The populist discourse on the environment: framework and evidence from Europe and the Americas

Abstract

ABSTRACT What is the relationship between populism and the environment? Existing research answers this question by identifying empirical patterns emerging from the positions of specific populist parties. These patterns, however, are not leveraged to propose an overall framework for how populism itself relates to environmental positions. We adopt a deductive approach that draws from populism’s essence to articulate what we should expect. Populism is an ideologically ‘thin’ discursive approach centered on people-centrism and anti-elitism. The environment, as other substantive matters, is therefore a second-order issue. Given this, we should expect considerable variations across populists in their environmental positions. At the same time, we should expect the consistent anchoring of those positions in people-centrism and anti-elitism – in consonance with the specific factors pertinent to those parties that ultimately define their environmental positions. Our approach systematizes analytically the literature’s observations, corrects some of its empirical limitations, and allows for reflection on the environmental commitment of any one populist party. We undertake a cross-regional analysis of four cases to illustrate our argument: Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, the US Republican Party led by Donald Trump, Spain’s Podemos led by Pablo Iglesias, and Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro’s socialist regime in Venezuela.