Levels of Populism in Liberal and Illiberal Democracies

The core of populism lies in the consideration that the society is divided into two antagonistic groups: the people and the elite. Nonetheless, populism can also be seen as a characteristic of the message itself, which allows to perceive degress of populism. Different factors can incentivate the rise of populism, such as the party system and populist leader. The quality of the democracy and the positioning of the parties might also be a factor that influences the level of populism in political parties. Then, are parties in liberal democracies more populistic than those in illiberal ones? For this purpose, I have chosen to compare the different levels of populism in the electoral manifestos of in-office and out-of-office political parties in liberal and illiberal democracies. I selected as a case study the analysis of two electoral manifestos of the Venezuelan presidential elections of 2012, and of two electoral manifestos of the Spanish parlamentarian elections of 2016. The findings show that in-office political parties might be more populistic in both liberal and illiberal democracies.