Populist Appeal Research Articles

Middle-class Populism: Political Inequalities and Populist Appeal in India

Populist appeals resonate in contemporary India because of political inequalities. These inequalities persist because political parties are stuck in a reciprocity trap that favours local elites, who provide the party with financial support and resources. This reciprocity trap not only perpetuates political inequalities but also leads to the systematic marginalization of the poor by political parties who remain less receptive to populist appeals by a political leader. This article shows that the middle class, not the poor, were more receptive to populist messages in the 2024 elections. Even though Modi remained immensely popular, the middle classes found Rahul Gandhi’s populist message more compelling. The analysis is based on the pre-and post-election surveys from 2024 and other NES surveys.

Generation Z: pessimistic and populist? A conjoint experiment on the determinants of populist voting in Spain

Abstract Generation Z is the most educated and yet pessimistic about the future. At the same time, populist parties have much support among young voters. Do they find an answer to their discouraging socio-economic situation in populist appeals? In this article, we analyse how pessimistic economic expectations shape the preference for populist parties among the young in Spain. By using conjoint experiments, we explore which specific features of populist parties (‘thin’ or ‘thick’ characteristics) are decisive in attracting young and pessimistic voters. Unlike older generations, for whom immigration is the most relevant factor, Generation Z, especially the pessimistic, focuses more on the thin ideological elements of populism. This finding contradicts previous experimental studies, which argue that thin populist characteristics are irrelevant in explaining the general population’s voting behaviour. Ideology plays a significant mediating role, as young pessimists on the left tend to be attracted by anti-elitism, while those on the centre-right by people-centrism.

Popular autocrats: why do voters support Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary? A quantitative analysis

AbstractAuthoritarian populism has become an increasingly prevalent subtype of hybrid regime and is characterized by weakened democratic institutions and a leader who relies on populist appeals. Authoritarian populist regimes limit citizens’ freedom, undermine accountability and the rule of law, and are likely to be more corrupt than democratic regimes. Nevertheless, certain authoritarian populist regimes appear to enjoy broad popular support. Based on the European Social Survey database and my calculations of respondents’ personal income tax rates, I investigate the factors that influenced voters’ support for Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary from 2010 to 2020, which may be considered an exemplary case of an autocratic populist regime. The analysis shows that voters’ support for the government was influenced by their perceptions of the economy and government performance, political beliefs (i.e., policy congruence and ideology), and basic human values (i.e., self-transcendence and conservation). By contrast, changes in voters’ individual economic conditions were not found to be associated with their support for the government. The findings indicate that, in addition to explanations of government support that specifically focus on hybrid regimes, economic voting theory, which originated from and has typically been applied in democratic contexts, also provides viable explanations for understanding support for authoritarian populist regimes. More broadly, the findings also lend support to the altruistic and expressive voter hypotheses.

The temporary and partial personalization of political parties in India: A comparison of Indira Gandhi's INC and Narendra Modi's BJP

AbstractObjectiveWe analyze the extent to which the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were personalized during the tenures of India's two most famous populist prime ministers, Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi, respectively.MethodsWe use findings from contemporary Indian historiography and journalism, as well as academic secondary sources, to analyze the degree of personalization in both the INC and the BJP based on three separate dimensions of party institutionalization: internal institutionalization, external institutionalization, and objective durability.ResultsWe find evidence of partial personalization in both the INC and the BJP. To the extent that personalization took place in both cases, it involved an informal and temporary concentration of power in the hands of one leader. Both parties' formal structures remained largely constant and both parties remained valued as institutions by both voters and party members.ConclusionIndira Gandhi and Narendra Modi both became two of India's most powerful prime ministers through charismatic populist appeals and cults of personality. While meaningful and important, these outward appearances still give a somewhat misleading image of the degree to which their respective parties underwent personalization during their tenures. Both the BJP and the INC saw a temporary and personal personalization during their time in office while remaining institutionalized parties with objective durability even after their charismatic leaders leave office.

