The covid-19 pandemic has hit every part of life hard. From visiting the supermarket to halting world trade. One of the most obvious effects of the pandemic has been the political one. All across the world political parties have been competing for power during these unusual times.  This paper will analyze whether populistic parties around Europe have changed their views on the covid-19 pandemic restrictions. In order to analyze this a comparative idea analysis will be used in order to compare and analyze political parties views on this subject. In order to conduct this analysis the studie compare four different populistic parties around europé. These parties are as followed, AFD and Die Linke in germany, PVV in the Netherlands followed by Syriza in Greece. The study will be using material from the four different parties to conduct the analysis and compare the material. The analysis shows that only one out of four parties has had a change in their views on the pandemic restrictions. This study is an important contribution the field of populism. It will grant a unique opportunity to study such a unique time of our the world that the covid-19 pandemis really is.

This thesis analyzes the rise of populist parties in southern Europe - italian Five Star Movement, greek SYRIZA and spanish Podemos. The aim is to define the key factors, that contributed to the perception of these protest political formations as political alternatives. The thesis chronologically follows development of examined political parties. Further it defines their strategy in terms of levels of protests and programme. Finally it outlines probable transformations of party systems, which is caused by the rise of protest parties.

This is a case study aiming to clarify the potentially outdated focus on the populist features in modern populist parties. By analyzing the right-wing populist party of Fidesz and the left-wing populist party of Syriza the aim is to clarify whether populism as a feature is descriptive enough to illustrate these parties, regardless their ideological stance, or whether ideology should be taken more into account than it tends to do today. To do this, the policies of each party are mapped to distinguish populist similarities, despite their ideological disparity and their differences. The analysis is delimited by the three pillars of civil society: Freedom of Associations, Freedom of Peaceful Assemblies and Freedom of Expression, referred to as the three pillars of civil society. The study shows that the descriptiveness of Fidesz as a right-wing populist party is conformed. However, the policies of Syriza demonstrate a variation of partially right-wing and left-wing populism, but also tendencies of no populism at all in their foreign policies. The descriptiveness of contemporary left-wing populist parties in the case of Syriza is thereby questionable.