What Comes First? The Intertwined Effects of Insecurity and Social Status on Populist Attitudes in Europe

• In Event: 41052 - Electoral Politics

Abstract

Previous research has found that the rise of right-wing populist voting can be explained by the perceived loss of social status among voters (Gidron and Hall, 2017). At the same, voters who feel insecure about their ability to bear day-to-day expenses and who face insecurity in their work conditions are more likely to hold populist attitudes and vote for populist parties (Antonucci et al., 2021; Zhirnov et al., 2024). Yet, these studies have not clarified the respective role of social status, work insecurity and financial insecurity – and their interactions – in shaping the direction of populist support. This article proposes the first theoretical and empirical investigation of the interacting effects of social status and insecurity on populist voting, including also objective measures of economic insecurity (e.g. income, status and financial shocks) and cultural factors (e.g., cultural anomie). Through the use of structural equation models on a sample of 22,000 individuals in 9 countries in Europe that belong to different welfare regimes, we test the link between social status, subjective and objective insecurity, cultural anomie, and populist attitudes. The findings show that insecurity has both a direct effect on improving support for populist attitudes and an indirect effect on populism by influencing social status. The findings indicate the importance of overcoming the dualism between economic and cultural investigations of the triggers of populist attitudes, and point at the importance of integrating the social status literature with the burgeoning literature on insecurity.

Authors

• Lorenza Antonucci, University Of Birmingham

• Andrei Zhirnov, University of Exeter