Influence of Populism on the European Migration Agenda

Published on 5 July 2023, in the IEMed European Institute of the Mediterranean

Right-wing populist parties and movements constitute a rising force in several EU Member States. At the very heart of the story about the rise of right-wing populism lies a disconnect between the established political parties and their electorates. Right-wing populist parties in particular have gained greater public support in the last decade amidst two crises: the global financial crisis in 2008, and the so-called refugee crisis in 2015. The former created relative socioeconomic deprivation for some Europeans due to ongoing neo-liberal forms of governance, deindustrialization, and internal migration, while the latter has caused a nostalgic deprivation, stemming from the feeling that established notions of identity, nation, culture and tradition have been threatened by demographic changes resulting from the perceived mass migration of refugees from the Middle East and Africa.

The article is open access.