Speaking and Supporting Populism: A Survey Experiment

• In Event: The Causes and Consequences of the Rise of Populist Sentiments

Abstract

What prompts citizens to express populism and collaborate with other populists? Building on existing studies on the psychology of populism, we describe a theory of populist framing, expression, and cooperation. This theory predicts that populist frames encouraging dispositional blame should evoke more populist expressions among the public. Further, these frames and this rhetoric should also translate into an increased willingness to collaborate with other populist individuals. We also incorporate theories about the characteristics of the respondent (notably ideology and pre-existing populist attitudes) and the attributes of other populists (gender and skin-tone) as a part of our expectations. We test these theories with a large, randomized experiment hosted via The Guardian as part of their New Populism Project, where we randomly assign subjects to different types of populist frames and observe the expressive and behavioral consequences. With a sample size of approximately 30,000, we consider the robustness of these effects in different political environments and based on subjects’ demographic characteristics. We conclude that blame-based rhetoric has important consequences for the populism people speak as well as the support they extend to others. We discuss the implications of this work for populism broadly, framing, experimental research, and the replication of existing studies on the psychology of populism

Authors

• Ethan C. Busby, Clemson University

• Ryan Carlin, Georgia State University

• Kirk A. Hawkins, Brigham Young University

• Levente Littvay, Central European University