Voter mobilisation in the echo chamber: Broadband internet and the rise of populism in Europe

Max Schaub,Davide Morisi

doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12373

Abstract

AbstractCan the diffusion of broadband internet help explain the recent success of populist parties in Europe? Populists cultivate an anti‐elitist communication style, which, they claim, directly connects them with ordinary people. The internet therefore appears to be the perfect tool for populist leaders. This study shows that this notion holds up to rigorous empirical testing. Drawing on survey data from Italy and Germany, a positive correlation is found between use of the internet as a source of political information and voting for populist parties. By instrumenting internet use with broadband coverage at the municipality level, the study then demonstrates that this relationship is causal. The findings suggest that part of the rise of populism can be attributed to the effect of online tools and communication strategies made possible by the proliferation of broadband access.

Highlights

Recent years have been marked by the stunning success of populist parties, politicians and ideas
In Online Appendix D, we provide a detailed description of how broadband internet was rolled out in Italy and Germany
We begin our analysis by testing whether the use of the internet as the main source of news correlates positively with voting for M5S in Italy

Summary

Introduction

Recent years have been marked by the stunning success of populist parties, politicians and ideas. We argue that broadband internet is of particular use for populists, giving them a relative advantage over other parties We believe that this is due to three qualities common to populists, but not shared by mainstream parties: (1) populists often need to circumvent gatekeepers in the mainstream media, especially in countries where tabloid media outlets are weak or unsupportive; (2) populists seek to maintain an anti-elitist and people-centric stance that stresses a direct connection to ‘the people’; and (3) populists often use and rely on borderline truths and forged content that would not receive (sufficient) coverage in most mainstream media. To keep our estimates comparable across models, we include municipality-level controls that ensure the ignorability of our instrument, notably population density, the steepness of the terrain, a municipality’s average level of education, average age and unemployment rate All of these variables are from the early 2000s, before the roll-out of broadband internet.

Results

Conclusion

770 Acknowledgements