Belgium : Against the Government and Its Parties, (Not So Much) with the People

We are grateful to Tim Bale, Sarah de Lange, Marcel Lewandowski, and Marta Lorimer as well as the editors for their insightful comments on previous versions of this chapter.Publisher PD

Beyond protest and discontent. A cross-national analysis of the effect of populist attitudes and issue positions on populist party support

Even though studies of supply-side populism are numerous, its connection with demand-side dynamics, and particularly the populist characteristics or tendencies of the electorate, requires more scholarly attention. We seek to examine in more detail the conditions underlying the support for populist parties, and in particular the role of populist attitudes amongst citizens. We ask two core questions: (i) to what extent are populist party supporters characterised by populist attitudes, and (ii) to what extent do populist (and other) attitudes contribute to their party preference? For the analysis, we use fixed-effect models and rely on a cross-sectional research design that uses unique survey data from 2015 and includes nine European countries. Our results are threefold. First, in line with single-country studies, we conclude that populist attitudes are prominent amongst supporters of left- and right-wing populist parties in particular. Second, populist attitudes are important predictors of populist party support, in addition to left-wing socio-economic issue positions for left-wing populist parties, and authoritarian and anti-immigration issue positions for right-wing populist parties. Third, we find that populist attitudes moderate the effect of issue positions on the support for populist parties, particularly for individuals whose positions are further removed from the extreme ends of the economic or cultural policy scale. These findings suggest that strong populist attitudes may encourage some voters to support a populist party whose issue positions are incongruous with their own policy-related preferences

Replication Data for: In-group solidarity or out-group hostility in response to terrorism in France? Evidence from a regression discontinuity design

Replication data for article published in European Journal of Political Researc

Populist demand, economic development and regional identity across nine European countries: exploring regional patterns of variance

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The measurement of populist attitudes: Testing cross-national scales using item response theory

Recent research in the populism literature has devoted considerable efforts to the conceptualisation and examination of populism on the individual level, that is, populist attitudes. Despite rapid progress in the field, questions of adequate measurement and empirical evaluation of measures of populist attitudes remain scarce. Seeking to remedy these shortcomings, we apply a cross-national measurement model, using item response theory, to six established and two new populist indicators. Drawing on a cross-national survey (nine European countries, n = 18,368), we engage in a four-folded analysis. First, we examine the commonly used 6-item populism scale. Second, we expand the measurement with two novel items. Third, we use the improved 8-item populism scale to further refine equally comprehensive but more concise and parsimonious populist measurements. Finally, we externally validate these sub-scales and find that some of the proposed sub-scales outperform the initial 6- and 8-item scales. We conclude that existing measures of populism capture moderate populist attitudes, but face difficulties measuring more extreme levels, while the individual information of some of the populist items remains limited. Altogether, this provides several interesting routes for future research, both within and between countries

A Post-contentious turning point for the contentious French? Crisis without protest in France

International audienceThis chapter shows that the ‘contentious French’ may not be that contentious anymore. The economic crisis provides a unique chance to argue that a post-contentious turning point is emerging in spite of a long-standing tradition of protesting. Yet the chapter suggests that this post-contentious turning point is not bringing about acquiescence but opens space for new forms of political participation, especially in connection with resources acquired through employment and educational track. In this case, we find a more extensive engagement in online activism and non-institutional forms of political participation, that is, the two forms of political participation that are less ‘active’ and require a more modest time commitment. These findings are also put in the broader context of contemporary French politics