Comparison of the positions of voters and candidates on populism: the Greek case

Populism has most often been examined from the supply-side of politics, as scholarship primarily focused on the rhetoric of populist movements, parties, and leaders. Most empirical research before the 2010s was based on qualitative approaches (e.g., Betz, 1994; Taggart, 2000; Mudde, 2007). Since then, an increasing number of studies take a more quantitative approach, as they delve into the study of both the supply- and demand-side of populism by using survey items to measure populist attitudes. Based on an ideational approach, that is, the belief that populism is a set of ideas, populism can be measured as an attitude that individuals can possess to a greater or a lesser extent (Rooduijn 2018: 364). This approach paves the way for examining populism, both at the demand and the supply side, with quantitative methods. Recent scholarship uses survey items to gauge levels of populism amongst individuals. These individual-level studies on populist attitudes form the foundation of the elite surveys and the expert surveys on populism. This paper intends to study and compare the positions of Greek voters, candidates and political parties on a number of issues related to populism through quantitative research. Relying on the data of 2019 Greek national election studies (i.e., candidate and voter surveys) and an expert survey we aim to answer the following research question: do voters share the same views on issues related to populism as the candidates and political parties they vote for? In addition, studying their opinions on immigrants, minority rights, social liberalism etc. we will identify right-wing and left-wing populism in both voters and political parties. However, as with any survey, some survey items may not work, so this paper’s goal is also to identify the survey items of populism that work and those that do not. In this paper we use Greece as a case study; however, as many of the survey items used in these post-election studies have been used in surveys in other countries, this work contributes to the comparative research of populism and aims at encouraging scholars from other countries to include more survey items related to populism in their future election studies.