Cas Mudde: EU Far Right Has No Convincing Economic Program

An interview of Novinite.com with Cas Mudde, an assistant professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia (USA), on far-right and anti-establishment parties in the EU and their outlook for the upcoming European elections.

Mudde is the author of Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (2007) and co-editor of Populism in Europe and Latin America: Corrective or Threat for Democracy? (2012).

His research includes fields such as political parties, extremism, democracy, civil society, and European politics. He is trying to find out how liberal democracies can defend themselves against extremist challenges without undermining their own core values.

You earlier said in an article that populists are unlikely to "win big" at May 25’s polls. If populist parties really did fail to charm most EU citizens during the economic and financial crisis, what is your explanation to this?

Most Europeans look for economic solutions during an economic crisis and far right parties don’t have very elaborate and convincing economic programs. They mainly have non-economic solutions to economic problems, such as anti-immigrant and anti-EU points.

Will anti-establishment parties trigger a higher voter turnout compared to previous EU elections activity, which has been teadily dwindling since 1979?

No. Turnout tends to be influenced by the intensity of the campaign, the importance of the elections, and the closeness of the race. None of these apply.

How could actually a significant far-right or far-left success at EU polls impact the way the Union is governed?

This is not...