13 December 2024

POPULIST PARTIES :Destabilizing force in coalition politics. . .That Spells Trouble Ahead | Updated Dec. 13, 2024 12:12 pm ET

While only a few of these populist right parties have been able to take control of European governments, they have become a destabilizing force in coalition politics, said Sara Hobolt, a politics professor at the London School of Economics. “It is starting to become significant,” she said.
Another factor is structural. Growing disillusionment and social media mean younger voters are less loyal than their parents to political parties and back a range of smaller parties with different ideologies.

That has created unstable coalitions, like in Germany or France, that cobble together parties with different priorities and make it hard to take far-reaching decisions to foster economic revival.

There is now also an increasing “presidentialization” of leaders, with people endorsing politicians based on their personality rather than their policies, said James Johnson, founder of the pollster JL Partners. So when things go wrong, those individuals are directly blamed and their approval quickly sinks, he said.
One possible solution, said Johnson: a charismatic leader who lays out the tough decisions ahead to voters and convinces them they are worthwhile.

“Politicians will have to think differently about how they become popular,” he said. “You can’t trick the people.”

Leaders of Rich Nations Are Deeply Unpopular. That Spells Trouble Ahead.

If you are in charge of a slow-growing democracy, it’s not looking good right now

WSJ

10 hours ago

Leaders of Rich Nations Are Deeply Unpopular. That Spells Trouble Ahead. - WSJ

Max Colchester

and

David Luhnow

LONDON—One lesson from an unprecedented year of elections around the world is that voters in industrialized countries are particularly unhappy, ready to boot unpopular leaders out of office and making it more difficult for politicians in power to enact bold programs of change.
Rarely have the rich world’s political leaders been so widely disliked.

Jason I. McMann, PhD on X: "The Feb. 2024 update of our Global Leader Approval Rating Tracker is live. Now with coverage of Argentina and Turkey.

No leader of an industrialized country other than tiny Switzerland has a positive rating, according to a survey of some 25 democracies by pollster Morning Consult.

Ruling parties that went to the polls this year largely got a drubbing, including in the U.S. and U.K.

President Biden has a 37% approval rating. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has 26% approval, while France’s Emmanuel Macron sits at 19% and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at 18%, according to Morning Consult.

Donald Trump’s popularity has been rising since he won the November election, but he still may start his term with a negative net rating, and he was the only president in modern history to start below 50% during his first term.

Voters in industrialized nations are anxious and angry after years of uncertainty caused by the pandemic, war in Europe, high inflation, stagnant real wages and surging immigration. Leaders are struggling to respond, constrained by tepid economic growth, higher borrowing costs and ballooning deficits that mean they are increasingly offering voters tough choices and trade-offs.
It’s a message many voters don’t want to hear, setting the stage for an era of increasingly fractious politics as parties squabble over how to share an economic pie that, with the notable exception of the U.S., isn’t growing