Cohort: SOMET 39

Topic of the thesis: Good for Democracy? The Role of Populist Attitudes in Mitigating Inequalities in Political Participation

Abstract: Populism is a thin ideology that wants to represent the so-called 'losers of globalization'. This phenomenon could have motivated lower social classes to participate more in politics, making the mechanisms of participation and representation more equal. Nonetheless, scholars have extensively studied populist parties and the impact of populism on democracy, while giving much less attention to individual populist attitudes as a potential mitigating variable of inequalities in political participation. In contrast, I argue that populism at the mass level may motivate most disadvantaged people to participate in politics. Hence, this project aims to examine whether left-wing and right-wing populist attitudes can play a different role in mitigating these inequalities. To do so, the project aims to provide new data through the conduction of a survey. Finally, the role of the context is planned to be included in the analysis to understand whether scandals and populist communication in a country have an effect on the stimulation of populist attitudes. The results of this project would like to contribute to the debate on the corrective or threatening role of populism on democracy.

Research interests: Populism; Political participation; Political inequalities

Graduated from: Università degli Studi di Trento (MA); Università degli Studi di Bergamo (BA)

Degrees obtained: Master's Degree in Sociology and Social Research; Bachelor's Degree in Communication studies

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