Populist Shocks: The Effect of Populist Victories on Attitudes of the Opposition

• In Event: Dimensions of Electoral Competition

Abstract

How do populist wins affect policy positions and political attitudes of the general public? Despite growing interest on the emergence and endurance of right-wing populism in developed democracies, comparatively little attention is paid to the impact of right-wing populism on non-populist voters. Although some suggest that right-wing populism may grant voters either permission to articulate the conservative policy positions they already hold or the opportunity to denounce policy positions they find abhorrent, we posit that non-populist voters will instead endorse only those positions they perceive as central to populist success. We test this theory with a series of quantitative case-study analyses including Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S presidential election and AfD’s 2017 breakthrough into the German parliament. First, we examine the effect of a populist win on voters' nativist economic and cultural policy positions in the United States using short and long-term panel data spanning the 2016 election. Next, we situate these findings in a global context, examining non-populist voter attitudes in light of right-wing populist success in Germany's 2017 federal elections. Across each case, we reveal that in elections where populists win, non-populist voters shift their preferences to match the seemingly successful strategies of the populist candidates. Specifically, we show that non-populist voters adopt more nativist policy positions on immigration and free trade in the wake of populist victories. By contrast, in policies less clearly linked to the particular appeal of populist parties--e.g. marriage equality, abortion, taxation--we reveal non-populist voters elect to reaffirm their commitment to their own party's ideological preferences. These findings show that the success of populist parties present significant consequences for the attitudes not only of populist supporters but also the opposition.

Authors

• James Fahey, University of Florida--Dept. of Political Science

• Hannah Marie Alarian, University of Florida

• Trevor J Allen, Central Connecticut State University