Description
Why did populist parties seek to politicise the European response to the Ukraine War in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Slovakia, but not in Poland or the United Kingdom? Such disparity among party positions is surprising given evidence that right wing populist governments are less enamoured with the broader Western strategy of containment than their centrist counterparts. While existing approaches have focused on the Atlanticist and anti-Russian sentiments of Poland and the United Kingdom and their strategic culture, such explanations have not taken into account key partisan dynamics. Drawing on theories of party competition and politicisation, this article argues that the crucial factor informing the degree of politicisation is the ideological position of the government in power at the time of Russia’s invasion. Where populists were already in power, they were forced to own the national response to the War and benefited from the spike in pro-Ukraine public opinion. Liberal and centrist governments following in their wake lacked any incentive to challenge this position, with which they were broadly aligned. In contrast, where populists were in opposition at the time of the invasion and centrist forces owned the response, an easy pathway to politicisation as differentiation (Cadier 2024) presented itself, empowering partisan factions more sympathetic towards Russia. Empirically the article demonstrates the validity of this argument through case studies of the Netherlands, France, Italy, the UK, Slovakia and Poland.
