Challenger Parties’ Strategies Toward Interest Groups in Southern Europe Under Crisis

Relations between political parties and interest groups have weakened during the last decades (e.g. Poguntke 2002 and 2006). However, there hardly is a unique pattern of relationship and rather a wide range of modalities (Thomas 2001, Allern and Bale 2012). This is also true in the South European countries where the literature has shown that different ideological, organizational and contextual factors might account for variations in the way parties and interest groups interact (Verge 2012; Jalali et. alt, 2012; Tsakatika and Lisi 2013; Allern 2013). The aim of this paper is to explore the strategies and its results in terms of organizational and programmatic links of several Southern European challenger parties (Abedi 2004: 12) such as Podemos (We Can), Ciudadanos (Citizens), Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda), Syriza (Coalition of Radical Left) or the Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle) in relation to organized civil society under the economic crisis. The comparison should provide more insights on the influence of ideology and party models on the relations between the new parties and interest groups in a context of economic hardship.