Populist attitudes and political participation

This paper analyzes the way in which populist attitudes are related to political participation. Using survey data from 9 European countries we estimate the extent to which populist attitudes can act as motivations to participate both for conventional and for unconventional modes of political participation. We analyze cross country variation in the size of these effects and explore the role of different contextual factors in explaining these differences. In addition, the paper analyzes the conditioning effect of populist attitudes as a moderating factor that may reduce the effect of socioeconomic resources over participation by mobilizing particularly disadvantaged citizens.