Comparing Authoritarian Populisms: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis

• In Event: 2229 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable #3

Abstract

Populists are globally more successful in politics than ever before the postwar era, and this time in an authoritarian fashion. Focusing on contemporary Austria, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Venezuela and the US, we examine the conditions under which contemporary authoritarian populist parties achieve electoral successful. In our analysis, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and examine factors from both demand (followers) and supply (leaders and party) side explanations of populist success. For demand side, we include economic anxiety, social polarization as explanatory conditions while the supply side conditions include the presence of a charismatic leader and weak democratic incorporation. In addition to those, we include two sociological conditions: mediatization and informal networks. While our findings produce some contradictions, we argue they show clear patterns that resemble classical populism in less established democracies, but that older Western democracies have distinct causal forces at work

Authors

• Irem Ebeturk, Emory University

• Defne Over, Texas A&M University

• Oliver Cowart, Paine College