“Each one is with their own electorate”: unpacking radical left linkage at the transnational level

It has been widely noted that radical left parties (RLPs) pay particular attention to ‘environmental linkage’. At the national level, research has shown that pursuit of linkage is driven by a range of reasons, mainly ideological, but also linked to electoral and party competition strategies. However, despite notable cases of interaction between RLPs and transnational civil society actors, RLP transnational linkage is relatively under-explored and under-theorised. We know little, about what might drive and hinder these parties’ linkage with transnational social movements. By drawing upon qualitative content analysis of party documents and semi-structured interviews with relevant party elites, this article analyses how three prominent RLPs in Southern Europe – SYRIZA (Greece), Podemos (Spain) and Left Bloc (Portugal) – engaged with anti-austerity transnational initiatives during the Eurozone crisis. It is argued that, mainly due to the primacy of domestic over European politics, most incentives identified at the national level do not apply transnationally, which helps to explain why RLPs did not generally pursue transnational linkage with non-party anti-austerity forces as they did in their domestic arenas. The article advances a tentative framework of drivers and inhibitors of the RLPs’ pursuit of linkage at transnational level.