Chapter 3: Are Europe’s Democracies in Danger?: A View of the Populist Challenge

“A specter is haunting Europe....” (Marx & Engels, 1848/1967, p. 78). What Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote in the 19th century with regard to Communism, might indeed serve today as an adequate description of the situation we are faced with in regard to populism. What is happening in European societies—not only in the new democracies in Eastern and South Eastern Europe but also in the well-established and hitherto solid democracies of the rest of the continent? How could it be that the political discourse in so many societies is increasingly infested with meaningless slogans, banner-like reductions of complex problems, and unreflective simplistic solutions to the most complex problems? How could braggarts like Silvio Berlusconi, stand-up comedians like Beppe Grillo (both in Italy) pose as serious politicians, and how could arch-conservative nationalists like Jaroslaw Kaszynski in Poland and fundamentalists like Recep Erdoğan in Turkey have gained such prominence and influence in politics?