Populist attitudes and covid pandemic: evidence from a panel study

Although the impact of the Covid pandemic on support for populist parties varies across countries, both the challenge to democratic governance and perceived economic insecurities during the crisis have created fertile ground for the rise of populism. We analyze a) how the change of perceived socio-economic positiion during the pandemic and b) the perception of various aspects of the functioning of democracy affected populist attitudes among the public and public support for populist political parties. We expect that worsened perception of individuals‘ economic conditions and the decline in support for democracy leads to strengthening of populist attitudes voting for oppositional populist political parties. We test this assumption using two waves of original panel data study collected during the pandemic crisis in the Czech Republic. Our analysis is one of the very first studies of populism based on panel data analysis and contributes signigicantly to the understanding of the dynamics (activation) of populist attitudes and populist voting.