'Laughing at us'

That Donald J. Trump won the US Presidential Election of 2016 defied the expectations of almost all seasoned observers of the US political system. Scholarly explanations stress structural factors that produced a substantial cohort of identity-vulnerable voters in tandem with Trump’s personal populist appeal. Trump benefitted from his political outsider status, celebrity familiarity, heteronormative masculinity, and unconventional rhetorical style including humour, all of which were amplified (and also mocked) by extensive mainstream news media coverage. Trump’s distinctive political use of the social media micro-blogging platform Twitter (now known as X) in engaging those cohorts has also been emphasized. The research presented here sits at the confluence of prior scholarly work on structural causes of identity vulnerability, on contestation involving humour, and on the enhanced political usage of Twitter. It examines the historical record of Trump’s tweets and re-tweets to see if and how the demarcation of his ‘humour brand’ affectively engaged his substantial Twitter followers and may thereby have contributed to his electoral success in 2016.

Politics of the gut: comparative content analysis of Australian political Facebook posts using authenticity and populist frameworks

ABSTRACT Leading to Australia’s 2019 Federal election, then-Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, drew attention for posting images of him making family dinners on Facebook. These ‘curry night’ posts became the subject of media banter as he publicly cultivated his ‘daggy-dad’ persona. Assuming this behaviour was strategic, questions arise as to why. This paper considers theories of irrational appeals in political communication to interpret this behaviour. In doing so, it clarifies and operationalises ‘politics of the gut’, a nexus between populist politics and mediated authenticity. This paper tracks authenticity and populist appeals from Australian politicians on Facebook and gauges their efficacy by contrasting randomised and high-engagement samples. Results show these appeals were widespread but differed in configuration between candidates. Furthermore, during the sampled period, authenticity demonstrated increased engagement from users while populist appeals received decreased engagement, offering new perspectives on the efficacy of these communication styles on Facebook.

Populist Appeals, Emotions, and Political Mobilization

Populist politicians frequently employ anti-establishment appeals in their discourse by targeting an imagined or real power elite. Do such appeals have a mobilizing effect among voters? What role do the emotional responses of voters play in this process? We address these questions using a vignette experiment embedded into a nationally representative survey fielded in Turkey, a country where a populist party has long been in power. Our research design enables us to assess whether voters respond more positively to a populist framing of a call for mobilization on an issue compared to a non-populist framing, and whether their emotional responses act as mediators. We find that populist rhetoric indeed does have a mobilizing effect, though only for a low-cost form of political participation (signing a petition) and only among the constituency of the populist party. Turning to the role of emotions, we find that the populist framing of the issue led voters to report more discontent, despair, and anxiety, and these emotions mediate the positive influence of the populist message on mobilization. Thus, our study contributes to research on populism by highlighting the role of emotions in the mobilizing effect of populist discourse.

The framing of politics in a Ukrainian comedy show: a populist appeal?

ABSTRACT In this study we used computer-assisted (Atlas.ti software) quantitative analysis of framing politics in a popular Ukrainian television comedy show Vechernii Kvartal (VKv) to evaluate whether and to what extent it used populist frames in 2019-2020, after its star and director Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidency with populist narratives. We found that VKv offered a consistently populist perspective for looking at politics. Its main element was anti-elitist humor targeting both old politicians and political newcomers, including those from Zelensky’s party Sluha Narodu. The only exception was Zelensky himself, who was portrayed via the characteristic of populism people-centrist template—as a simple man genuinely caring about the people. We found no exclusionist framing, which is typical, for example, for European right-wing populist rhetoric and which discursively excludes all who are not natives (minorities, migrants, asylum-seekers) from a country’s “pure and virtuous people.”

'I'm Real, Not You': Roles and Discourses of Trans Exclusionary Women's and Feminist Movements in Anti-gender and Right-wing Populist Politics

This article offers a comparative inquiry concerning the rise in visibility, relevance, and power of trans exclusionary women’s and feminist movements in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) between 2015 and 2022.  It focuses on two case studies concerning trans rights: the successful campaign for Bill C-16 in Canada, and failed reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the UK. In both cases, key streams within trans exclusionary women’s and feminist movements increasingly engage in collaborative action with right-wing populist-centered anti-gender coalitions, which include right-wing religious, conservative, and right-wing extremist actors, from approximately 2016. It argues that a key role of women’s and feminist actors in these coalitions is to help legitimize, amplify, and give meaning to anti-gender and right-wing populist appeals and, therein, the politics of exclusion they promote. This occurs in part, it is argued, through symbolic appeals concerning authenticity and the non-materiality of trans lives; the promotion of narratives concerning conflicts in rights; and the provision of strong imagery, narrative, and emotional appeals concerning threat. These broad developments have had various important effects. In the UK, the combination of so-called ‘radical’ as well as ‘traditional’ actors within anti-gender coalitions, has been critical in challenging progress towards trans and broader (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Intersex, and Queer) LGBTIQ+ rights. In Canada, although anti-gender movements have enjoyed less policy success during this period, women’s and feminist actors have helped popularize and provide legitimacy to wider coalitions. 

