Blurred positions: The ideological ambiguity of valence populist parties

Abstract

While the diversity of populism has received considerable attention, surprisingly little is known about populist parties that defy clear-cut left-right categorization. We show that valence populist parties are non-positional and substantially different from both left-wing and right-wing populist parties. First, we demonstrate that valence populist parties deliberately take blurry positions on both the economic and socio-cultural dimensions of competition. Second, we show that such an ambiguity is counterbalanced by a disproportionate emphasis on anti-corruption appeals, the most paradigmatic example of a non-positional dimension. Our results have important implications for our understanding of varieties of populism, in particular, and the positional and non-positional competition strategies of political parties, in general.