Economic insecurity and the demand for populism in Europe

Guiso, L., Herrera, H., Morelli, M. and Sonno, Tommaso (2024) Economic insecurity and the demand for populism in Europe. Economica, 91 (362). 588 - 620. ISSN 0013-0427

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Abstract

We document the spiral of populism in Europe and the direct and indirect role of economic insecurity shocks. Using survey data on individual voting, we make two contributions to the literature. (i) Economic insecurity shocks have a significant impact on the populist vote share, directly as demand for protection, and indirectly through the induced changes in trust and attitudes. (ii) A key consequence of increased economic insecurity is a drop in turnout. The impact of this largely neglected turnout effect is substantial: conditional on voting, when economic insecurity increases, almost 40% of the induced change in the vote for a populist party comes from the turnout channel.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14680335
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory J Political Science
JEL classification:	D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D72 - Economic Models of Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Date Deposited:	19 Feb 2024 12:24
Last Modified:	26 Apr 2024 13:42
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/122069

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