The populist voter: explaining electoral support for populist parties in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany

Since the 1980s a growing number of populist parties have made a breakthrough in European party systems. Examples of these are the Belgian Vlaams Belang (VB), the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) in the Netherlands or the German Die Linke (DL). All of these parties can considered to be populist because they share a thin centred ideology “that considers society ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (Mudde, 2004: 543). This... Mehr ...