Populism is a concept that is currently in vogue among political commentators and is often used pejoratively. The phenomenon of populism is typically seen as something adverse and is routinely related to xenophobic politics in the European context. However, what populism exactly is and who its main representatives are often remains unclear. This text has two main aims: to identify populist parties in 21st century Europe and to explain their electoral performance. It argues that populist parties should not be dismissed as dangerous pariahs out of hand, but rather that their rise tells us something about the state of representative democracy. The study has a broad scope, including populist parties of various ideological kinds, thus moving beyond examples of the right, and covering long-established Western European countries as well as post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe.