Populist Parties and Cleavage Politics in Times of Crisis: The Case of the Danish People's Party

The Danish People’s Party (DF) is among the electorally most successful parties in Europe and according to up-to-date opinion polls is still the third largest party in the country. The DF is also among the populist parties in Europe that did best both before and after the economic crisis and which since its formation in 1995 successfully overcame difficult challenges like the party electoral consolidation, mainstreaming and increasing political influence. From September 2011 the DF was sent back to opposition, after ten years acting as support partner to the Liberal and Conservative minority government. The recent (August 2012) decision of the party uncontested leader, Pia Kjaersgaard, to step down at the next party congress and to designate the party MP Kristian Thulesen Dahl as her successor, took many by surprise. Although the shift was awaited, it came earlier than expected, when the DF still is accommodating its politics to the times of crisis and adjusting its role at opposition. Seen in a historic perspective the DF can thus be considered an inspiring model for right-wing populist movements around Europe.  The paper looks at the DF politics and strategies over time to see how these have changed, particularly after the economic crisis. While there is agreement that anti-immigration politics are one of the main explanations behind the electoral support to this party, there are yet few analyses considering how populist parties face the decreasing salience of the cultural and value dimension (herein also in relation to the immigration question) and the renovated and increasing relevance of the economic and state-market cleavage dimension. This is for instance the case of Denmark, as the last Danish electoral surveys indicate. The hypothesis is here that among the reasons of the DF electoral success, there is the capacity of the party to rapidly adjust to new demands. The paper will start from the ‘demand’ side, looking at what transformations have taken place among voters in relation to the cleavage dimensions between 2001 and 2011. The second part will focus on the party ideological accommodations and/or transformations of the immigration politics and on changes pertaining to other areas of the DF politics, such as the party positions on EU.  Sources here include DF party programs, articles from the official party journal Dansk Folkeblad, party newsletters and parliamentary debates.