July 2017

The 2017 TIMBRO Authoritarian Populism Index is the only Europe-wide comprehensive study that aims to shed light on whether populism poses a long-term threat to European ‘liberal’ democracies. The Index explores the rise of authoritarian populism in Europe by analysing electoral data from 1980 to summer 2017.

As the data show, Authoritarian-Populism has overtaken Liberalism and has now established itself as the third ideological force in European politics, behind Conservatism/Christian Democracy and Social Democracy.

Hungary, Poland and Greece are the European countries where anti-establishment parties are the strongest. At the same time, nine European countries (including seven EU Member States) have populist parties in government.

On average, around a fifth of the European electorate now vote for a left- or right-wing populist party. In other words, 55.8 million people voted for these parties during European countries’ latest general elections.