Populace and populism: A correlational class analysis of populist beliefs in the general public

• In Event: 3446 - Contemporary Issues in Public Opinion Research: Inequality, Representation, and Populism

Abstract

Populism is generally defined (1) as the combination of people-centrism with political cynicism, (2) as anti-elitist and anti-pluralist, and (3) as ideologically ‘thin’. This definition largely borrows from populism supply research which focus on populist politicians, parties, and movements. However, little research has investigated if this supply-definition of populism as a consistent set of ideas holds up in the general public (i.e., the demand side of politics). In this paper, we conduct an individual-level analysis of populist beliefs using data from Flanders (N = 1449) by analyzing how common people interrelate four political attitudes: people-centrism, political cynicism, elitism, and pluralism. Correlational class analysis is used to separate the sample into different clusters with different ways of interrelating the four political attitudes. These clusters are compared in terms of their left- or right-wing ideological profile and socio-political background (i.e., populist voting, education, political interest, income levels, economic pessimism, and age). Results show that we find four distinct clusters: pluralist populists, anti-pluralist populists, ambiguous beliefs, and disordered beliefs. Further analyses show that higher levels of populist attitudes are related to more right-wing ideological attitudes in each cluster and that higher educated and more politically interested respondents belong to the anti-pluralist populist cluster which is in line with the supply-definition of populism.

Authors

• Dieter Dekeyser, University Ghent

• Henk Roose, Ghent University