Succes and Failure on the (Populist) Right: The Case of Wilders and Verdonk

Research Proposal

Matthijs van Tuijl

0850845

Master Thesis Political Behaviour and Communication

Leiden University

18-03-2011

Prof. Dr. Galen Irwin

‘I want to be Prime-Minister’1 was Rita Verdonk’s claim on October 18 2007, when

she founded her movement Trots op Nederland (TrotsNL, Proud of the Netherlands). At that

point in time not an unrealistic claim, with the opinion polls having her at 25 seats 2. Geert

Wilders with his Partij Voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Freedom Party), lost half of his supporters to

Verdonk when she announced her party3. However, on June 9 2010, the day of the Dutch

General election, Wilders managed to secure 24 seats and Verdonk was voted out completely

by the people.4 How is it possible that Rita Verdonk could not win any seats in the end and

that Geert Wilders showed a significant growth?

That there was a potential for Verdonk to be successful was clear from the previous

general election in 2006, when she was involved in a fierce battle for the leadership of the

Liberal party (VVD) with now Prime-Minister Mark Rutte. She just lost, but did manage to

get more votes during that election than Rutte. With 620,555 votes, she got almost 100,000

votes more than her party leader5. Verdonk was forced to leave the VVD after an internal

dispute, with the leadership contest, in practice, still going on after the elections. When she

left, as figure 1 shows, she remained popular and was therefore for a while seen as a serious

force within Dutch politics. Geert Wilders, himself also a former VVD MP, having left the

party a few years earlier, enjoyed growing support after the elections until Verdonk founded

her new movement. At that point in time there were two new right wing parties looking for

the favour of the Dutch voter, only one was capable of claiming victory in the end.

Verdonk and Wilders have often been called populists, due to their approach to

politics (Lucardie 2007; Vossen 2010). While the reasons behind the political success of

populist parties have been studied in detail, focusing on elements as political leadership (or

charisma), protest voting and issue preferences (Eatwell 2005; Van der Burg and Mughan

2007), there is still no definite answer on how they managed to succeed and what elements are

most important. While there are many examples in Western Europe of populist parties

effectively claiming an influential position within their countries’ politics, the parties that do

not make it have received less attention.

What is interesting about the movements of Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders, as figure

1 shows us, is that it was not just success or only failure. There were many ups and downs in

popularity in the years between elections. What happened during these years? Why Verdonk

1 ‘Verdonk wil in Torentje; ‘Trots op Nederland’ moet Fortuyn evenaren’ , De Telegraaf, October 18 20072 Nieuw Haags Peil, November 4, 20073 Nieuw Haags Peil, October 21, 20074 ‘Tweede Kamer 2010’, Kiesraad, June 9, 20105 ‘Proces-verbaal Tweede Kamer 2006’ , Kiesraad, November 27

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did not make it in the end and Wilders did, will therefore be the puzzle of this thesis. The

findings of this study could contribute to a better understanding of the development of

populist parties in general. What explains the differences in electoral outcome for them? It

leads to the research question of this study.

What explains the success of the PVV and the failure of Trots op Nederland in the period

2006-2010?

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Figure 1.

1. Theory

In order to find an answer to the research question it is necessary to look at what these

parties or movements actually are. It is claimed that Wilders and Verdonk are populists, but

what that is still remain ambiguous. Even though it is not the focus of this study to define

populism, it is important to know what we are actually dealing with. When that definition is

more clear, characteristics of the PVV and TON can be compared to that to see if they fit the

picture. If they can be qualified as populist parties, there is a possibility to look at

explanations for success and failure of populist parties and test these for Verdonk and

Wilders.

1.1. Populism

Especially in Europe there is a growing number of right wing populist parties entering the

arena and successfully claiming a position in parliament. According to some, the de-

alignment process that took place across Europe, led to the rise of these new parties, focusing

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more on party leaders and less on a fixed ideology (Dalton et al., 2002: 22, 31-32). The FPÖ

in Austria and the Danish People’s Party are just a few examples of parties that even managed

to participate, in some form, in their countries’ government.

