The Development of Populist Attitudes Among Teenagers

With the rise of populist parties to power across Europe and the Americas there has been a substantial increase in the interest for the party programs of populist parties, the impact of their anti-elitist communication style on public opinion, the explanation of populist voting behavior, or the degree of populist attitudes held within societies. Yet, in most circumstances scholars assumed that populist attitudes among citizens are aquired during early adulthood where people actively engage with politics for the very first time. Thus, populist party rhetoric can induce populist sentiments among the electorate. Our paper tries to challenge that approach by conducting a three-country study among students from age 14 to 16 in Austria (n=2500), Germany (n=800) and Switzerland (n=2700). This allows us to test for the first time when citizens acquire populist attitudes and also whether the reception of cues from populist parties is a necessary condition for someone to develop populist attitudes. Also, we test how possibilities to participate within the school and/or class context influence this relationship. In addition that, we ran survey experiments in the German study to further check (a) how well populist communication style and phrases thereof have become part of students’ habitual language use when talking about politics, (b) how the priming accountability for certain problems in society (a certain part of the elite vs. general circumstances that cannot be influenced by individuals) influences the use of populist language, and (c) how the priming of emotions can induce populists attitudes among students. Our study is thus the first to study populist attitudes among students and provides interesting evidence for how and when populist attitudes are formed among citizens.