Populism and Social Law: The Case of Southern Europe

Both left-wing and right-wing populism have found fertile ground in Southern European countries, especially in the wake of the economic crisis. Impoverishment, rising inequality and social insecurity caused by growing unemployment generated by the great recession and as a side-effect of austerity measures have increased social discontent toward the traditional political establishment. This has promoted populist movements, such as the Five Star Movement and the League (the successor to the Northern League) in Italy, and Syriza in Greece, along with Podemos and Vox in Spain. In the first section the article introduces the populists to be scrutinized in the subsequent sections before exploring the reasons behind the rise of populist movements in Greece, Italy and Spain, and examining the kind of populism they share. In the second section we illustrate the political agenda of the ruling populist parties. The article highlights the fact that while in Greece and Italy ‘all-populist’ governments have been in charge in recent years and have managed to implement some of their reforms, in Spain they have never come to power alone, but only within a coalition with traditional parties, so we will mostly discuss their political agenda. The third section focuses on an evaluation of the effectiveness of the policies implemented with respect to the social issues these groups purported to address. This will take us to a final discussion of the real capacity demonstrated by ruling populists to promote a new social model or a valid alternative to the mainstream liberal one.