Who votes for new parties? Economic voting, political ideology and populist attitudes

Abstract

Beginning with the economic crisis in 2008, a number of European societies witnessed the emergence of 'new parties'. Most authors explain their electoral appeal by focusing on how the perceived state of the economy influences individuals' voting decisions. This article determines the extent to which political attitudes can also explain voting for new political parties born in the heat of the economic crisis. Specifically, it explores the link between populist attitudes, in contrast to pluralist and elitist attitudes, and voting for two new political parties in Spain (Ciudadanos; Podemos), which are noticeably different in their ideological positions, programmatic proposals and populist discourses. The results show that stronger populist attitudes increase the likelihood of voting for new parties as dissimilar as Podemos and Ciudadanos. Overall, the findings suggest that voting for new parties cannot be understood as a mere economic response. Rather, political factors, and especially populist attitudes, matter too.

Love at first sight? Populist attitudes and support for direct democracy

“…Individuals who are dissatisfied with representative 'party democracy' (Caramani, 2017) have been shown to demand more opportunities that allow them to directly engage in the political process, thereby bypassing the ruling elite (Dalton, 2004;Pauwels, 2014). Second, people with populist attitudes are, overall, more in favour of populist parties (Akkerman et al, 2014;Marcos-Marne et al, 2020;Van Hauwaert and Van Kessel, 2018), and populist voters generally show a high level of political efficacy (Krouwel and Abts, 2007: 266). A recent study of populist attitudes and support for direct democracy in the Netherlands provides first supporting evidence for the expected association (Jacobs et al, 2018).…”

Beyond Left and Right: A Scale to Measure Political Ideology in India

“…For instance, searching for the term 'political ideology' on Google Scholar yields over a million research items since 2010. The study of political ideology has been interdisciplinary; studies have investigated genetic differences in ideological dispositions(e.g., Hatemi et al, 2014), the role of moral intuitions (e.g., Graham et al, 2011), of the sympathetic nervous system (e.g., Smith & Warren, 2020), and how ideology translates to political behaviours (e.g., Marcos-Marne et al, 2020).…”

New Parties, Fractionalization, and the Increasing Duration of Government Formation Processes in the EU Member States

“…The surge of purely anti‐establishment movements and regionalist parties have drawn a lot of the scientific attention (Bordignon and Ceccarini 2013). Marcos‐Marne, Plaza‐Colodro, and Freyburg (2020), focusing on the Spanish case, argued that voting for new parties cannot simply be based on economic reasons but populist attitudes matter too.…”