Individual Determinants of Support for Populism and Political Extremism

Abstract

Over the past decades various European countries have seen the rise of radical right populist parties. Previous research on the supporters of these parties has shown that highly educated citizens tend to be underrepresented among their voters and that specific attitudes, in particular negative feelings towards immigrants, are strong predictors of support for these parties. Recently, some authors have proposed that, in addition to these kinds of attitudes, 'populist attitudes' (negative outlooks on the political elites) might explain the support for these parties. However, whether populist attitudes do indeed explain support for these parties, has not been firmly established yet. In addition, different explanations (socio-cultural and utilitarian) have been proposed for the underrepresentation of highly educated citizens among the voters for radical right populist parties. This panel brings together five papers that focus on education and attitudes as individual level predictors of support for the radical right, and that delve into the causal mechanism leading to such support.

Title	Details
Why lower educated people are more likely to cast their vote for radical right parties: Testing alternative explanations in the Netherlands	View Paper Details
Solidarism, Liberalism and Populism: voting behaviour in the 2015 Polish Parliamentary Elections	View Paper Details
A psychometric evaluation of populist attitudes in Europe and the Americas	View Paper Details
Let's look elsewhere: On Populist Attitudes and Political Participation	View Paper Details