Variants of Populism

# Variants of Populism
## Support for Populism in 22 European countries Marlon Schumacher<a href="#fn1" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref1">1</a>, Quynh Nga Nguyen<a href="#fn2" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref2">2</a> & Fabio Votta<a href="#fn3" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref3">3</a> 08-06-2018
### 1 E-Mail: <a href="mailto:M.C.Schumacher@live.de">M.C.Schumacher@live.de</a> 2 E-Mail: <a href="mailto:nga.nguyen@scpobx.fr">nga.nguyen@scpobx.fr</a> 3 E-Mail: <a href="mailto:fabio.votta@gmail.com">fabio.votta@gmail.com</a>
### Slides available at <a href='https://variants-of-populism.netlify.com'>variants-of-populism.netlify.com/ </a>

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Goal:

> Conceptualize and measure populism in a way that takes into account the *multidimensionality* of the phenomenon.

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## Challenges & Shortcomings

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## Challenges & Shortcomings

1st Challenge: The never ending confusion

Populists are...

right-wing.

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... right?

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> *Cas Mudde has been influential in the literature, suggesting that populist philosophy is a loose set of ideas that share three core features: **anti-establishment**, **authoritarianism**, and **nativism**.*

Inglehart & Norris (2016)

Mudde, C. (2007). Populist **radical right parties** in Europe (Vol. 22, No. 8). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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## Challenges & Shortcomings

To study the populist phenomenon means...

to enter muddy waters.

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**What is *populist* about populism?**

+ Organization?

+ Communication?

+ Ideology?

--

*All at once?*

=> Populism has a *"chameleonic"* character (Taggart 2000)

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## Challenges & Shortcomings

Populism as a *thin centered ideology* (Mudde & Kaltwasser 2017):

+ Two groups: *"pure people"* vs. *"corrupt elites"*

+ Politics should express *"volonté générale"*

**But who are *the people*?**

2nd Challenge: The variants of populism

Left/Right?

]

Liberal/Illiberal?

]

... Progressive/Traditionalist.

]

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## Data & Methods

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## Data & Methods

**CHES Dataset**

Positions of 218 political parties in 22 European countries on european and national policy issues.

**Minimalist Definition of Populism**

+ *Salience of anti-establishment and anti-elite rhetoric*
+ *Euroskepticism (attitudes towards European integration)*

**Progressive vs. Traditionalist Populism**

+ *Green-Alternative-Libertarian (GAL) and Traditional-Authoritarian-Nationalist (TAN)*
+ *Position on social lifestyle (e.g. homosexuality)*
+ *Position on civil liberties vs. law and order*

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### Data & Methods

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### Data & Methods

**Merging with ESS (Round 5-8: 2010-2016)**

Two variables will be used to measure our *dependent variable*:

1. What party did you vote for in the last national election?
2. Which party is closest to your views?

**Resulting DV has three categories:**

Support for Establishment/Traditionalist & Progressive Populist Parties

**Bayesian Multinomial Regression:**

Independent Variables:

*Economic Insecurity, Unemployment, Welfare, Anti-Immigration Sentiment, Age, Education, Sex, Left-Right Scale, Religiosity, Government Satisfaction, Trust in Global Governance, Rural vs. Urban, Regional dummies (East, West, North and Southern Europe) and temporal dummies (2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016)*

**Total: 68.403 respondents in 22 countries**

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## Results

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## Conclusions

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## Conclusions

+ Results of Inglehart & Norris 2016 could mostly be reproduced

+ Conceptualization/Classification seems to be appropriate
    + should be checked/validated by others in the future (too broad?)
    + correlation with other measures
    + some communist parties may represent special cases
  
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+ Many missing values (include non-aligned/abstainees category?)

+ Future research should take the *multidimensionality* of populism into account
    + specifically avoid conflating right-wing populism with populism in general

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## Thanks for Listening!

Slides: <a href='variants-of-populism.netlify.com'>https://variants-of-populism.netlify.com/ </a>

Code and Data on <a href='https://github.com/favstats/rise-of-populism'>GitHub</a>

![](https://img.memecdn.com/lets-start-a-band_o_726101.gif)

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## References

*Inglehart, R. and Norris, P., Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash (2016). HKS Working Paper No. RWP16-026. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2818659 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2818659*

*Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017).Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford UniversityPress*

*Taggart, P. (2000). Populism. Buckingham PA. Open University Press*

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## Appendix

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