The rule of law in the grip of populist authoritarianism: Hungary and Poland

AbstractThis article examines the impact of populism on the rule of law in Hungary and Poland. It argues that political discourse is important in setting the political agenda and is often followed by the criminalization of minorities, Euroskepticism, intervening in the operation of supreme courts, affecting the decisions of the judges, and disregarding international law and/or supranational legal orders. It also highlights how politicization and securitization increasingly operate under populist authoritarian regimes through the legal system and legislative initiatives to increase the power of the government and the ruling party. Discourse analysis is a valuable tool to reveal whether a legislator's intention serves the people or exploits power to change the structure and functioning of the political system. Thus, this article follows the course of politics in Hungary and Poland from discourse to hijacking democracy through instrumentalizing the rule of law.Related ArticlesDeegan‐Krause, Kevin, and Tim Haughton. 2009. “Toward a More Useful Conceptualization of Populism: Types and Degrees of Populist Appeals in the Case of Slovakia.” Politics & Policy 37(4): 821–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2009.00200.x.Skowronska, Kaja. 2021. “The Recent Politicization of Immigration in Poland in Light of Preexisting State Practices: Continuity or Change in the Understanding of Citizenship and Nationhood?” Politics & Policy 49(4): 940–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12424.Zafirovski, Milan. 2022. “Toward a New Political Democracy Index: Construction, Validation, and Calculation for Individual Societies and Types of Society.” Politics and Policy 50(4): 663–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12488.

Populism in Context: A Cross-Country Investigation of the Facebook Usage of Populist Appeals During the 2019 European Parliament Elections

Recent scholarship demonstrated that Facebook is a fertile space for populist political communication as its unmediated and viral nature make populist appeals highly efficient in mobilizing voters. However, less attention has been paid to the way these populist messages appear through political actors’ Facebook communication, and what post- and page-level factors they are associated with. We investigate these questions in the context of the 2019 European Parliament election based on a unique cross-national dataset covering twelve European countries. In this study, we categorized 8,074 Facebook posts published on the main Facebook pages of sixty-seven parties. Our findings show that different populist appeals are used in specific ways. For example, at the post level, anti-elitism is frequently used in relation to economy, labor and social policy, and immigration; people-centric appeals are associated with labor and social policy and used when parties call for action, while out-group messages are not related to other topics beyond immigration. “Ideational populist” communication is more frequently articulated in European level and related to the topics of economy and labor and social policy. At the party level, it seems that there are still sharp differences between populist and non-populist parties in their communication.

‘I’m not a virus’: Asian hate in Donald Trump’s rhetoric

ABSTRACT Since the start of Covid-19, anti-Asian sentiment spiked. From March 2020 to June 2021, there were a total of 9,081 self-reported incidents of hate across the United States (Stop AAPI Hate. (2021). https://stopaapihate.org/stop-aapi-hate-national-report-2/). As Covid-19 spread into the U.S., President Trump immediately blamed China by referring to the virus as the ‘Chinese Virus’ and used the hashtag #ChineseVirus on Twitter (Weise, E. 2021). Anti-Asian hashtags soared after Donald Trump first tied COVID-19 to China on Twitter. (USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com). Anti-Asian rhetoric expressed on Twitter grew after Trump’s tweet about the ‘Chinese virus,’ and the number of Chinese and other Asian hate crimes grew exponentially. This study explores the rhetorical strategies that Trump utilized to create a sense of fear against the dangerous ‘Other.’ We use a rhetorical thematic analysis to analyze Trump’s tweets that contain language such as ‘Chinese virus’ or ‘Kung Flu.’ Themes such as scapegoating, fear of the other, China bashing, and populist appeals were prevalent. Describing Chinese and other Asian bodies as ‘spreaders’ of diseases, reinforces the Yellow Peril and perpetual foreigner stereotypes. The study shows the importance of presidential rhetoric in influencing public opinion in the context of COVID-19 and Asian hate.

