Topic of thesis: Measuring populist attitudes on the demand side
Abstract: Most studies on populism so far approached the topic with a special focus on party politics or leadership characteristics. Less attention has been devoted to the study of populist attitudes among the citizenry (Akkerman, Mudde & Zaslove, 2014; Hawkins, Riding & Mudde, 2012; Stanley, 2011). In the thesis the candidate will investigate whether populist attitudes exist among the citizenry. In order to answer this question, the candidate will look at political attitudes related with populism, independently of voting behaviour. A few studies have tried to address this problem, providing an important benchmark (Akkerman, Mudde & Zaslove, 2013; De Koster, Achterberg & Van der Waal, 2013; Hawkins, Riding & Mudde, 2012; Spruyt, Keppens & Van Droogenbroeck, 2016; Stanley, 2011). To begin with, the general trend in the study of populist attitudes has established a relation between a specific kind of populism and corresponding specific attitudes: right wing-immigation (Oesch, 2008), Euroscepticism and Eurocynism (Krouwel & Abts, 2007), Welfare chauvinism (de Koster, Achterberg & van der Waal, 2012). Normally these studies have been too focused on the characteristics a specific kind of populism, not aiming to disentangle the ‘core’ political attitudes of populism, and they linked populist attitudes with the vote for a populist party, without analizing first the attitudes themselves based on a previous theoretical analysis of populism. We believe that, when studying populism, there has been a lack of perspective in previous work from the supply side, independently from party choice. Second, other key concepts have been overlooked and should be taken into consideration when studying populism, such as cynicism, stealth democracy, political disaffection and authoritarianism. These concepts are selected to be discussed over a thorough theoretical exercise, because we are certain that all these concepts share a core of characteristics with populism. We consider that there is a gap in the literature of populist attitudes, especially when the literature is devoted to populist attitudes on the demand side. There is quite some conceptual "fuzziness" around populism and other political attitudes related, and we think that a work discussing how populist attitudes are expected to be among the electors, and what are the measurement differences across countries is much needed. Also, if this study pretends to be thorough, the relationships between populism and the other proposed political concepts should be object of analysis, in order to advance in the field of study of populist attitudes. In this thesis, the measurement of populist attitudes and the relationships between the aforementioned concepts will be discussed, first, in order to understand how populism is tried to be measured in different countries nowadays and whether that measurement is accurate. And second, to understand the effects of these other political concepts among each other, and to hypothesize their relationships. Populism, cynicism, stealth democracy, disaffection and authoritarianism as concepts have conceptual cores defining them that they share, but also peripheral aspects in which some of them overlap. This thesis will attempt to define what are the core elements and which are the ‘grey' areas where these concepts are connecting, as well as their measurement differences and similarities, and their impact in voting behaviour.
Research Interests: Public opinion, populism, voting behaviour
Graduated from:Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Degrees obtained: Bachelor in Political Science and Masters in Democracy and Government
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