Maria Snegovaya, <i>When Left Moves Right: The Decline of the Left and the Rise of the Populist Right in Postcommunist Europe</i>

Maria Snegovaya's When Left Moves Right provides an important new angle on the large and growing literature on the rise of right-wing populist parties in Europe. Using surveys, quantitative analysis, and case studies, Snegovaya shows that populist parties sought and won voters from traditional parties that embraced neoliberal globalization in the 1990s and 2000s. Other scholars have noted that the traditional left in Europe declined around the same time that populist right parties tripled their support in European elections. Some also have pointed out that populist right parties shifted their economic appeals to the left, particularly after the global economic crisis of 2008. Yet few, if any, have made the argument more clearly and convincingly, marshaling a wide variety of data, for both Western and Eastern Europe. When Left Moves Right shows unequivocally that the populist right rose when it shifted its economic policies to the left to capture disaffected working-class voters tired of free-market globalization. Snegovaya furthermore finds that these shifts in economic stances are more important than cultural shifts in explaining the rise of populist right parties in Europe.Snegovaya looks at populist parties as opportunistic entrepreneurs seeking to establish a winning coalition, what she calls the “supply side” of populism. When traditional left parties embraced free-market policies in the 1990s in Britain, Germany, and Sweden in an effort to compete for middle-class voters as working-class factory jobs and voters were shrinking in numbers, the results initially looked promising. Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder led the way with impressive victories in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But over time, Snegovaya shows, working-class voters became disenchanted with policies of globalization that undermined their economic interests. Working-class voters’ allegiance to pro-market left parties waned at the same time that concern about immigration mounted.The biggest takeaway from the book is that the rise of right-wing populism in Europe is a story about the transformation of not only the right but the left as well. The pro-market turn of traditional left parties sett the process in motion. In essence, Snegovaya argues that the left's embrace of unpopular neoliberal reforms created a unique opportunity—though not a necessity—for populist right parties to compete for traditional working-class voters. “The watering down of the left's distinctive historical profile rendered reformist left parties unable to take advantage of widespread discontent over the fallout from neoliberal reforms” in the mid-2000s (p. 35). Right-wing populists did. Snegovaya concludes that third-way politics failed in Western Europe, producing a massive and consequential political realignment.In Central and Eastern Europe, this shift was delayed by the process of European Union (EU) enlargement that pressured post-Communist countries to continue along the free-market path. When this happened, it occurred even more abruptly. The transition to market-oriented globalization was “extremely painful for the working class” in countries exiting Communism, eliminating many guarantees and forcing people to compete in markets that in many cases had not existed before. Paradoxically, as the remaining factory jobs moved from West to East, working-class voters remained an essential part of any winning electoral coalition. Case studies show that right-wing populist parties in Hungary and Poland led the way in combining anti-immigrant conservatism with nativist economic policies that sought to dampen the impact of globalization, a new winning formula.Case studies of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, by contrast, show that when traditional left parties remained true to their working-class constituents, they continued to win elections, or at least to avoid the fate of the left in Hungary and Poland, which was almost completely wiped out. Recent elections in Hungary and Poland have posed the center-right against the populist right, with the main political cleavage being their attitude toward free markets and globalization. In such a competition, the left could not create a viable alternative. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, left parties remained relevant at least until the immigration crisis of 2015, when working-class voters in those countries went populist as well.By developing this argument in both Western and Eastern Europe, Snegovaya seeks to unify a literature that has been s bifurcated between East and West, based on the legacy of Communism. When Left Moves Right shows that similar dynamics are at play in both parts of Europe. Left-wing parties in Western Europe sought to achieve a majority by picking up middle-class voters. Eastern Europe pursued pro-market policies to prove that they had left Communism behind. Both failed miserably as the populist right adopted the mantle of opposition to globalization, in both its economic and cultural dimensions.Because right-wing populist parties clearly marry economic and cultural opposition to neoliberal globalization, I wished at times that When Left Moves Right did more to address cultural arguments, even while making the central point that political economy and party strategies played a key role in the rise of the populist right. I wondered, for instance, what Snegovaya makes of the arguments of those who suggest that the left abandoned class appeals for identity politics. Were class appeals just an opportunistic add-on for populist right parties more devoted to culture wars? What options remain available to the left? Will nationalist economic policies function well over the long term?When Left Moves Right is at its most persuasive in showing that one cannot analyze the rise of the populist right in Europe without looking at the collapse of the left, whose market-oriented third way ushered in a disastrous reorientation of contemporary politics by unmooring working-class voters from the banner of progress.