ANTI-POLITICAL-ESTABLISHMENT PARTIES

A specter is haunting contemporary party politics: the specter of anti -political-establishment parties. In old as well as in new democracies , fears run high and the literature is booming. Specters are evasive, however. Political scientists have tried to get hold of this one under labels like protest, populist or extremist parties. Yet the 'anti-pol itical' ideology which is central for many of these outsider parties h as not received the systematic attention it deserves. The present piec e of discourse analysis pretends to fill this gap. It argues that anti -political-establishment parties construct two specific cleavages. The y contrapose the political elite against citizens, on the one hand, an d against themselves, on the other. In its main part, the article anal yzes the symbolic strategies anti-political-establishment parties empl oy in constructing this double conflict. It proceeds to describe their dilemmatic position in between normal and anti-democratic opposition, sketches the possible career paths of anti-political-establishment pa rties, and concludes with some notes on available counter-strategies.