Is populism popular abroad? Evidence from diasporas around the globe

Abstract

Populist parties—which typically denounce migrants, globalization, and policy outcomes appreciated by emigrants, and which in turn typically make few efforts to persuade or mobilize expatriate citizens—are likely to see lower vote shares among those voting from abroad. Legislative election results from fifty countries worldwide confirm the hypothesis that more populist parties tend to receive lower shares of out-of-country than of in-country votes: low-populism parties receive roughly the same vote share abroad as they do domestically, while high-populism parties on average receive a third less of the diaspora vote than they do of the domestic vote.

How to reach external citizens? Comparing varieties of transnational party infrastructure

“…Turning to the micro-level of analysis, recent research on the connection between populism and external voting preferences shows that the emigrants' more cosmopolitan mindset may result in ideological self-selection, which could incentivise populist parties to operate in a more limited capacity abroad as they expect a lower mobilisation potential (Turcu and Urbatsch 2023). Analysing non-resident voters' support for right-and left-wing populist parties, Umpierrez de Reguero and Jakobson (2023) find that citizens abroad tend to vote more for left-wing populists compared to voters living in their country of origin, but differences in support for populist parties and voting preferences between domestic and external voters also depend on country-of-residence-specific factors (Szulecki et al 2023).…”