“In Europe, the risk of partisan fragmentation is political, economic and strategic” | EUROtoday

Lhe speedy and widespread rise of populist events has disrupted the political panorama on each side of the Atlantic. But its results are clearly distinct as a result of distinction in electoral methods.

In the United States, the American presidential election highlights political polarization pushed to the acute, which is expressed in an more and more brutal confrontation between Republicans and Democrats. It displays a “polarization of reality”to make use of the expression of the economist Stefanie Stantcheva: Americans are divided, not solely of their political beliefs, but in addition of their perceptions of the identical factual actuality, whether or not inequalities, taxation, immigration or public insurance policies. Political decisions and financial interactions are more and more perceived as a zero-sum recreation: bettering the lot of some can solely be performed to the detriment of others.

If this polarization can also be at work in Europe, and significantly in France, it doesn’t happen in keeping with a binary logic. The foremost consequence of the rise of populism in most European international locations is growing fragmentation, which we additionally observe on the stage of the European Union (EU). More and extra events are wanted to type authorities coalitions. As a end result, governments are much less secure and their inside cohesion is weakened. This makes decision-making extra advanced and time-consuming, particularly in international locations that don’t have any expertise of coalition governments. The price range debate in France is an apparent instance.

Italy, a “laboratory”

The danger of this European fragmentation is political, financial and strategic. Political, as a result of the shortcoming to resolve will increase common dissatisfaction and feeds populism, which in flip reinforces political fragmentation; the sequence of the dissolution of the National Assembly in France bears witness to this. Economic, as a result of political uncertainty leads financial gamers to postpone their investments, which weighs on development. Strategic, as a result of the shortcoming to resolve weakens us within the face of different powers. A fragmented European system may have extra issue responding not solely to authoritarian regimes, but in addition to a United States with a unified authorities implementing an agenda radicalized by inside polarization.

You have 59.77% of this text left to learn. The relaxation is reserved for subscribers.