Populist rhetoric is used because political leaders want to lead, voters want influence, and there is often a prevailing sentiment that powerful interests and rich people have skewed society too much in their favor. People are motivated when inspired, and that enthusiasm might give a small mobilizing boost at the polls, as you suggest. But this rhetoric does not have to be of the ‘thin’ populist variety to be used or effective. Populism can be pro-pluralist, and it can be more pro-working class than anti-elitist. Candidates that use ‘broad’ populist rhetoric just don’t end up being called populists in office because they embrace pluralism. Curious what your analysis is with a broader definition of populism and populist rhetoric.
Interesting results! I am working on a paper for SPPC, and I found across "Trump" elections, and effect between 1.6 and 2.1 percentage points on turnout to vote share. With your independent results, seems like I might not be imagining things! I'll be sure to cite your paper!
There is an important difference between the "populism" of Maduro and Trump. Maduro was not the product of a democratic process. In a democracy, voting for a "populist" candidate is a choice that the electorate makes – it's not something that is imposed on them. Calling out populism in a democratic setup is just entrenched parties that are afraid of electoral competition making their opponent sound evil.
As a thought experiment, I tried substituting "hatred" for "populism" and "hateful" for "populist" in your piece. I found it instructive: "We hypothesized that hatred's real contribution might not be persuasion but *mobilization*: getting people who already agree with you to actually show up and vote."
You're actually on point here. One way to view populism as we find in our research is to think of it as a particular instance of moralized negative campaigning, which is quite motivational for better or worse.
Thanks for this. One question i have is whether the definition of populism is a problem. Mudde's approach send to me to me to be very broad, especially when he includes things like Occupy Wall Street that are almost diametrically opposed to the likes of Trump or Modi. The more serious issue is the attempt to divorce style from substance and treat the populist phenomenon almost like a rhetorical gesture rather than a political movement. I'm more prepared by those that think of populism as essentially 'national populism', focusing on the nationalist dimension. Your research perhaps supports this take as it seems to show that the substance (nationalism, anti-immigration etc) is much more important than the style?
Thanks, Michael. Yeah, I'm very sympathetic to this. Mudde's definition is handy for isolating style from substance experimentally, but you're right that the substance is where the action is--and our results basically confirm that. Populist rhetoric without the nationalist or anti-immigration content underneath it doesn't do much on its own.
Populist rhetoric is used because political leaders want to lead, voters want influence, and there is often a prevailing sentiment that powerful interests and rich people have skewed society too much in their favor. People are motivated when inspired, and that enthusiasm might give a small mobilizing boost at the polls, as you suggest. But this rhetoric does not have to be of the ‘thin’ populist variety to be used or effective. Populism can be pro-pluralist, and it can be more pro-working class than anti-elitist. Candidates that use ‘broad’ populist rhetoric just don’t end up being called populists in office because they embrace pluralism. Curious what your analysis is with a broader definition of populism and populist rhetoric.
Interesting results! I am working on a paper for SPPC, and I found across "Trump" elections, and effect between 1.6 and 2.1 percentage points on turnout to vote share. With your independent results, seems like I might not be imagining things! I'll be sure to cite your paper!
There is an important difference between the "populism" of Maduro and Trump. Maduro was not the product of a democratic process. In a democracy, voting for a "populist" candidate is a choice that the electorate makes – it's not something that is imposed on them. Calling out populism in a democratic setup is just entrenched parties that are afraid of electoral competition making their opponent sound evil.
As a thought experiment, I tried substituting "hatred" for "populism" and "hateful" for "populist" in your piece. I found it instructive: "We hypothesized that hatred's real contribution might not be persuasion but *mobilization*: getting people who already agree with you to actually show up and vote."
You're actually on point here. One way to view populism as we find in our research is to think of it as a particular instance of moralized negative campaigning, which is quite motivational for better or worse.
Thanks for this. One question i have is whether the definition of populism is a problem. Mudde's approach send to me to me to be very broad, especially when he includes things like Occupy Wall Street that are almost diametrically opposed to the likes of Trump or Modi. The more serious issue is the attempt to divorce style from substance and treat the populist phenomenon almost like a rhetorical gesture rather than a political movement. I'm more prepared by those that think of populism as essentially 'national populism', focusing on the nationalist dimension. Your research perhaps supports this take as it seems to show that the substance (nationalism, anti-immigration etc) is much more important than the style?
Thanks, Michael. Yeah, I'm very sympathetic to this. Mudde's definition is handy for isolating style from substance experimentally, but you're right that the substance is where the action is--and our results basically confirm that. Populist rhetoric without the nationalist or anti-immigration content underneath it doesn't do much on its own.