Populism is a concept that is not that easy to define in terms of when a party can be called

a populist party. It is a concept that has many features and is has developed over time. In his

study on Populism, Paul Taggart (2000) describes this process and defines modern populism

as the New Populism, which has its roots in Western Europe. He sees it as a movement of

multiple parties across countries with some defining characteristics. First of all, it is reaction

to bureaucratised welfare states and corruption within the existing political parties. Secondly

they reconstruct politics around a key issue, either taxation, immigration and nationalism or

regionalism. Thirdly, they organise themselves differently from existing parties, as a result

from distrust of political institutions. Party membership is only active and direct in the form

of elected officials and personalised leadership is prevalent. Fourth, they like to establish a

link between the people and them and place themselves outside of the centre of the political

spectrum (Taggart, 2000: 75).

Canovan explains this link to the people more clearly by distinguishing between three

different types: the united people (as in a nation), our people (in an ethnic sense) and the

ordinary people (against the privileged) (Canovan, 1999: 5). These separate types make the

faces of populism more clear. It can focus on a certain ethnic group and be an excluding

factor or it can rebel against the elite and be the voice of the common man. The elite is seen as

corrupt and going against the general will. Cas Mudde considers that to be the centre piece of

populism, the restoration of the will of the people in a country. In that way, populism is a very

moralistic ‘ideology’ (Mudde, 2004: 543-544). In this view, the common man is no longer in

power, the elite is and that is de facto a bad thing. Populist parties are there to restore popular

control over a nation.

The important thing to realise from the New Populism of Taggart is that these parties are

effectively trying to find a niche in politics based on dissatisfaction with modern politics.

They see politics as no longer representing the people and try to re-establish that link with

them by focusing on issues that appeal to certain groups in society. As Taggart explains, the

people are here portrayed as an unity within a heartland. That heartland can best be seen as an

imaginary place that emphasises all the good and virtues aspects of life. It is however not all

inclusive. It is to a large extent based on nationalism of an ‘organic community’, excluding

certain groups in society (Taggart, 2000: 95, 97). Related to this is the creation of conspiracy

theories. The elite conspires together, no longer protects the heartland and there should be

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something done about that. This is argued to be a major factor to mobilise support (Ibid.:

105).

Leadership is also a defining feature of populist parties. With populist parties you can

have two types of leadership. Most common is the type based on charisma, centred around

leaders with a large popular appeal. When this is however not present, it is argued that in that

case it tends to be authoritarian (Ibid.: 103). The result of this leadership is the creation of a

populist mood. The idea that something needs to change fundamentally and the country needs

to be reshaped. This mood has the power to encourage otherwise non active citizens to

participate in politics and to get out and vote (Canovan, 1999: 6).

Interesting points are raised by Mudde in clarifying some basic elements of populism,

related to democracy and leadership. As he argues, when it comes to democracy, populist

parties want responsive government not necessarily direct democracy. They want the outcome

to be representing the will of the people, but those people do not have to participate directly,

as long as they are heard. On the point of leadership, he says that the people want their leaders

to be in touch, but not be one of them (Mudde, 2004: 558-559). This marks some interesting

aspects of populist parties and can explain for the apparent paradox of authoritarian leadership

and listening to the will of the people. That will needs to be represented by the political

leaders, but the people should not take over from them. Although some other scholars present

a somewhat more different picture and argue that populist parties will demand more direct

democracy. Democracy should in that view be seen as an ideal that includes ‘referenda,

popular consultation and direct elections of office- holders (Keman and Krouwel, 2007: 25).

What we see is that the concept of populism is not unambiguous. However, as seen above,

there are still some defining features of these parties.

1.2. Wilders and Verdonk as Populists

In order to analyse the success and failure of populist parties in the case of Wilders and

Verdonk, it is important to establish what kind of characteristics they share with this populist

image as sketched above. If they are populist leaders, then it is possible to test explanations of

success and failure of populism for them. If they differ from the ideal populist picture, then

this can be taken in account when conducting this study.

Koen Vossen, comparing Wilders and Verdonk in terms of populist tendencies,

distinguished seven features of populism comparable to the points mentioned above. Some of

them, the ‘folksy style’ and ‘voluntarist approach’, are somewhat similar to other points. The

folksy style more or less relates to how politicians act, being one of the people, speaking with

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the same language. The voluntarist approach relates to politics not having to be as complex,

the peoples’ qualities are enough to govern (Vossen, 2010: 25). These two points clearly

focus on the incompetent elite in comparison to the people. It again stresses the fact that the

political organisation has become filled with an unnecessary bureaucracy that needs to be

fixed. The voluntarist approach also moves away from a politician as a professional. The

common man should be represented and therefore there is no need for professionals.

