Populism Vs. Liberal Democracy: The Relationship Between Populist Attitudes and Support for Liberal Values

Much theoretical research has been conducted on the link between populism and democracy. Although most authors agree that populism is not anti-democratic per se, they also agree that populism challenges the so-called liberal pillar of democracy. Yet, studies rarely test empirically the link between populism and liberal democracy. Studies that do empirically examine this relationship often focus on the supply-side. None of these studies, however, examine what voters with stronger populist attitudes think about the key features of liberal democracy. This contribution examines whether individuals with stronger populist attitudes oppose key features of liberal democracy such as minority rights, the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary, the rule of law, and equality before the law. We expect that while individuals with stronger populist attitudes will be supportive of majoritarian notions of democracy, they will be more suspicious of the liberal pillar of democracy. We rely on survey data from the Netherlands fielded in June 2019 consisting of a high-quality probability sample of Dutch citizens (N = 1793).