The “Return” of the People? Understanding Populism by Exploring Citizens’ Conceptions of Peoplehood in Western Europe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12420023 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Roni Küppers (0000-0002-8673-0092, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 78 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 651-670 |
| Publication date | 2025-02-07 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Research Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1065-9129 • E-ISSN: 1938-274X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/10659129251318314 |
| OpenAlex | W4407251348 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 78 |
Despite extensive research on rising populism, we still know little about the relation between populist politics and how ordinary citizens engage with, and act upon, the identities that populism mobilises. To address this blind spot, I develop an inductive approach that moves from a focus on populism to a broader exploration of peoplehood, and from a variable-centred to a person-centred approach employing Latent Class Analysis. The results indicate attitudes towards peoplehood can be grouped into 6 major conceptions across Western Europe, and that support for populism is concentrated among citizens who hold particular conceptions of peoplehood, offering insight into the ideas of the people that underlie support for populism. These findings show peoplehood is a useful theoretical framework for understanding collective belonging, and that it can help to grasp more comprehensively the social grounds of contemporary populism. Finally, using regression analysis, I find the association between conceptions of peoplehood and electoral behaviour is significant in the case of populist right supporters, but not populist left supporters. Overall, I argue these findings offer new hypotheses regarding the meaning and implications of populism, and can also help explain the differing success of right and left populist parties
Epistemology · Meaning (existential · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Populism · Social science · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Populism, Right-Wing Movements
Nationhood as Cultural Repertoire
The Everyday Lives of Sovereignty
Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe
Latent Class Analysis and Finite Mixture Modeling
Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society
National Belonging and Everyday Life
Populism
Prediction from Latent Classes
The Application of Latent Class Analysis for Investigating Population Child Mental Health
Cultural Backlash
Critical Citizens
Interpretive Research Design
Emotions of protest in times of crisis
The far right in Spain
Recalibrating populism measurement tools
How should we analyze the connections between populism and nationalism
Investigating a typology of trust orientations towards national and European institutions
Political rhetoric and attitudes toward nationhood
Social dominance orientation
Left-wing populism in the European periphery
Popular understandings of national identity in Europe
Nationalistic attitudes and voting for the radical right in Europe
Radical distinction
The Partisan Sorting of “America
Nationalism in Settled Times
National identity and populism
Constructing ‘the people’ of populism
The three worlds of welfare capitalism
Demand without Supply? Populist Attitudes and Voting Behaviour in Post-Bailout Portugal
Between Thin- and Host-ideologies
The politics of identity change and conflict
The Legitimacy of the People
Citizenship Norms and the Expansion of Political Participation
An Empirical Comparison of Seven Populist Attitudes Scales
Trump and the Populist Authoritarian Parties
What kind of nationalism sets the radical right and its electorate apart from the rest? Pride in the nation's history as part of nationalist nostalgia
Inductive constructivism and national identities
Sentiments of solidarity
The civic zeitgeist
Not just civic or ethnic, but mostly cultural
A comparative analysis of ‘good citizenship
After the Brexit referendum
Did somebody say populism? Towards a renewal and reorientation of populism studies
The Activation of Populist Attitudes
Populist and nativist attitudes
Populism as a Problem of Social Integration
Studying Populism in Comparative Perspective
Measuring Populism in Political Parties
The Causes of Populism in the West
What the (Ideational) Study of Populism Can Teach Us, and What It Can't
Complexity and nationalism
How Populist Are the People? Measuring Populist Attitudes in Voters
The politics of social status
A state of limbo
Lived citizenship
Varieties of American Popular Nationalism
Undoing the Demos
Personal Nationalism
Rethinking Populism
Accomplishments and limitations of the 'new' mainstream in contemporary populism studies
Latent Class Analysis
Culture and Cognition
Manifestations of Nationalist Attitudes
Mapping Shared Understandings Using Relational Class Analysis
Assessing How Participators Combine Acts in Their 'Political Tool Kits
Why populism
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |