Towards the Formation of Genuine European Parties? Examining and Comparing the Cases of DiEM25 and Volt Europa

The 2019 European Parliament (EP) election saw the participation of two transnational parties: DiEM25 and Volt Europa. Both seek to democratise the European Union (EU) by engaging with European institutions and mobilising their supporters across member states, putting the EU's democratic deficit at the centre of their endeavour. They consider the European space as their primary field of appeal and mobilization, adopting a transnational conception of 'the people' as the source of democratic legitimacy. This paper explores the potential of genuine pan-European parties in increasing public contestation and inclusiveness at the European level and in democratising EU politics by treating DiEM25 and Volt as prototypical cases. Through a comparative analysis, we highlight the novelties of the two parties in relation to existing 'Europarties' and assess how these respond to deficiencies related to the democratic deficit. We conclude by reflecting upon what DiEM25 and Volt reveal about the potentials and challenges of 'transnationalising' EU politics

Towards the Formation of Genuine European Parties? Examining and Comparing the Cases of DiEM25 and Volt Europa

The 2019 European Parliament (EP) election saw the participation of two transnational parties: DiEM25 and Volt Europa. Both seek to democratise the European Union (EU) by engaging with European institutions and mobilising their supporters across member states, putting the EU's democratic deficit at the centre of their endeavour. They consider the European space as their primary field of appeal and mobilization, adopting a transnational conception of 'the people' as the source of democratic legitimacy. This paper explores the potential of genuine pan-European parties in increasing public contestation and inclusiveness at the European level and in democratising EU politics by treating DiEM25 and Volt as prototypical cases. Through a comparative analysis, we highlight the novelties of the two parties in relation to existing 'Europarties' and assess how these respond to deficiencies related to the democratic deficit. We conclude by reflecting upon what DiEM25 and Volt reveal about the potentials and challenges of 'transnationalising' EU politics

The Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25) and the limitations of transnational populism

Can you create an electorally successful left populist movement beyond the nation state? Benjamin Moffitt, Benjamin De Cleen, Panos Panayotu and Yannis Stavrakakis examine the transnational populist European movement DiEM25, which stood in several countries in the recent European Parliament elections, and considers its prospects in establishing an electorally competitive movement at the transnational level

Towards the Formation of Genuine European Parties? Examining and Comparing the Cases of DiEM25 and Volt Europa

The 2019 European Parliament (EP) election saw the participation of two transnational parties: DiEM25 and Volt Europa. Both seek to democratise the European Union (EU) by engaging with European institutions and mobilising their supporters across member states, putting the EU's democratic deficit at the centre of their endeavour. They consider the European space as their primary field of appeal and mobilization, adopting a transnational conception of 'the people' as the source of democratic legitimacy. This paper explores the potential of genuine pan-European parties in increasing public contestation and inclusiveness at the European level and in democratising EU politics by treating DiEM25 and Volt as prototypical cases. Through a comparative analysis, we highlight the novelties of the two parties in relation to existing 'Europarties' and assess how these respond to deficiencies related to the democratic deficit. We conclude by reflecting upon what DiEM25 and Volt reveal about the potentials and challenges of 'transnationalising' EU politics.<br /

Towards the formation of genuine European parties? Examining and comparing the cases of DiEM25 and Volt Europa

The 2019 European Parliament (EP) election saw the participation of two transnational parties: DiEM25 and Volt Europa. Both seek to democratise the European Union (EU) by engaging with European institutions and mobilising their supporters across member states, putting the EU’s democratic deficit at the centre of their endeavour. They consider the European space as their primary field of appeal and mobilization, adopting a transnational conception of ‘the people’ as the source of democratic legitimacy. This paper explores the potential of genuine pan-European parties in increasing public contestation and inclusiveness at the European level and in democratising EU politics by treating DiEM25 and Volt as prototypical cases. Through a comparative analysis, we highlight the novelties of the two parties in relation to existing ‘Europarties’ and assess how these respond to deficiencies related to the democratic deficit. We conclude by reflecting upon what DiEM25 and Volt reveal about the potentials and challenges of ‘transnationalising’ EU politics.</p

The potentials and difficulties of transnational populism : The case of the democracy in Europe movement 2025 (DiEM25)

The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), launched by former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, seeks to construct a transnational left political project to ‘democratise Europe’. Its construction of a European ‘people’ against an international elite raises questions about the potentials of populism beyond the nation-state. Building on a discourse-theoretical distinction between populism and nationalism, the article asks whether DiEM25 is a truly transnational populist movement. Through an analysis of the movement’s manifestoes, speeches, press releases and published interviews with DiEM25 leaders, the article shows how DiEM25 constructs a ‘European people’ in opposition to an international ‘elite’, how DiEM25 oscillates between speaking for national ‘peoples’ and a transnational ‘people’, and how it negotiates its populism, nationalism and transnationalism. The article contributes to the theorisation of populism beyond the usually assumed nation-state level and shines a light on the potentials and limitations of transnational populism as an as-yet understudied political development