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Deep Dive: Czeching Populism

A new study examines how much populist attitudes influenced Czech voters' ballot choices.

Words: Emily Tamkin
Date:

Do populist attitudes translate to populist support? Or are they too thin? That’s the question Veronika Dostálová and Vlastimil Havlík pose in their new East European Politics study about the role of populist attitudes in the 2021 Czech legislative elections.

Originally, they argue that populist attitudes and subdimensions play a key role in voting propensity considering their interplay with nativist attitudes. Yet, a survey of the Czech vote found that “populist attitudes and their subdimensions are notable predictors,” though “thick nativist attitudes” did not “fully” condition them.

The authors also found “the unique effects of subdimensions tend to reflect the emphasis that populist parties place on the corresponding components of populist ideology in their communication.”

They wanted to know if the 2021 legislative elections specifically explained populist support for two parties, ANO and SPD. They expected support for ANO to be “driven by populist attitudes, anti-elitism attitudes, and people-centrism, since ANO strongly emphasized anti-elitism and people-centrism in its communication.”

SPD, meanwhile, emphasized popular sovereignty, so they thought that would explain support for it.

Populist Attitudes, Populist Voting

The authors expected populist attitudes to shape support among those with strong nativist attitudes. That is, in part, because populism and nativism were “bonded” in the campaigns. “As a result of the salience of populist cleavage within the context of the 2021 election, we, nevertheless, expect populist attitudes and their subdimensions to also contribute to electoral support for each populist party among individuals with weak to moderate nativist attitudes.”

They found that populist attitudes (and, to an extent, their subdimensions) indeed predict propensity to vote for populist parties.

They decided to test their analyses by reexamining original public opinion survey data. They found that populist attitudes (and, to an extent, their subdimensions) indeed predict propensity to vote for populist parties. Unique effects of specific subdimensions can reflect what parts of populist ideology various parties are emphasizing. And populist attitudes can be a “contingent mechanism” and “motivational substitute,” but not necessarily simultaneously.

For future research, the authors recommend exploring what factors into the effect of subdimensions on support for populists. Additionally, since their findings did not show an effect of anti-elitism attitudes on populist support, they feel researchers should “propose new ways to capture anti-elitism attitudes among voters of populist parties in government or with parliamentary representation.”

They also feel future research should explore when populist attitudes act as a motivational substitute and/or contingent mechanism, and that future research concerned with the relationship between populist attitudes and “thick ideological beliefs” should differentiate, in a nuanced way, between levels of thick ideological belief. 

Emily Tamkin

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