Inviting the Populists to the Party: Populist Appeals in Presidential Primaries

The aftermath of the 2016 election cycle ignited significant interest in populism among scholars of American politics, yet relatively little engagement has gone toward how American political elites and institutions respond to populist insurgencies. This is problematic as the response a populist insurgency receives likely affects its degree of success, thereby conditioning the substantive importance of rising populism. This paper addresses this shortcoming by articulating an audition and assimilation theory of party response to populist insurgencies. This theory predicts that parties, presented with an electorally viable populist insurgency in a presidential primary contest, can choose to assimilate the message while removing the populist content to diffuse the insurgent nature. In contrast, an electorally unviable populist insurgency is treated as a failed audition, warranting no response. Using a corpus of presidential primary candidate speeches, I show that party nominees assimilate the topics used by populists who demonstrate electoral viability but do not become more populist themselves. This assimilation is also found among party platforms. Furthermore, assimilation is only performed by the Democratic party and exceeds assimilation of topics used by electorally viable, non-populist rivals.

Government participation and populist discourse transformation of radical left Syriza and radical right Anel

This study examines how the government participation within an EU country can affect the discourse of the left-wing and right-wing populist parties. We analyzed this question by tracing two Greek populist parties' discourse, the left-wing Syriza and the right-wing Independent Greeks (Anel), during the 2012-2019 period. We have split the examined period into two subperiods (2012 to July 2015, and August 2015 to 2019). The turning point was the Syriza-Anel government’s signature of the third EU bailout program in August 2015. The first hypothesis was that the government accession within the EU context would slightly decrease the populist logic of the two parties. The next two hypotheses referred that the EU leverage emerged by the signing of the bailout agreement will decrease the populist rhetoric of the two parties towards the external elites (mainly the EU). However, the right-wing populists (Anel)- even after this decrease- will target the external elites to a larger extent than the left-wing populists. To examine the hypotheses in-depth, we applied a combination of quantitative content analysis with qualitative discourse analysis. The findings have corroborated our three initial hypotheses. Simultaneously, the qualitative discourse analysis offered us some additional findings concerning the two parties' use of topos of “History” to increase their populist appeal within the electorate.

POPULISM IN CONTEXT. A CROSS-COUNTRY INVESTIGATION OF THE FACEBOOK USAGE OF POPULIST APPEALS DURING THE 2019 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS

Recent scholarship demonstrated that Facebook is a convenient space for populist political communication as its unmediated and viral nature make populist appeals highly efficient in voters’ mobilization (Engesser et al., 2017). However, less attention has been paid to the way these populist messages appear on political actors’ communication, and what post- and page-level factors they are associated with. We investigate these questions in the context of the 2019 European Parliament (EP) election based on a unique cross-national dataset covering 12 European countries. In our research project we categorized more than 8,074 Facebook posts published on the main pages of 67 parties. Our findings show that the three dimensions of populist communication are used strategically different way and appear in different communication context. Anti-elitist messages are articulated in relation to economy, labor and social policy and immigration mostly by extreme parties. People-centrism is frequently used in relation to labor & social policy, and in European- and mobilization-focused posts all over the political landscape. Out-group messages appear in immigration-related posts and in far-right parties’ communication.

Political Constitutionalism and Referendums: The Case of Brexit

The UK's political constitution rests on the checking and balancing operations of a representative system in which parliament is sovereign. By contrast, referendums are often considered instances of popular sovereignty. Critics condemn them as populist appeals to a singular will of the people that risk majority tyranny, supporters believe they allow citizens to check and balance the elitism of politicians. Such arguments lay behind the criticism and praise of the Brexit referendum. This article argues that while the criticism is justified when referendums form an alternative to representative democracy, they can usefully supplement such a system provided they are embedded within and constrained by it. So conceived, the Brexit referendum can be regarded as consistent with political constitutionalism. Yet, this conception challenges claims that it represented the sovereign will of the people. The result remained subject to ratification by a sovereign parliament and could be legitimately overturned by that body.

