IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eso/journl/v50y2019i2p281-324.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Populist Wave or Metamorphosis of a Chameleon? Populist Attitudes and the Vote in 2016 in the United States and Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Quinlan

    (GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Mannheim, Germany)

  • Deirdre Tinney

    (University of Limerick)

Abstract

In the era of Brexit and President Trump, it is clear that we need to talk about populism. Populist political campaigns feature ever more widely, suggesting the phenomenon of a ‘populist wave’. But do populist sentiments shape vote choice? Using data from Ireland and the United States, incorporating CSES Module 5 questions that focused on populist sentiments and vote choice in 2016, we show that populist sentiments did motivate voters in both countries. We also demonstrate, however, that the old reliables – economic perceptions, partisanship, and left-right ideology – mattered more. Thus, an exclusive focus on populism for the success of Donald Trump in the US or Sinn Féin/AAA in Ireland is unwarranted. Further, populist sentiments motivating vote choice differed between the two countries, raising fresh questions about whether populism can be regarded as an ideology and whether even the “chameleon” metaphor overclaims coherence for the term.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Quinlan & Deirdre Tinney, 2019. "Populist Wave or Metamorphosis of a Chameleon? Populist Attitudes and the Vote in 2016 in the United States and Ireland," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 50(2), pages 281-324.
    • Handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:50:y:2019:i:2:p:281-324
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esr.ie/article/view/1183/224
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Margaret Canovan, 1999. "Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 47(1), pages 2-16, March.
    2. Bean, Clive & Mughan, Anthony, 1989. "Leadership Effects in Parliamentary Elections in Australia and Britain," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1165-1179, December.
    3. Jack S. Levy, 2008. "Case Studies: Types, Designs, and Logics of Inference," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 25(1), pages 1-18, February.
    4. James Adams & Michael Clark & Lawrence Ezrow & Garrett Glasgow, 2006. "Are Niche Parties Fundamentally Different from Mainstream Parties? The Causes and the Electoral Consequences of Western European Parties' Policy Shifts, 1976–1998," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 513-529, July.
    5. Michael Freeden, 1998. "Is Nationalism a Distinct Ideology?," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 46(4), pages 748-765, September.
    6. Inglehart, Ronald F. & Norris, Pippa, 2016. "Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash," Working Paper Series 16-026, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David Madden, 2020. "The Base of Party Political Support in Ireland: An Update," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 51(1), pages 93-103.
    2. Michele Roccato & Nicoletta Cavazza & Pasquale Colloca & Silvia Russo, 2020. "Three Roads to Populism? An Italian Field Study on the 2019 European Election," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1222-1235, July.
    3. David (David Patrick) Madden, 2019. "The Base of Party Political Support in Ireland: An Update," Working Papers 201915, School of Economics, University College Dublin.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vigvári, Gábor, 2022. "Transzformáció és a populizmus a visegrádi országokban [Transformation and populism in the V4 countries]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 339-366.
    2. Michael Hameleers, 2020. "Populist Disinformation: Exploring Intersections between Online Populism and Disinformation in the US and the Netherlands," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 146-157.
    3. Chris Erl, 2021. "The People and The Nation: The “Thick” and the “Thin” of Right‐Wing Populism in Canada," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(1), pages 107-124, January.
    4. Muryanto Amin & Alwi Dahlan Ritonga, 2023. "Populist student organizations in Indonesia: an analysis of anti-establishment ideas," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Robert Johns & Ann‐Kristin Kölln, 2020. "Moderation and Competence: How a Party's Ideological Position Shapes Its Valence Reputation," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(3), pages 649-663, July.
    6. Işıl Zeynep TURKAN-İPEK, 2018. "Elections in Risk Society," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 26(36).
    7. H Bahadir Türk, 2018. "‘Populism as a medium of mass mobilization’: The case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 150-168, June.
    8. Nina Lopez Uroz, 2020. "Populism Amidst Prosperity: Poland's Growth Model and its Socio-Political Outcomes," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 159, European Institute, LSE.
    9. Emre Ünal, 2021. "Economic populism and institutional changes in wage–labor relations," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 407-433, September.
    10. Werner, Annika & Giebler, Heiko, 2019. "Do Populists Represent? Theoretical Considerations on How Populist Parties (Might) Enact their Representative Function," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 379-392.
    11. Chen, Shuai, 2023. "Unemployment, Immigration, and Populism," IZA Discussion Papers 16642, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Brian Budd, 2020. "The People’s Champ: Doug Ford and Neoliberal Right-Wing Populism in the 2018 Ontario Provincial Election," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 171-181.
    13. Kim, Seongcheol, 2022. "Taking stock of the field of populism research: Are ideational approaches ‘moralistic’ and post-foundational discursive approaches ‘normative’?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 42(4), pages 492-504.
    14. Koen Abts & Stefan Rummens, 2007. "Populism versus Democracy," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 55(2), pages 405-424, June.
    15. Alizade, Jeyhun, 2024. "The Electoral Politics of Immigration and Crime," OSF Preprints h967e, Center for Open Science.
    16. Sarah Martina Tesar, 2019. "Populismus und Wirtschaftspolitik: Die wirtschaftspolitische Programmatik populistischer Parteien in Südeuropa," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 188, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    17. Giebler, Heiko & Hirsch, Magdalena & Schürmann, Benjamin & Veit, Susanne, 2021. "Discontent With What? Linking Self-Centered and Society-Centered Discontent to Populist Party Support," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 69(4), pages 900-920.
    18. Chen, Shuai, 2020. "Unemployment, Immigration, and Populism: Evidence from Two Quasi-Natural Experiments in the United States," GLO Discussion Paper Series 652, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Chen, Shuai, 2019. "Marriage, minorities, and mass movements," Other publications TiSEM 9cb1b11d-12e6-46a8-adca-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Dani Rodrik, 2018. "Populism and the economics of globalization," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(1), pages 12-33, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:50:y:2019:i:2:p:281-324. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Aedin Doris (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.esr.ie .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.