Abstract
This chapter introduces the Intergroup model of the populist mentality (IMPM) and offers a cross-national analysis of the internal structure of populist representations. Inspired by social representations theory, we argue that populism is best understood as a multidimensional representation of the intergroup relation between the “people” as the ingroup and the “elite” as an outgroup. This representation is organized around the conflict between a majority group (the people) and a minority group (the elite). The intergroup comparison between the people-majority and the elite-minority is based on power (vertical differentiation in terms of an intergroup competition between a powerless people and a powerful elite) and morality (horizontal differentiation in terms of alleged moral superiority of the people compared to an immoral elite). Through this dialectic antagonism of the people-elite dualism, the elite is simultaneously inferior (horizontal differentiation) and superior (vertical differentiation) to the people. The IMPM identifies four populist subdimensions: two pro-majority dimensions centered on positive views of the people (people-centrism): people sovereignty and people-homogeneity, and two anti-minority dimensions centered on negative views of the elite (anti-elitism): elite distance and elite homogeneity.
We empirically test the IMPM by analyzing validity and consistency of these four dimensions across countries via multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, using data from the Populist Representations Survey that includes nationally representative samples from eight European countries that saw populist movements rise and fall in the last decades: Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K. (Ns = 800–1100/country). We first examine the empirical relevance of the four sub-dimensions of populism and offer the most parsimonious measurement model of populist thinking by reducing our analysis to just two dimensions: anti-elitism and people sovereignty.
We further argue that there is a structural homology between populist beliefs focused on the people and generic pro-majority representations, and, conversely, between populist anti-elite beliefs and generic anti-minority representations. We test this idea by examining how populist subdimensions are associated with various correlates of populist thinking such as institutional and social (dis)trust, SDO, and authoritarianism. The results support our conjecture as pro-majority attitudes are positively associated with people sovereignty, whereas anti-minority beliefs mostly relate to anti-elitism, thus further highlighting the necessity of distinguishing the internal components of populism. Finally, we differentiate inclusionary-exclusionary and egalitarian-inegalitarian versions of populism and find that while both anti-elitism and people sovereignty were associated with calls for a higher levels of pro-welfare attitudes, anti-elitism plays a much stronger part in the formation of exclusionary (anti-immigrant) versions of populism.
Overall, our chapter offers a new and more nuanced view of the internal structure of populist representations that allows to establish the similarities and dissimilarities of populist thinking across national contexts, as well as national specificities.