Why do European citizens support populism? A comparative study of demand-side and supply-side explanations

European democracies have witnessed the progressive affirmation of populist parties in the last two decades. This thesis draws from the suggestions of the theoretical literature on populism to study why European citizens support populist parties. In doing so, the aim of this thesis is twofold: on the one hand, it applies the ideational approach to populism to investigate support for populism from a comparative perspective; on the other hand, it seeks to understand how demand-side and supply-side factors contribute to explaining the cross-country and temporal heterogeneity in their electoral performances. This thesis focuses on two demand-side factors (i.e., social marginalisation and sociotropic concerns about economy) and two factors of the supply-side (i.e., liberal institutional arrangements and party competition). The results show that, first, populist parties attract significant support from citizens perceiving socially marginalised, especially in wealthy and globalised contexts; whereas sociotropic concerns about economy do not lead to higher support for populism. Second, liberal institutional arrangements increase the anti-institutional appeal of populist parties; whereas party competition on a core element of the far-right populist ideology (nativism) does not affect support for far-right populism to a great extent. This thesis shows that an approach that integrates both demand and supply side perspectives is beneficial to understand the reasons underlying support for populism.

Grantor dc:publisher

Università degli studi di Trento

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Marolla, Francesco

Contributors dc:contributor

• Achterberg, Peter
• Luijkx, Adrianus Rudolphus
• Quaranta, Mario

• Populism, Democracy, Voting, Multilevel Analysis
• Settore SPS/11 - Sociologia dei Fenomeni Politici
• Settore SPS/04 - Scienza Politica

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• license:Tutti i diritti riservati (All rights reserved)
• license uri:iris.PRI01

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

http://dx.doi.org/10.15168/11572_394413
10.15168/11572_394413
https://tiu.trialanderror.org/projects/european-citizens-populism

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:iris.unitn.it:11572/394413