Talking the Talk, Marching the March? Protest Mobilization by Populist Parties Across Europe

Populist parties often instrumentalize protest politics to bolster their narratives of standing by common people and attacking the elites. As a result, populism and protest have repeatedly been linked theoretically. However, we lack a comparative analysis of populist parties’ involvement in protest politics, showing whether populist parties indeed rely more on protest to mobilize support. We fill this gap by analyzing the links between populist parties and contentious politics in two arenas. Using both protest event data and a comprehensive dataset of MPs' social media communication on Twitter and Facebook across 28 European legislatures between 2018 and 2023, we examine the communication and the actual behavior of populist parties regarding protest. Results show that populist parties are not fundamentally different from non-populist parties regarding protest politics. While populist parties are frequently active in the streets and produce a high amount of protest-related content on social media, this can be explained by their radical ideologies more than by their populist discourse. We also identify conditions under which parties are more likely to engage in street politics. These findings contribute to a growing literature that questions the effects of populism, and help us better understand the mobilization efforts of radical parties.