Populism is on the rise in Europe, as shown by the discursive power displayed by some parties and populist leaders in Western Europe and, more importantly, by the recent electoral success of populist parties in countries from Central and Eastern Europe. Populist parties’ gain of power calls for a thorough examination of the conditions that have led to their success. Economic hardship has been considered in the literature as one of the factors that positively influence the emergence of populism, since the economic crisis seems to nourish the spread of populist attitudes. The economic downturn registered in many countries of the European Union and people’s dissatisfaction with the way in which the national governments responded to the crisis may have favored the consolidation of populist attitudes and voters’ choices of populist parties in national elections. In this paper, we seek to empirically test this assumption by examining the success of populist parties in recent elections in member states from Central and Eastern Europe and people’s perception of the evolution of their national economies. We analyze data from the 2010-2015 Eurobarometers and correlate them with the electoral scores of populist parties. Our analysis shows a significant correlation between the success of populist parties and people’s assessment of the evolution of the national economy in the last five years in these countries. Thus, the more negative people’s perception of the direction in which the national economy is going, the greater the electoral success of populist parties. Interestingly, we have found no correlation between the electoral success of populist parties in these countries and people’s perceptions of the evolution of EU economy.
