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and then, these parties being successful.

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And also you look at all the similar cases

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for the radical right as well.

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And you wonder, as I was saying

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before, you wonder is do we think that these leaders are

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charismatic because the parties are successful?

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Are other parties successful because of their leaders?

15:48.305 --> 15:50.125
And we don't really know much about this.

15:50.665 --> 15:53.685
We see these cases emerge, you know, now, and the,

15:53.685 --> 15:56.285
and again, but we don't have enough evidence to actually,

15:56.905 --> 15:59.975
to actually, test whether

15:59.995 --> 16:01.735
or not there is some ality there.

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And, nothing that,

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that would really help us explain more about when these

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parties are successful.

00:00 - The book is a culmination of a long project that started, in the aftermath of, of the, of the Great Recession, when, we saw that support for radical left parties increased across several West European countries. And so, my co-author Luis Ramiro,

00:18 - and I were interested in understanding this in under successful at that time when, only, you know, a few decades back, everybody was predicting these, these parties to, to, to become less, less successful, after the fall of the early war. And so, we were interested in this phenomenon. We, we were interested in explaining the survival of, of these parties also explaining why sometimes these parties were able to amass a significant amount of electoral support.

00:51 - but we also realized that there was very little research into these parties, as suppose precisely because, you know, as I said before, a few years back, everybody was thinking that they would become electorally relevant. The 10 radical left parties actually quite inclusive. in the book, we focus on parties that have parliamentary representation, and they're mostly parties that are placed to the left of the greens and the social Democrats on economic issues.

01:21 - And so, what they all have in common is their rejection of neoliberalism and, and capitalist society, and their strong emphasis on, in common wealth redistribution. And also the often vague idea that they would like to replace the current consumerist capitalist society with something else, which they is something that they rarely provide details on in their documents and their manifestos. But this is, this is basically what they all have in common,

01:52 - and that means that the term is quite inclusive and it, it includes as well many different parties, from different traditions. So it includes the old communist parties, or at least the, the, the few of them that are still electorally relevant in Western Europe. So it includes the, the Greek communists, the Portuguese Communists, and the, and the French communists. It also includes parties

02:16 - that come from the communist tradition, but they change their names and they transform themselves into something even though they're still to the left of the mainstream left. so those are, the cases of parties in, in Finland, in Sweden, in Spain, and so on and so forth. And then there's also other parties which don't come from the communist tradition, but that including Mecho party in France or Podemos in Spain, et cetera.

02:44 - And so all of these parties remain as the most left-wing electoral option in their countries. And, I think it's important to remark that what we look at in the book is not extreme or directly anti-system parties. So there are very few very extreme left parties in contemporary Western Europe that voters find appealing nowadays. So these parties that we look at are radical in what they propose, but, they're not extreme in the sense

03:18 - that they reject, you know, liberal democracy or they, they want to achieve their goals by, violent revolution or anything like that. So these are not the source of parties that we concentrate on in the book. And then when it comes to their voters, regardless of the heterogeneity of this party family, which I think it is slowly becoming less heterogeneous anyway, what we find is that there is a, a common core of values

03:52 - and opinions that these voters tend to have. So across parties, and even across parties are maybe very different, in their, you know, electoral trajectories, but also in their, in their, historical trajectories and their or origins and, and what they think and what they stand for as well sometimes. but they, those people who vote for these parties tend to be progressive on both economic and non-economic issues as well. So, you know, including immigration

04:21 - and, you know, same sex marriage, et cetera, et cetera. So even though these parties are quite diverse when it comes to non economic issues, their voters tend to be quite progressive on those as well. And also something that we find across almost every single country when we, when we look at these parties, is that psychologically speaking, their voters tend to be much more open to change, than the average voter. And they also tend to prioritize values that place concerns

04:53 - for, for the welfare of others. Above individuals have interest, and they do so, much more than the average voter in in their countries. So when it comes to, to the social stratification of the radical left and the, you know, the kinds of social classes that, that, that vote for the radical left, we are quite surprised to find that these, these parties, the majority of them have managed to put together a,

05:20 - a relatively heterogeneous electoral coalition. So they've been able to attract on the one side, on the one hand, you know, working class voters. So some of them are more successful among the traditional, production, side of the working class. So they are more successful among the, the new service working class, but it's not the only group of voters among which they are relatively successful. So they attract both, sectors

05:50 - of the progressive working class and sectors of the middle class, of the progressive middle class as well, particularly professionals. And so there's some exceptions to these rules. So it doesn't happen absolutely everywhere, but we tend to see those kinds of combinations of sectors of the middle classes and sectors of the working classes everywhere. Some of those countries where we find exceptions are,

06:13 - for example, countries where more than one radical left party exist and they compete with each other. So there's some sort of, you know, electoral specialization with one party targeting, you know, working class voters more, whereas the other focuses more on, on the middle classes. But, but as I said, in general, for, for most of these parties, what we try to, what we tend to find is,

06:38 - them being able to attract, those different kinds of voters. So the factors that lead to support for the radical left, well, there are many factors, and of course, it's, attitudes and, and, and, you know, and political preferences and all of those are very obvious people have in common. So despite of, of their, of their having very different social backgrounds, what they have in common is those attitudes

07:01 - and those, those political preferences. But there are, there are some things that are very important for, for radical left parties. one is people's attitudes towards, political parties, towards politicians, towards, democracy as well. So people who are more dissatisfied, with the way democracy works and dissatisfied with, mainstream politicians, with political parties, et cetera.

07:28 - Those people tend to be more likely to vote for radical parties in general, but also more likely to vote for the radical left. something else that we find in the book, which is also very important, is that those people who are in a situation of economic hardship and also those who care about people who are in a situation of economic hardship, those people are, more likely to vote for the radical left. So then you get a few hints from that, from this, right?

