The Populist Deficiency of European Social Democracy * RENÉ CUPERUS It is only when leftists and liberals themselves talked in populist ways – hopeful, expansive, even romantic – that they were able to lend their politics a majoritarian cast and help markedly to improve the common welfare . Michael Kazin L ess than six years ago, the vast majority of European Union member states were run by center-left governments. The average eu summit was a»red« or»pink« affair. However, the European political landscape would soon look completely different. Social democrats lost ground, with parties of the center and right winning elections. Particularly strik­ing in this rightward shift was the rise of a new family of political parties, the right-wing populists. Italy, Flanders, France, Hungary, Austria, Den­mark and the Netherlands – everywhere they stormed the political stage. These parties can be called populist because they claim to represent »the people« and to be mobilizing them against a domineering Establish­ment. And they can be classified as right-wing because they claim to be defending national or cultural/ethnic identity against»outsiders« or ex­ternal influences. One could call this new populism, as espoused by Haider, Berlusconi, Orbán et al., a»third way of the right«, a middle road between the democratic and the undemocratic right, between traditional conservatism on the one hand and the antidemocratic extreme right of the past on the other. 1 * With thanks to Frans Becker for his lucid comments. 1. Cf. Michael Ehrke, Rechtspopulismus in Europa: Die Meuterei der Besitzstandswahrer, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, International Policy Analysis Unit, p. 3.; also Meindert Fennema, Populist Parties of the Right ( imes Paper, 23 July 2001). ipg 3/2003 Cuperus, The Populist Deficiency 83