(Vossen, 2010: 34)

Wilders

As shown in table 1, there are some doubts with Vossen about the basic idea of Geert

Wilders as a populist in the traditional way. He calls Wilders a half-hearted populist, mainly

because he is a professional politician and he is not glorifying the people to the extent that a

true populist would do. Instead he also criticizes them on occasions (Vossen, 2010: 30). The

interesting thing about this is that Wilders is a former MP for the VVD, as is Rita Verdonk,

but in contrast to her, he spend quite some more time there. He had been active for the

parliamentary party since 1990, working as a policy advisor. Known as a hard worker,

Wilders was living politics. This is illustrated by the fact that when he was forced to leave

parliament after the 2002 elections, he was devastated, having no alternative for politics

whatsoever (Fennema, 2010: 66). Wilders can therefore with reason be called a professional

politician and not so much a ‘common man’. It might be this background that prevents him

from actively calling on the people as a source of wisdom and more relying on his own mind.

In contrast to not glorifying the people, Wilders does denounce the elite and rises up

against them. He has managed to create a link between progressive politics and the anti-

establishment idea of populism. He has created an image of the Dutch elite as a leftis elite

with an inclination for cultural and moral relativism (Vossen, 2010: 27 ). It might be this

explicit definition of the elite that explains how being a professional politician at the one hand

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but mixing that with some form of populism at the other. It is just a certain part of the political

spectrum that is completely on the wrong path. Wilders wrote a ‘declaration of independence,

his starting point for his movement. In this he explicitly mentions that elite let ‘this’ happen

and now hold their hands in the air and say there is nothing they can do about it anymore

(Fennema, 2010: 103).

With this he focused on the cultural aspects. This also shows his focus on the

progressive elite, conspiring against society. He made a distinction between the Labour party

of Wouter Bos, which he thought to be pampering, and the VVD. The people that did not

want it to go completely wrong, should vote VVD (Ibid., 105). The exponent of this focus on

the cultural and moral relativism of the Dutch elite, is his own conspiracy theory about Islam

taking over Europe (Eurabia). As Vossen shows, Wilders actively spreads this image of

islamification, referring to many experts in the field. With this he is trying to give weight to

his claims and focus his campaign on the issue of immigration of Moslim immigrants

(Vossen, 2010: 27).

Vossen gives no definite answer on whether Wilders is a charismatic leader, calling it

difficult to measure in his case because of the closed nature of the party. However according

to him the style of leadership is more important in his case. Wilders is the only member of his

party, trying to control the internal decision making (Ibid.:28). This relates to the points made

by Taggart on authoritarian leadership. Wilders, whether charismatic or not, should then more

be seen as an authoritarian leader.

Paul Lucardie (2007), also shows the special position Wilders has put himself in. He

qualifies Wilders as a right-wing, semi- hearted liberal nationalist and populist (181). As well

as Vossen, he acknowledges that Wilders his behaviour is not one of standard populism.

Wilders focuses on freedom, but it is limited and very inconsistent with respect to (Islamic)

religion. The populism, although by some seen as limited is according to Lucardie clearly

noticeable in his reference to the people and the corrupt elite (2007: 179-180). Geert Wilders,

although not being the ideal type can therefore be characterised as a populist politician.

Especially his anti-elite politics and the focus on Islam as the key issue around immigration

are clear indicators. The leadership elements can also be found. What is however clear is that

Wilders has some points that distinguish him from an average populist.

Verdonk

Where Wilders is a somewhat more complicated story in terms of populism, Verdonk

seems all the more fulfilling the standard definition of a populist. As can be seen in table 1,

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she scores on all the criteria that are outlined. Research on her speeches and interviews show a

clear distinction between the corrupt elite and the people as the virtuous element in society.

There is a distrust of the people caused by the elite (Vossen, 2010: 30). Note here that

Verdonk does not care for the elite being left or right wing, it is just the elite. Unlike Wilders

she tries to take on the entire establishment and does not even leave out her own former party.

She mentioned Mark Rutte as being too left wing and therefore also being out of touch with

the people. When founding her movement she did not want to take sides either and think in

the old way of how the political spectrum was divided. She did not want to be mentioned left

or right, but wanted to think in old and new (Lucardie, 2007: 181). With this she cannot be

seen as more distinguishing herself from the establishment or elite and taking the side of the

people. From her history it does make sense for her not just to criticise the left, since she was

ousted by the VVD party leaders, but favoured by the people during the elections. In general

we can see Verdonk trying to frame that image of her party taking on politics in general.

