Constitutive or Reflective Populisms? Salient Issues and Elite Claims

• In Event: Populism and Extremism on the Rise: Why, How, Who?

Abstract

"Populism" is the primary focus of political research yet its meaning and the implications of populist party success on democratic processes remain contested. Existing research shows us that populist parties often define the saliency of issues, yet it is not clear if the parties claim and turn fringe issues into central issues to mobilize followers or tap into existing valent topics. What is missing is the congruency between populist party elite and their followers on a broader range of issues.

This question is especially significant for democratic practices since populist parties are gaining support due select polarizing issues while ignoring other less contentious issues. This comparative paper asks whether and how populist parties obfuscate the variations across their supporters' policy positions and do we see a similar divergence on non-salient issues? In order to offer an empirically grounded, inductive argument the research focuses on Spain (Podemos), France (the National Rally Political Party), Hungary (Fidevsz) and Turkey (Justice and Development Party). We map out the salient issues and their transformation from the discourses and manifestos, the World Values and Euro-barometer surveys. We not only identify the frequency of references but also the role assigned to issue in the party’s overall discourse and policies.

The analysis of an assessment of the the level of congruence between party leaders and supporters by pairing information from opinion polls and political elite statements. The scope of our comparison include right, left and Islamic populist parties allow us to question whether and how party ideologies determine the party’s relation to different issues. Instead of tracing certain issues we allow the party statements to define the issues for us while we also trace how immigration, environment and social disparity related issues are articulated. The initial results show that the success of populist parties is rooted in their ability to shape opinions and increase the saliency of a small number of issues not vice versa thus polarizing impact of populist parties require more nuanced assessments.

Authors

• Sultan Tepe, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Michael Ledezma

• Keith Simonds, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Michael Dirksen, University of Illinois at Chicago