Thinking through Right-Wing Populism and Progressive Elites: On the Caviar as a Politico-Cultural Category in Peru

:Caviar or izquierda caviar (caviar left) is a term in Peru that describes privileged actors who advocate for progressive causes. The label is typically employed by right-wing commentators to criticize politicians, intellectuals, and activists. A systematic analysis of uses of “caviar” in Peruvian newspapers draws attention to the way the term comes to refer to the pursuit of wealth and influence through an embrace of progressive ideals and projects, as opposed to merely pointing to a correspondence between social privilege and left political views. This focus on “benefiting” responds to Peru’s uneven neoliberal development and recent experience of political violence but can also be understood as a reconfiguration of class relations and inequality that is characteristic of populist political styles around the globe. Engaging with scholarship on the place of progressive elites in right-wing populist formations, we suggest that anthropological attention to the meanings surrounding figures like the Peruvian caviar offers opportunities for understanding the role of normative ideas of wealth, inequality, and social mobility in contemporary populist appeals to “the people.”

Emotional Dynamics of Populism and Its Non-Populist Alternatives: Discussing the Role of Compassion and Pride

The paper discusses populist appeals to emotions in political communication, considering their role in the proliferation of political polarisation and radicalisation. Revisiting the Emotional Rescue Model of anger, enthusiasm, and fear, we considered pride and compassion low-arousal alternatives to populist storytelling. In the experiments, we tested how participants (n=364) respond to appeals to pride and compassion in their brain activity, emotional expressions, prosocial behaviour, attitude change, and memorisation. In the paper, we primarily discussed the results of the fMRI (neuroimaging) study and compared them with the previous studies on authentic pride, compassion, empathy, and reappraisal. Considering similarities in the activation of the superior and middle temporal gyri, temporal pole, inferior frontal gyrus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, we argue that compassionate political narratives should be the most effective low-arousal alternative to populist storytelling. Moreover, stimulation of the reappraisal-related network in that group suggests that participants reframed emotional negativity into prosocial acts of caring and helping, also re-evaluating their attitudes.

A new kind of personal politics: on the populism of Trump and Sanders

ABSTRACT While most studies of contemporary populism see it as a reaction to economic and cultural change that appeals to solidarities based on nation, race, or class, this essay argues that the American populism embodied by Trump and Sanders must be viewed through a new register. The political culture of the U.S. has been dramatically transformed in recent years, and Trump’s and Sanders’s versions of populism reflects these changes. Given the prominence of neoliberalism, Trump and Sanders redefine the classic populist distinction between the virtuous people and the corrupt elite in a more individualistic idiom. They effectively incorporate elements of a bellicose and social media driven political culture into their populist appeal, proving to be successful populist performers in a new media landscape. As shared American religious and political traditions of solidarity decline, they invoke individualistic cultural traditions of entrepreneurship, authenticity, and aestheticism, portraying themselves as rebels against conventional politics and political truth tellers. They demonstrate that politics may become even more about the person and less about policy, and that criteria of authenticity, of encouraging social and cultural divisions rather than trying to bridge them, and saying what one thinks no matter the consequences, may mark the successful politician moving forward.

Institutional ‘Presence’ and the Indian State: The Long Narrative

The long durée narrative of the state in independent India is one of accumulation of incremental and aggregate power relations arrayed in and through political institutions inhabiting a field of power. These relationships are protean, exhibiting conflicts and contestations among institutions that compete for power within the domain of the state. The ‘ebbs’ and ‘flows’ in power are visible in the state-space represented by institutional arrangements and the patterns of relationship among them. While institutions perform the function of legitimation for the state, they also manifest the crisis that besets the state, reflecting dissonance between its moral–political goals of bringing about socio-economic transformation and its ability to achieve them through ‘state-bureaucratic’ practices. The constitutional state in India can be seen as the setting where the state-idea as limited by law and as an ‘instrument’ for bringing about transformative change was situated. Institutional crises during the emergency and the uneven trajectories of institutional presence in the ensuing period show the marginalization of institutions such as Parliament and the ambivalence of the judiciary in articulating the principles underlying the constitutional consensus. A dominative presence of the executive corroding deliberative spaces making them sites of adversarial combat and the populist appeal of the ‘leader’ drawing upon communitarian emotions has paved the way for a majoritarian state.