The other important point to qualify Verdonk as a populist is that she emphasises

vigorously on voluntarism and direct democracy. In her view the people should govern and

we do not need politicians to sort out the best solutions. This is best illustrated by the fact that

she wanted citizens to discuss with each other what the best solutions to certain problems are.

The real knowledge of ordinary people would improve this country (Vossen, 2010: 31). What

we see here is Verdonk going away from the politician as a professional in politics. Politicians

should listen to the people and she goes to extremes to establish that link. She also did not

present a real party manifest until very late. Just a couple of months before the elections, she

presented her plans to the public. She then focused on taxation, subsidies and other public

spending6.

The personality of Verdonk was therefore very important. As Vossen stresses, she mainly

relied on her own popularity and her image she had built during the years before. Trots op

Nederland is very apolitical, in that way and more a feeling. (Vossen, 2010: 32-33). Because

of that lack of content of what the party is really about, it is difficult to clearly explain what

kind of party or movement it is. It could only somewhat be qualified as a nationalist party.

She does emphasize Dutch culture and the relevance of putting that up front, but not as

extreme as Wilders does it. She could therefore best be seen as a populist liberal-conservative

(Lucardie 2007: 182). The clear difference here is that Wilders actually wants to tackle the

influence of Islam in society, whereas Verdonk does not see that danger. She sees it more in

6 ‘ToN richt pijlen op ambtenaren’ De Telegraaf, April 8 2010

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terms of not letting the Dutch society fade away in general. By focusing on taxation and more

power to the people, she fits very clearly in the classic image as depicted by Taggart.

1.3. Success and Failure

With this outline of populism and Wilders and Verdonk as populist leaders it is now

possible to look at the elements that explain success and failure. In general there are three

reasons that can be defined why people vote for populist parties: The protest vote, in reaction

to other parties; voting for the charisma or leadership or voting for substance of policy

preferences.

The protest vote comes from what Immerfall sees as a neo-populist agenda. He focuses

on what the emphasize is of a populist party and sees its appeal accordingly. He argues it to be

important for such a party to hold together what he calls, a neo-populist coalition. This is

aimed at exploiting country specific issues, mainly focused on the economic situation of the

nation, in order to attract voters (Immerfall, 1998: 250). Populism here is seen as a reaction to

what is happening in a country and the reason of existence is an appeal to the people. Populist

parties, by showing what is wrong, have a reason to exist. Voters then react to this by seeing

the establishment as incompetent who fail to take care of the nation and vote for the party that

raised those questions (Ibid., 258). This explanation of the populist vote has nothing to do

with the appeal of leadership or what plan are presented to the people. It is the basic idea of

framing the image of the corrupt elite that let the people down and is not representing the

general will anymore.

As Taggart explains, there are a problems with the way populist parties behave or are

organised, especially in this way. One of those things is their critique on established parties.

They want to distance themselves from them, but are forced, by the way politics is organised,

to behave in a similar way. As a consequence, they have a large risk of internal conflicts or

collapsing (Taggart, 2000: 100). In practice it comes down to a very simple logic. At first a

populist party successfully explains why the old parties are not the right choice for the voter.

With this they create momentum for them to grow support. However, since this is not based

on concrete plans or policy they fall in the trap they have created for themselves. Once the

people notice that they are not capable of fulfilling their needs either, the image of a strong

counter party disappears and the party collapses.

Roger Eatwell sees the importance of charisma in leaders for explaining the success of

populist parties. Whereas it is a concept that cannot be defined very easily and can take on

many forms, he focuses on the personal presence of the leader. It is about being able to create

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the right image on television and to catch the right sound bite and not so much about the

physical attraction of the party leader. The focuses of the publicity tend to be on the

personality of the leader and this creates electoral appeal (Eatwell, 2005: 108). This approach

takes away the idea of charisma just being about the leader and puts the emphasis on the

actions of him or her. It still remains a personalised attraction, but of a different nature.

Taggart sees the problems with charismatic leadership in the long run. He argues it to be

unstable and not very reliable. Politicians can never be certain how to effectively sustain their

charisma and it is therefore very unstable (Taggart, 2000: 102). As long as politicians are seen

to be charismatic and are capable to catch the eye of the people, they will continue to be

popular. However relying on charisma alone seems to form a problem in the long run. A new

contender can come along and take away the support or people will start to see through the

charismatic mask.

