Religion and the ideology of populism

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the phenomenon of right-wing populism as it relates to Christianity in Europe, in particular, its main Catholic and Protestant denominations in both Western and Central and Eastern Europe. In line with the growing success of populist parties and leaders around the world, populism has become one of the most studied political phenomena. Yet, achieving consensus on what actually constitutes populism has been somewhat elusive as different scholars, across varied academic disciplines, have used the term in different ways according to competing definitions. The chapter considers populism as an ideology in line with the dominant trend in the comparative politics literature and adopts the most broadly used definition asan ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people' versus ‘the corrupt elite', and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonte generale of the people.