Davide Vittori*
Abstract
Populist parties in Western Europe are today regarded as a “threat” to the classical conception of political representation. Despite a possible threat to the pluralism in the European societies, this paper tries to argue that populism is not the cause of the changing political representation in Western mature poliarchies. Rather, populist parties seem to “suffer” the socialization process that takes place once these parties crystallize in the political panorama.