It's the emotions, Stupid! Anger about the economic crisis, low political efficacy, and support for populist parties

Magni, Gabriele

doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2017.09.014

Cited by 82 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…But while voters' populist attitudes are clearly important, they are also contingent on political and ideological context (Kessler and Freeman, 2005;Rooduijn, 2017), and only become salient when political conditions (Hawkins, Kaltwasser, and Andreadis 2018) or personal experiences (Agerberg, 2017) make them relevant. Taking into account voters' emotions in turn provides an important theoretical basis for understanding the mechanisms that activate and sustains these attitudes in the first place (Banks, 2016;Magni, 2017;Rico, Guinjoan and Anduiza, 2017).…”

Section: Determinants Of Right-wing Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotions and Populist Support

Nguyen¹

2019

Preprint

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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.

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Section: Determinants Of Right-wing Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotions and Populist Support

Nguyen¹

2019

Preprint

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“…Emotions influence the ways in which individuals perceive and process threats and how they form their opinions (Brader and Marcus 2013;Redlawsk and Pierce 2017). Previous work has examined the effects of emotions across policy domains, including terrorism (e.g., Keltner 2000, 2001;Huddy et al, 2005Huddy et al, , 2007, immigration (e.g., Brader et al 2008;Erisen and Kentmen-Cin 2017), climate change (Davydova et al 2018), and economic crisis (Magni 2017). Following the same scholarly strand, we draw on theories of affect and posit that emotional reactions triggered by immigration influence the extent to which citizens prefer domestic over international solutions to the dual questions of immigration and terrorism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By and large, political science has drawn upon political economy and cultural/identity approaches in order to explain both attitudes towards immigration and public support for European integration (Hobolt and De Vries 2016;Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014). In doing so, it has ignored the impact of the psychological processes that may underpin attitude formation, and are often better at explaining short-term changes (Erisen 2017;Magni 2017;Vasilopoulos 2018). In addition, research exploring the role of emotions in understanding citizen concerns about immigration primarily focuses on the American context (Brader et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional reactions to immigration and support for EU cooperation on immigration and terrorism

Erişen

Vasilopoulou

Kentmen-Çin

2019

Journal of European Public Policy

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What explains variation in European citizens' support for common EU immigration and counter-terrorism policies? We advance extant literature that focuses on the utility versus identity debate by focusing on individuals' emotional reactions. Drawing on theories of affect, we show that citizens' emotions about immigration are integral to their preferences for EU cooperation on the dual questions of immigration and terrorism. We hypothesise that while anger about immigration is associated with opposition to cooperation on both policies, fear about immigration is associated with support for a common EU counter-terrorism strategy. Using a large-N crosssectional survey conducted in Germany and the Netherlands, our analyses confirm our hypotheses. Our findings have implications for the progress of European integration and the scope of public approval of EU common policies.

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“…In other cases in Europe, political disengagement by the citizens has led to higher support for populist parties (see, e.g., Magni, 2017, Goodlife, 2012, Webb, 2013, but the same did not happen in Portugal, in spite of witnessing that same political disengagement. For example, in the parliamentary elections, the abstention rates exceeded 40% in 2009, 41% in 2011 at the peak of the crisis, and 44% in 2015.…”

Section: The Limits Of Party Offermentioning

confidence: 99%

A Portuguese exception to right-wing populism

Silva¹

2018

Palgrave Commun

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Many European countries have witnessed the rise of right-wing (nativist and authoritarian) populist parties over the last few years, which have gained significant votes and sometimes threatened the position of traditional parties. In Portugal, however, right-wing populism has failed to gain electoral support, and the populist discourse is scarcely found in Portuguese politics. In this comment, we offer four tentative hypotheses that explain why right-wing parties with a populist discourse are not present in Portugal: low levels of Eurospecticism, low immigration rates, lack of political space to develop, and lower engagement in communicating that same populism. We conclude that these dynamics create a special balance, and a rather specific political situation in Portugal that does not facilitate the spread of right-wing populism. This balance, we also argue, may be compromised if any of these dynamics suddenly change, potentially paving the way for right-wing populists in Portugal to achieve more political prominence.

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It's the emotions, Stupid! Anger about the economic crisis, low political efficacy, and support for populist parties

Cited by 82 publications

References 62 publications

Emotions and Populist Support

Emotions and Populist Support

Emotional reactions to immigration and support for EU cooperation on immigration and terrorism

A Portuguese exception to right-wing populism

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