Van der Burg and Mughan (2007) conclude from their study of Dutch populist leaders,

that they do not have a greater effect on the voting behaviour than their counterparts from the

established parties. Even for Pim Fortuyn, arguably a very charismatic man, there was not to

be found any significant difference between his leadership appeal and that of other politicians

(Van der Burg and Mughan, 2007: 44). This further puts pressure on the effectiveness, if any,

of just the leader as a token to attract votes. Even though in a best case scenario it helps to

improve voting for the party, it seems to be the case that a populist party cannot rely on the

leader alone.

There is more to it and Mughan and Paxton (2006) try to explain this with a case study of

anti-immigrant feelings in Australia. What they find is that policy preference is highly

significant as an explanation for the populist vote. Only if there is correspondence between

what voters want and what parties offer them, will they vote for them (Mughan and Paxton,

2006: 354, 357). It seems that voters have an idea of what they want to happen in a country

and need parties to defend this or to bring this forward. It can effectively boost the claim

made by many populists that the old parties are not representing the will of the people. It

could be the case that it is then more than a protest vote and basic rhetoric and gives a chance

for parties that can actually find a niche in politics to grow and become important.

Ivarsflaten, shows the volatility of populist parties when it comes to issues and thereby

also acknowledges the importance. She shows that the saliency of (especially the economic)

issue is important (Ivarsflaten, 2005: 489). The populist voter does look at issues and does

take in account the state of the nation and is not simply affected by rhetoric or leadership

appeal. Van der Burg and Fennema (2003) firmly support this conclusion and state that

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conclude from their analyse on the development of anti-immigrant parties, that voters vote

according to their issue preferences. They argue that voters for those parties vote for the same

reasons on a party as any other voter does. Some evidence even hints that they are even more

ideological voters. (Van der Burg and Fennema, 2003: 66. 70-71). It seems that we should not

underestimate the voters for populist parties. There is evidence that they are not the simplistic

voters as some people hold them to be. The strength of a party does not just rely on the

leadership or on a protest vote. It depends heavily on which issues are salient and whether a

party manages to bring them forward in a right way. There are therefore many ways for a

populist party to go wrong and it depends on the context whether such a party is successful or

not.

1.4 Sub-questions/Expectations

Based on the literature and the characterisation of both Wilders and Verdonk, it is possible

to formulate some sub questions to analyse the success and failure of their parties. As seen

above there are three main reasons for the success of populist parties, these will serve as a

guide for explaining the differences between the two parties and finding an answer to the

research question. From this it is possible to distinguish between the following sub questions.

Q1: What was the influence of the ‘protest vote’ for Wilders and Verdonk?

It follows from the literature that the protest vote can be one of the reasons why people

vote for populist parties. The protest vote is a result of the party emphasising the difference

between the old and the new. The establishment has failed the people and the new (populist)

party is there to re-establish the link between the people and the government. For the protest

vote explanation to contribute as an important factor of success, we would expect to see the

populist party to rally against the old parties and their politics. Furthermore the emphasis

would be on the old elite that has failed the people and the importance of restoring that faith

and giving power back to the people. An important explanation for failure here is the inherent

implications of this strategy. When parties run into problems themselves (mostly internal),

this will backfire and the protest vote will no longer be of any use to the populist party. If they

no longer have the image of being the new that will get rid of the habits of the old, we will

expect to see failure.

Q2: What was the influence of leadership as an explanation for success and failure?

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A second explanation of success can be found in the leadership appeal or

personification of politics. It works either through charisma or authoritarian leadership.

Whereas charisma is not an easy concept to define, for the purpose of this study it will be

operationalised in a comprehensive way. Here it will just mean the personal appeal of a leader

to attract voters. For this to work out, we will expect to see less or none emphasizing on issues

or ideas, but attention for the leader in general. It is expected that voter appeal will go up

when a lot of attention is given to the populist leader. The danger here is the unstable factor of

charismatic leadership. It seems that emphasising on just the personal appeal of the leader for

too long can pose a problem and an unstable basis for a party to continue to grow further or

hold its position. Authoritarian leadership can be a further explanation for a populist party to

maintain a strong position. This type of leadership is expected to be very important for

holding the party together and we are expected to see differences with regards to voter

preferences for parties.

Q3: What is the influence of issue preferences and saliency?

The final sub question relates somewhat to the second. What is more important, having a

leader with a big charismatic appeal or talking about the issues and focusing on improving

specific things? For this question we would expect to see attention to issues relating to voter

appeal. It is also expected that certain issues will result in more support of voters than others.

When parties talk more about salient issues or create saliency for an issue they are expected to

increase their voting potential. Failing here could be the result of two different things. First of

all, it could mean that the specific party is unable to create any substance to link themselves

to. This could mean that the party focuses more on leadership potential or has other reasons

not to focus on the issues. The other explanation is that a party emphasises an issue that

apparently is not that salient to the general public or where they take a (in the eyes of the

public) wrong stand on.

2. Methodology

This will be an qualitative research on the success and failure of Wilders and Verdonk in

the period between 2006 and 2010. The reasons to focus on Wilders and Verdonk are clear.

They both have clear elements of populism in them and both had a large (initial) appeal to the

public. In the period between 2006 and 2010, as seen in figure 1, some interesting

developments took place with respect to the voting potential of the two politicians/parties.

Verdonk joined the race for the populist vote. Verdonk and Wilders both had their ups and

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downs in the polls, eventually resulting in Verdonk dropping to nothing and Wilders reaching

an all-time high. It can therefore be qualified as a period with many changes and different

sides. This makes it an interesting period to analyse, for it can test on different moments in

time the different expectations as outlined above.

A newspaper analysis of De Telegraaf will be carried out of this period. The reason to

take De Telegraaf as the focus of this study is that this paper is well known for its right wing,

often populist, sympathies. The long-time motto of the paper: ‘De krant van wakker

Nederland’, relating to the newspaper being there for the (active) Dutch people, is also a

reference to this populist appeal. If any it will be this paper that follows the development of

these populist parties closely. They will also be more likely to portrait a certain picture of the

parties with respect to their potential of representing the people. By analysing newspaper

content through Nexis Lexis, a reconstructing will be made of the selected period. With this

reconstruction we can see what actually happened and what explanations are more important

for the success and failure. Note here that the aim of this research is not to establish causality

between media coverage and populist success. Rather the media coverage is used to create the

essential narrative.

The searchterm ‘Rita Verdonk’ for the period September 21, 2007 (the day before the

2006 general election) to June 10, 2010 ( the day after the 2010 general election) resulted in

649 De Telegraaf hits. A similar search for ‘Wilders OR PVV’ resulted in 2378 hits. In order

to analyse importance of these articles, the polls as indicated in figure 1 will be followed.

Several points in time, as seen in the figure, are indicated as crucial moments or periods.

These crucial moments are operationalised as moments where major changes occurred in the

opinion polls. Some of them are periods where both Wilders and Verdonk fluctuated, these

are indicated with black arrows. The red ones refer to the period of change for Verdonk and

the blue arrows to crucial periods for Wilders. The articles will be grouped in the time frames

of these periods giving the advantage of seeing differences in style, magnitude and issue v

leadership.

Next to the media narrative of the Telegraaf, there is also some interesting data that can

be linked to the opinion polls. Peil.nl carried out separate small researches on important

moments over these four years. Many relate to the confidence in the party leaders over time,

but they also focus on specific issues when they appeared to be more salient or played a role

in decision making on that moment in time. The Dutch election study 2010 can also be used

to back up the story. Sympathy scores for the parties (both TON and the PVV) and the

sympathy scores for the party leaders (both Wilders and Verdonk) were generated with these

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surveys, providing us with data on the importance of both. For Wilders some additional

questions were asked: What issue comes to mind when thinking of the PVV and do you agree

with the PVV on that issue? What other issue comes to mind when thinking of the PVV and

do you agree with the PVV on that issue? How much would you trust Geert Wilders with

being Prime-Minister?

The advantage of doing this qualitative research over a more quantitative approach is that

a better understanding can be acquired about the circumstances under which the shifts in

popularity took place. This can then be linked to the theory on populist support, sub-questions

can be answered on the basis of the relevant narrative. This in-depth approach can shed more

light on what factors are different for these two parties and should therefore not be limited to

raw data. It could provide for a more comprehensive explanation of why one populist party

fails and the other succeeds. In a nutshell that is the aim of this study.

3. List of References

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