Variations in Populist Perceptions: Do Citizens Know What Populism Is?

• In Event: Populism, Technocracy and Crises

Abstract

The rise of populist parties has received extensive academic and media attention. The bulk of the research in the field focuses on the supply-side of populism, namely, the language of party platforms, party manifestoes, and the characteristics of leadership. Recently, the study of populist attitudes, known as the demand-side of populism, has also received scholarly consideration. Still, it is striking that we know very little about the citizens’ knowledge of populism and what they associate with the term. Our research addresses this gap by evaluating the following questions: How do citizens perceive populism and what are the concepts and notions they associate with it? Do they think of it in positive or negative terms, or are they neutral, undecided, or unknowledgeable about it. If the antagonism that pits pure people against corrupt elites is essential to the definition of populism, as theories of populism claim, will we find it in the utterances of everyday citizens? Alternatively, is populism largely an academic concept that resonates only with the most educated individuals?

These questions are important as they have the potential to highlight the discord between academic theorizing and the reality on the ground for citizens. While populist parties are frequently accused of spreading disinformation in an attempt to increase their vote share among disgruntled citizens, we propose that both the academic and political debate on populism has rather created misinformation – confusion among the public as to what populist politicians actually stand for. Hence, studies that examine the supply-side of populism and so-called populist attitudes must address these problems of measurement validity.

To answer these questions, we draw on an original public opinion survey carried out in 2022 in four countries where populist movements have moved into the mainstream: Canada, the United States, Italy and France, (N=4000). We conduct both qualitative and quantitative analyses on the data, focusing on the mismatch between academic assumptions about populist attitudes and how citizens perceive populism and themselves. Specifically, our public opinion survey gets at the heart of this issue by asking individuals not only what populism means to them but, crucially, the extent to which they self-identify as populists.

Our preliminary results show that respondents are unfamiliar with the Manichean enmity between “the pure people” and the “corrupt elite”, a recurrent theme in the literature. Moreover, the majority of respondents do not know what populism is and incorrectly associate the term with “popularity” or “population”. We find that Italian and French respondents reveal a more nuanced understanding of populism in contrast to Canadian or American citizens. In their open ended commentaries, respondents defined populism either as demagogic action targeting the uneducated, large-scale political manipulation, or divisive, fearmongering deception. Other respondents saw populism as obtuseness about democracy, therefore, exhorting its harmful impact on democratic life and development. A few citizens invoked a host of intellectual disciplines by drawing parallels between populism and either fascism, propaganda, Nazism, civil war or nationalism. However, respondents did not associate populism primarily with an ideology. Populism is not seen first and foremost as a bundle of ideas, but rather perceived as a discursive style or strategy. Moreover, respondents’ disapproval of populism also acts on their perception of its supporters. The people, who support populist parties are not seen as “pure” but epithelized as thoughtless, irresponsible and herd mentality victims. This conceptualization comes mainly from the cluster opposing populism and it mirrors an elitist Manicheanism that holds commoners in contempt by perceiving them as dishonest and vulgar. In contrast, those who view populism through a positive lens recognized its weaponization by the media and politicians. They explicitly denounced the concept’s instrumentalization as either a snubbing moniker against political adversaries or a negative derogatory trope in newspapers or broadcasting

Authors

• Anna Brigevich, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

• Andrea Wagner, MacEwan University