European Political Parties: Classification Guide
- Experts employ several methods to classify political parties, focusing on their role as populist and their placement on the left-right political spectrum.
- To classify parties as populist,analysts frequently enough use three primary measures: anti-elite ratings from the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES),the Global Party survey,and The PopuList.
- The CHES, conducted in early 2020, surveyed 421 political scientists specializing in European integration and political parties.
Understand the evolving landscape of European political parties with our extensive classification guide. We unpack how experts define and categorize political parties, focusing on their role as populist entities, and their position on the left-right spectrum. Discover the influence of anti-elitism measures and key data sources like the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) in identifying populist parties. Learn how to differentiate between left, right, and center parties based on their ideological stances. News Directory 3 provides crucial insights into the methodologies used to understand the political landscape and offer useful points for further study. This guide clarifies complex concepts, providing essential data for researchers and political enthusiasts. discover what’s next in the dynamic world of political analysis.
Classifying Political Parties: Understanding the Role of Populism
Updated June 14, 2025
Experts employ several methods to classify political parties, focusing on their role as populist and their placement on the left-right political spectrum. While a consensus exists that populist leaders and parties exhibit anti-elitism, definitions of populism itself can vary.
To classify parties as populist,analysts frequently enough use three primary measures: anti-elite ratings from the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES),the Global Party survey,and The PopuList. A party is typically labeled populist if at least two of these sources identify it as such.
The CHES, conducted in early 2020, surveyed 421 political scientists specializing in European integration and political parties. They evaluated the positions of 277 European political parties in EU member states. Academics regularly use CHES data to classify parties based on their ideological leanings, platform positions, and degree of populism.
Anti-elitism is measured using two variables from CHES data: “PEOPLE_VS_ELITE,” gauging support for direct versus representative democracy, and “ANTIELITE_SALIENCE,” measuring the prominence of anti-establishment rhetoric. Parties scoring 7.0 or higher on the average of these measures are considered populist.
The Global Party Survey,conducted in late 2019,surveyed 1,861 experts to evaluate the ideological values,issue positions,and populist rhetoric of 1,051 parties across 163 countries. This survey uses “TYPE_POPULISM” to categorize populist rhetoric, with only “strongly populist” parties included.
The PopuList, an ongoing project, classifies European parties as populist, far-right, far-left, or euroskeptic, focusing on parties represented in national parliaments since 1989.It identifies parties emphasizing the will of the people against the elite as populist.
Parties are further classified as left, right, or center based on their overall ideological stance. This classification relies on the “LRGEN” variable in the CHES dataset, were experts rate each party’s position on a scale from extreme left (0) to extreme right (10). Left parties score below 4.5, right parties above 5.5, and center parties between 4.5 and 5.5.
what’s next
Ongoing analysis and classification of political parties will continue to shape understanding of populism and its role in contemporary politics.
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