Joint Panel with the Italian Politics Specialist Group
The anti-elite elite?
The class forces and interests
behind ‘right-wing populism’
75th PSA Annual Conference
14 - 16 April 2025
University of Birmingham
and Aston University
Birmingham
At the core of ‘right-wing populist’ parties’ (RWPPs) electoral surge sits their claim to be on the side of ‘the people’ and against ‘the elites’. But are they? Or are they rather political vehicles for certain sections of the elites, as embodied by their political entrepreneurs from Tice or Trump? After all, historically speaking, economic elites have always been well represented when the far right got into power (Poulantzas, 1974; De Jong, 2022). But then, if what we see today is in fact ‘populism of the privileged’ (De Cleen & Ruiz Casado, 2024), then should we even call it ‘populism’ in the first place?
Political scientists have meticulously documented how RWPPs discursively construct ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’, as well as the sociodemographic and drivers of their vote. But we know much less about the social groups and interests they actually represent (Avigur-Eshel & Filc, 2021). Political economists working on ‘right-wing populist’ regimes in countries like Hungary, Poland or Turkey have found a strong synergy between these regimes and certain sections of respective national capitalist classes (Ban & Bohle, 2020; Naczyk, 2021; Scheiring, 2020; Szanyi, 2019; Tugal, 2022).
The political science literature, however, is somewhat lagging behind. While there are growing anecdotic accounts of the links between economic elites and RWPPs (e.g. Bourgeron, 2024; Bright, 2024), there is very limited research on the social backgrounds of party elites (but see Mazzoleni, Pilotti & Anselmi, 2023) – that is despite the growing evidence of causality between the backgrounds of politicians more generally and their policymaking (Carnes, 2012; O’Grady, 2019). And while more work has been done on the RWPPs’ economic agenda (e.g. Halikiopoulou & Vlandas, 2022), that is nevertheless largely focused on their electoral manifestos rather than their actual legislative behaviour. Finally, there is virtually no research yet on RWPPs’ political donors and how their interests might be incorporated by the parties.
Therefore, the panel would welcome papers covering any of the following questions:
What is the social composition of RWP party elites – are they, at a descriptive level, representative of ‘the people’ they claim to speak on behalf of? Are they different from the mainstream parties they are challenging?
Moving beyond a pluralist approach that focuses on voters alone, what social forces tend to support these parties, particularly in terms of donations but also other types of support (e.g. mass-media backup)?
Moving similarly beyond the manifesto approach, what socio-economic policies do these parties actually promote (or oppose) in their legislative behaviour?
Are there any patterns in terms of which sections of the business classes tend to support these parties? If these is a variation across countries, what might explain that variation? And what may this say about wider intra- and inter-capitalist class conflict?
From a historical perspective, are there any relevant parallels to be drawn between the fascist parties of the past century and current RWPPs in terms of their linkage to economic elites?
What implications may the elite character of RWPPs have on how we think about this party family? By using the very term ‘right wing populism’, do we as scholars risk reinforcing (albeit non-intentionally) the idea that these parties represent the people?
Submission process: please specify 'economic elites' as a keyword in your abstract or title
For the 2025 conference, the submission process has been updated. Those who are interested in presenting a paper in this panel should submit a 300-word abstract by 18 October 2024 directly to the PSA through the submission portal.
To ensure that your abstract is considered for our joint panel, please:
Specify 'economic elites' as a keyword in your abstract or title;
Make sure that you tag at least one of our groups ('Populism' and/or 'Italian Politics') in the Topics section;
To ensure a smooth submission please also email Vladimir Bortun (guest chair) using 'PSA25: Economic Elites' in the subject line, and title and abstract of your submission in the main text.
Notifications of acceptance are expected by 15 November 2024.
We highly encourage submissions from junior researchers, scholars from the Global South, women, non-binary persons, non-white persons, persons with disabilities, and members of minority groups.
This will be a fully in-person conference. The PSA aims to host around 700+ attendees, creating a vibrant experience.
For any questions or concerns about the submission process, please contact the PSA team at psa2cfp@psa.ac.uk.
Information on the conference registration fees will be available in due course in the PSA website. We remember that all participants must abide by the PSA code of conduct.
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