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Populism, participation, and political equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2019

Eva Anduiza Open the ORCID record for Eva Anduiza [Opens in a new window] ,
Marc Guinjoan  and
Guillem Rico
Eva Anduiza*
Affiliation:
Departament de Ciència Política i Dret Públic, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
Marc Guinjoan
Affiliation:
Departament de Ciència Política i Dret Públic, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
Guillem Rico
Affiliation:
Departament de Ciència Política i Dret Públic, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
*
*E-mail: eva.anduiza@uab.cat
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Abstract

This article analyses the relationship between populist attitudes and political participation. We argue that populist attitudes can be a motivation for participation through their identity, emotional, and moral components, and that they have the potential to narrow socioeconomic gaps in participation. Using survey data from nine European countries, our results show that populist attitudes are positively related to expressive non-institutionalized modes of participation (petition signing, online participation and, in some contexts, demonstrating), but not to turnout. In addition, populist attitudes are found to reduce education-based gaps and even reverse income-based inequalities in political participation. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords

populismpolitical attitudespolitical participationelectoral turnoutpolitical inequality

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 109 - 124
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2019 

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