Commissioned Book Review: Duncan McDonnell and Annika Werner, International Populism: The Radical Right in the European Parliament
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920902011 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Reviews |
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(2) NP19 –NP20
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
902011PSW0010.1177/1478929920902011Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2020
Commissioned Book Review
International Populism: The Radical
Right in the European Parliament by
Duncan McDonnell and Annika Werner.
London: Hurst, 2019. xvi + 282 pp., £30, ISBN
9781787381391
The 2014 European (EU) elections were a
major breakthrough for radical-right populist
(RRP) parties. In that election, a total of 73
RRP representatives were elected to the EU
Parliament, an event that has been considered
by some a populist earthquake. The election of
these representatives was followed by the
establishment of parliamentary groups that
either included some radical-right parties or,
for the very first time, were entirely composed
of radical-right parties.
In this book, Duncan McDonnell and
Annika Werner investigate how and why RRP
parties cooperated in the 2014–2019 EU
Parliament. With their empirically rich and
methodologically sound contribution, these
two scholars challenge the conventional wis-
dom that views RRP parties as incapable of
creating stable alliances within the EU
Parliament. They show that RRP parties have
indeed created stable alliances at the EU level
and that, despite the differences that persist, the
connections among them are growing.
McDonnell and Werner challenge the con-
ventional explanation for group formation in the
EU Parliament, the policy congruence theory,
which holds that groups are normally formed by
parties that show ideological proximity. By
investigating the three EU groups that included
RRP parties – the European Conservatives and
Reformists (ECR) group, the European of
Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group
and the Europe of Nation and Freedom (ENF)
group – the authors demonstrate that this expla-
nation is not sufficient and then advance a series
of innovative and compelling theories to account
for group formation. They argue that ECR group
formation is explained through the ‘respectable
marriage’ theory, which holds that RRP parties
choose their allies based on the impact that these
alliances have on their domestic reputation. In
the case of the EFDD, the authors advance the
‘marriage of convenience’ thesis, according to
which RRP parties joined this group because
they did not want to ally with those parties that
were perceived as extremist. The case of the
ENF is the only ‘marriage of love’ that they
identify in the EU Parliament. The formation of
this group represents, the authors argue, a key
point in the creation of ‘transnational populism’.
This event was a crucial turning point because,
for the first time, the members of this group
were not concerned with the reputational impli-
cations that the alliances with other extreme par-
ties might have had at the national level,
choosing instead to join forces with those that
share similar values, regardless of the possible
domestic repercussions.
This book contributes to the study of RRP
parties in two important ways. The empirical
contribution is ground-breaking and the variety
of methods adopted by the authors to test con-
current theories and corroborate their proposed
ones is one of the main strengths of the book.
The theoretical contribution is no less important.
The theory of alliance formation, metaphori-
cally depicted as types of ‘marriages’, is con-
vincing in explaining the different dynamics
that influence the choices that RRP parties make
in selecting with whom to ally in the EU
Parliament. Moreover, this theory helps us inter-
pret what RRP parties do within the Parliament
and the relations they have with the other mem-
bers of the group, thereby illuminating the ways
by which these parties act inside and outside the
EU Parliament after their election.
However, some choices in the case selec-
tion are problematic. The authors are too hasty
to exclude the Hungarian party Fidesz from
their analysis. They maintain that the party,
during the period under consideration, was not
widely recognised by scholars as an RRP party.
Following this logic, the same argument might
be made for UKIP, whose alliance formation
To continue reading
Request your trial