07:54 - So, this all means that when you have some sort of, you know, combination of, bad economic conditions, particularly when it comes to unemployment and also low levels of trust in political elites, in, in political or in mainstream political parties, then what you get is a context that is quite favor favorable to, to the radical left. And something that we find in the book, but also in previous work. And it's very consistent. We looked at this

08:24 - with different kinds of data, with different kinds of countries, different timeframes, and we always find the same. We find a very strong correlation between unemployment rates and support for the radical left. That's very, very, very clear. it's also important to highlight that despite radical left par radical left parties, emphasis on economic issues, something as we find in the book is that those radical left parties

08:55 - that are more successful, the, the biggest ones are parties that are focused not just on economic issues, but also non-economic issues. So those parties that also emphasized a lot issues, regarding their progressive stances on, you know, cultural issues, feminism, sex, same marriage, and immigr also parties that focus on, on the eu, for example. These parties tend to be slightly euroskeptic, most of them, some are hard europs,

09:25 - but most, most of them are, what we call soft europs. So they're kind of critical of the EU, even though they're not completely against European integration. And when these parties use those issues as well, besides economic issues, that enables them to compete better with other parties. So when radical left le when radical left parties or those radical left parties that, that, basically only talk about economic issues

09:52 - or mostly talk about economic issues, they tend to have a very narrow electorate and they struggle to compete with other parties when other issues come at the forefront of, of voters' minds. So, so this is something very important as well that we saw in the book. I think that was very evident in the, in the, great recession we saw, for example, the, the series of the coalition, of the radical left in Greece,

10:17 - which at the time had, so, so that was a, it used to be a very small, radical left party that that competed with the, with the Communist party in, in Greece. And, and, and it suddenly became more and more and more successful, in the aftermath of the, of the Great Recession at the expense of the social Democrats. The same happened as well in, in Spain, for example, and in the both cases where,

10:41 - at some point there were very high levels of unemployment and that, that there was this clear correlation. as well, we have seen support for the radical left also emerge in other cases. and in those cases it has been either related to economic conditions or related to, to distrust in, in the, in the political elites or both. So, France and Belgium, for example, one of those cases

11:05 - where the radical left has been increasing, you know, in the past. The main conclusion of the book, I'd say is, well, I would say there are two, two main conclusions. So, so one is that these parties, the radical left, they, they've been relatively skillful in, surviving and adapting to different circumstances. So, it is true that extraordinary levels of support for the radical left are relatively rare. So they happen sometimes,

11:38 - but they don't happen all the time. But when the conditions are, are ripe for it, and, and the, and these parties apply the right strategy, sometimes they're able to maximize their electoral potential, and then we see their support, go up at least in a short time. It doesn't always last for long, but we, we can see that in many cases. another conclusion is that

12:03 - I was mentioning this before, that, you know, they, they're also very skillful in being able to put together a relatively heterogeneous group of people with different kinds of interests from different social backgrounds. And they do that because of their common views on, on issues, their progressive views on different kinds of issues, their, the common values as well. And that means that, you were mentioning, the radical right before, that means

12:30 - that in western Europe nowadays, the overwhelming majority of radical left parties don't really compete for the same kind of electorate as the radical, right? There are a couple of vote exceptions where there is potential for that, because you can see that their voters are relatively different to those of other, I mean, majority of these parties, they're just not competing for the same sort of voter. They're, if they were to try

13:01 - and attract those who vote for the radical left, sorry for the radical, right, they would most likely lose the current voltage. then in terms of future research, I think there are many different avenues, many areas for future research, of course. but something that we didn't get to do in the book is to look at the, the role that leaders play in, maximizing the success of radical left parties. And I think this is very important, not just

13:31 - for the radical left, but for radical parties in general. How important are leaders? So we know that they have been cases, of leaders who have been claimed to be, very popular. And these leaders are often, you know, behind their electoral, the, the electoral success of these parties. The problem is that it's very difficult to, first of all, when people talk about leaders and they think, well, these leader is very popular,

13:57 - it is usually because the party is actually successful and then they attribute the popularity of the leader to the success. So, that is a problem. And the second problem is it's very different di difficult to, to, to separate the effect of leaders and leader evaluations from the effect of other things that may lead people to vote for the radical left. However, even though it is something very difficult to do, I think it is terribly missing from our knowledge of how

14:28 - and when radical parties succeed. And, and, and that's, that's one of the main areas for further research that I definitely think, that we need to make an effort to try and, and, and, and well and get to know more about this, more about, about the effect that, that the leaders, leaders have on their support, for these parties on the electoral success of these parties, which we didn't Manage to do in the book, but I think

14:52 - it's something that has to be done. It has to be done because of what I was saying before. So if you look, for example, you look at France and you look, you see hun, right? so you know, somebody with this kind of personality, with this kind of charisma, that, that has managed to bring support for the radical left in, in France to above 20% in the last, presidential election, just 2 million voters away from, the candidate who, who came first in that, in that election.

15:22 - you look at, at Podemos, for example, the Podemos success as well with public less in, in, in Spain, you look at all of those cases of charismatic leaders and then, these parties being successful. And also you look at all the similar cases for the radical right as well. And you wonder, as I was saying before, you wonder is do we think that these leaders are charismatic because the parties are successful?

15:45 - Are other parties successful because of their leaders? And we don't really know much about this. We see these cases emerge, you know, now, and the, and again, but we don't have enough evidence to actually, to actually, test whether or not there is some ality there. And, nothing that, that would really help us explain more about when these parties are successful.

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