Party Bans and Populism in Europe

Abstract

In the latest episode in a decades-long conversation about militant democracy, the growing electoral success and radicalization of Alternative for Germany have relaunched debates about the appropriateness of restricting the political rights of those who might use those rights to undermine the liberal democratic order. While it is typical for dictatorships to ban parties, democracies also do so, but for different reasons and with compunction. Party bans respond to varying rationales which have evolved over time. However, as my research on responding to populist parties in Europe shows, a ban on the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany would be out of step with more general patterns of opposition to such parties in Europe. Those who disagree with populist parties typically deploy a wide repertoire of opposition initiatives which only rarely take the form of exclusionary measures of militant democracy like party bans.