The rise of populist parties is the historical consequence of the evolution of Western party politics after the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.In the wake of the upheavals in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,along with the transformation and reorientation of the Social Democratic Party and other left-wing parties,the mainstream political parties in the West became increasingly assimilated in terms of political programs,ideology,class base and so on,forming a kind of neoliberal"consensus politics"and being increasingly assimilated by the state.As a result,Western party politics has fallen into three crises,namely,legitimacy crisis,organization crisis and identity crisis.After the 2008 global financial crisis,mainstream Western political parties,which had lost their political functions,were powerless to respond to the severe economic and political difficulties in Western societies.The homogeneity of mainstream political parties and the heterogeneity of social structure have been caught in a sharp contradiction,which has become the core driving factor of the rise of populist political parties in the West.
Party politicsPopulismParty nationalizationNeo-liberalismConsensus politics