Emotions and Populist Support

Abstract

Is there a special relationship between emotions and populism? Academic and popular discussions of populism frequently suggest that this is the case, and that anger and anxiety in particular, are crucial explanatory factors for the continued appeal of populist parties. But despite the often-posited link between negative emotions and populism, few studies have explored this relationship empirically. This paper aims to fill this gap and answer three related questions: Firstly, to what extent is the relationship between negative affect and populist party support unique to these parties and do we observe differences between left and right-wing populism? Secondly, what is the temporal relationship between affect and populism? Do voters support populist parties because they are anxious or does support for these parties create these negative emotions? And finally, are populists angry, scared, or both? In other words, to what extent do we need to distinguish between specific types of negative affect, such as anger and anxiety, when discussing the emotional underpinnings of populism? Comparing panel data from Austria and Germany, this paper investigates the relationship between anger and anxiety on the one hand, and support for populist parties on the other. Using a random-intercept, autoregressive cross-lagged design, the paper has three findings. First of all, the reinforcing pattern of increased negative emotions and increased party support is unique to (right-wing) populists. Secondly, this relationship is self-reinforcing. While negative affect leads to greater support for right wing populist parties, the reverse relationship is more consistent and of larger magnitude. Negative emotions trigger populist support, but they are more important for maintaining it. Finally, it is important to distinguish between anger and anxiety. While only anxiety is consistent in its ability to trigger populist support, subsequently both anger and anxiety are increased.

How Emotional Are Populists Really? Factors Explaining Emotional Appeals in the Communication of Political Parties

“…This finding is in line with previous studies which found that extreme parties use less positive emotional language (Crabtree et al., 2018). Figure 1 also reveals that anger and fear have the highest salience in populist communication, emphasizing the important role of these emotions for populist parties (Nguyen, 2019; Rico et al., 2017).…”

“…Negative debating has been associated with detrimental outcomes such as affective polarization (Iyengar, Sood, & Lelkes, 2012). Specifically, high levels of appeals to anger in populist communication can further increase populist‐right support, by making people develop populist attitudes and influence their voting behavior (Nguyen, 2019; Rico et al., 2017). Disgust, on the other hand, has been connected to an increase in anti‐immigrant attitudes through the activation of the behavioral immune system (Aarøe et al., 2017).…”

Anti‐elite politics and emotional reactions to socio‐economic problems: Experimental evidence on “pocketbook anger” from France, Germany, and the United States

“…Other contributions put stronger emphasis on political agency. They argue that populist rhetoric causes external attribution and anger or that the link between anger and populism is recursive (Busby et al, 2019; Hameleers et al, 2017; Marx & Nguyen, 2018; Nguyen, 2019; Rooduijn et al, 2016; Wirz et al, 2018). However, anger is rarely used as a dependent variable in these studies (but see Wirz, 2018).…”

“…Second, it speaks to an emerging (but somewhat implicit) debate about whether populist parties benefit from or create negative emotions (Hochschild, 2016; Magni, 2017; Rico, Guinjoan, & Anduiza, 2017; Salmela & von Scheve, 2017). The results show a causal flow from populist anti‐elite rhetoric to emotions so that the populism‐emotions link should, at the very least, be seen as recursive (Nguyen, 2019; Rooduijn, van der Brug, & de Lange, 2016; Wirz, 2018).…”

Emotional Communication and Participation in Politics

“…Based on these observations, one might argue that individual sentiments could be a driving force for favouring populist messages and voting for populist parties. But there is more in this literature: it hints that nostalgic culture, the rise of victim mentality and anxious times may increase the volume of emotive reception of policy issues and populist actors may capitalize on that 'zeitgeist' through the deliberate expression of anger (Nguyen, 2019;Taş, 2020; Wahl-Jorgensen, 2018).…”