Europe under strain: political extremism aspects

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to ICSR's Insight article 'Who are Greece’s new fascists?' after the electoral success by Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn):

which gained 7% of the popular vote and 21 seats in parliament.

Golden Dawn is a fascist political party and a street movement with an occasionally violent history....Golden Dawn, therefore, is ingraining itself into the social fabric of the country and its success must not be written off as a temporary protest vote. Though its share of the vote remains small, its infrastructure and presence on the street is extensive.

This passage struck me as rather odd, particularly that such information was gained in exit polling:

Most disturbingly, exit polling shows that more than half of the country’s police officers voted for the party.

Link:http://icsr.info/publications/newsle...ewfascists.pdf

Surprisingly there is no mention of an active extreme left-wing, violent minority, who are not averse to attacking the centre left-led trade unions and of course the police - as seen in newsreel for months. IIRC the Greek Communist Party polled more votes than Golden Dawn.

[Firn]

Hat tip to ICSR's Insight article 'Who are Greece’s new fascists?' after the electoral success by Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn):

This passage struck me as rather odd, particularly that such information was gained in exit polling:

Link:http://icsr.info/publications/newsle...ewfascists.pdf

Surprisingly there is no mention of an active extreme left-wing, violent minority, who are not averse to attacking the centre left-led trade unions and of course the police - as seen in newsreel for months. IIRC the Greek Communist Party polled more votes than Golden Dawn.

It may be mostly just votes of protest, however such angry votes did quite often no good for a couple of European countries in the not so distant past. Political sanctions by the EU are not expected in this case after the blunders of the one try against Austria with his right-center government and the dire need to get to an solutions.

Personally I would rate the political situation in Hungary as the most critical, with a Viktor Orban and Fidesz trying the hold power by many means.

[Fuchs]

Hungary's government has definitely learned too much from Putin. I doubt that the spook will end soon.


The situation is very different in most other European countries. There are extremists only powerful (to some degree) thanks to a mix of mobilising the 5-10% dangerous assholes that every country has and addressing some at least somewhat legitimate concerns.

The former is rather unavoidable (best case is if said assholes split up between left and right), while the latter is evidence of a failure of established parties.
Don't be surprised by extremists if you allow some outrageous problems to linger for long while claiming that any complaints about them are either politically incorrect or otherwise illegitimate.
The failure of the established parties can be compensated much better than with a rise of stupid extremists, of course: Simply allow for the rise of a new party.
I'm really thankful for not living in an entrenched two-party system.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Fuchs

I'm really thankful for not living in an entrenched two-party system.

As compared to the successful multiparty system in Italy? The reality is democracy is hard to make work regardless of whether it is a two party or mulitiparty system, especially in times like this. Normally our two party system functions fairly well, but admittedly your word "entrenched" is currently correct. However, over the years we had different parties and it is possible a new party will rise and displace one of the current parties, or more parties will rise and displace both of them. We're not restricted to a two party system by law.

[Bob's World]

Of historic note, I believe many countries turned toward more 1-partyish extremes of socialism or fascism to get the unity of effort necessary to work out of the financial messes between WWI and WWII. To include the US. Wouldn't be surprising to see a re-emergence of such trends

[Fuchs]

Well, the threshold for establishing a new party is much, much higher than in proportional vote systems. Germany is about to establish its second new party since 1980 in order to address shortcomings of geriatric established parties which are increasingly uninterested in concerns of large parts of the population.
This doesn't even count the formation and establishment of an actual left wing party from parts of the social democrats and from the remainder of the East German communists.

A U.S. left winger in a right-leaning U.S. state sounds like a U.S. right winger in a U.S. left-leaning state, right?

Meanwhile a German gets to choose from an actual left winger in every state and an actual right winger in every state. Moreover, they're likely going to have a voice in parliament (and do their oversight job on the administration) as part of a minority caucus.

The system doesn't force them to adapt to the state's political culture; they rather remain quite true to their political orientation and the people get to choose.

This makes it easier for extremists to enter parliaments and get a forum for their noises, but said noises also allow to recognize their (lack of) qualities.

[Firn]

The success of a party like the pirates is certainly just possible in a "continental" system.

In Italy I would love to have a bit higher barriers for small parties. The landscape is too fractured. By the way Beppo Grillos movement Cinque stelle had already very recently an Italian "pirate moment" at the local level.

[davidbfpo]

Having found a diagram showing the results of the last Greek election I was surprised to see how many voted for parties that failed to get past the 3% barrier for being allocated parliamentary seats. It was 19.03%, that is a big minority who are disenfranchised. Even more stunning when you learn the leading party is allocated an additional fifty seats.

Votes cast from Left to Right:

KKE (Communist) 8.48%
Syriza 16.8%
Democratic Left 6.11%
Pasok 13.8%
New Democracy 18.8%
Independent Greeks 10.6%
Golden Dawn 6.9%

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17993894

It is remarkable IMO that the two extreme left and right parties polled so closely together. Not to overlook the KKE are reported to be an unreconstructed, if not Stalinist communist party. Extremes need each other.