Populism and social polarization in European democracies

Victor Ginsburgh, Sergio Perelman and Pierre Pestieau

No 2020026, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to explain populist attitudes that are prevailing in a number of European democraties. Populist attitudes expectedly lead to social protests and populist votes. We capture the populist wave by relying not on voting behavior but rather on values that are traditionally viewed as populist values, such as distrust of institutions and neighbors, rejection of migrations and strong preferences for law and order. Our study covers the period 2004 to 2018 and 25 European countries for which we match aggregated indicators of populist values and social polarization computed from ESS and SILC survey micro-data, respectively. We find that social polarization, along with other factors, can explain populist attitudes. We also observe that both populist attitudes and polarization vary across countries much more than over time, with the exception of authoritarian values which appear positively correlated with social polarization, particularly among baby-boomers and younger cohorts.

Keywords: populism; polarization; social divide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2020.html (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Populism and Social Polarization in European Democracies (2021)
Working Paper: Populism and Social Polarization in European Democracies (2021)
Working Paper: Populism and Social Polarization in European Democracies (2020)
Working Paper: Populism and Social Polarization in European Democracies (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2020026

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