Abstract
Basic human values have been used to predict voting patterns associated with the left–right and the authoritarian-libertarian divides. However, the connection between basic human values and populist voting has received less attention, especially if an ideational approach to populism is considered, that allows for separating it from traditional dimensions of competition. To fill this research gap, this article explores the relationship between basic human values and voting for left-wing populist parties (LPPs) and right-wing populist parties (RPPs), in 13 European democracies. The results suggest that values help explain voting for populist parties beyond the effect they have on preferences related to the economic left–right and the authoritarian-libertarian divides. First, basic predispositions reflecting tradition and conformity are negatively associated with voting for populist parties of the left and the right, thus suggesting a connection that is independent of the host ideologies to which populism attaches. Second, giving less importance to universalism and more to security correlates with voting for RPPs. Last, benevolence shows no effect on populist voting that is independent of other dimensions of political competition.
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Data availability
Data used in this research comes from the 2016 European Social Survey. All replication materials can be retrieved from: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/GJIIU3
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Notes
Research in this regard has focused mainly on personality traits and populism. Although connected with personality, basic human values are a different construct that may have distinct implications on voting (Roccas et al. 2002).
Although a new wave of the ESS has been recently released, the 2016 one allows a more fine-grained identification of populist parties. This is so because populism is not an immutable feature of parties´ discourses, and some of the empirical analyses used to identify populist parties build upon data from 2015–2016.
While the M5S has been classified as a left-wing populist party (Santana and Rama 2018; Van Hauwaert and Van Kessel 2017), doubts persist on its ideological nature (Mosca and Tronconi 2019). Attending to its difficult characterization, separate analyses have been run excluding it from the list of LPPs. Main results remain the same.
Original wording: “Now I will briefly describe some people. Please listen to each description and tell me how much each person is or is not like you”. Respondents use a scale that ranges between 1 (very much like me) and 6 (not like me at all). This original scale was inverted so higher values represent more similarities with the respondent. A complete list of the 21 questions can be found in the online appendix (Table OA.2).
This operationalization is indicated by Schwartz for the use of basic human values in regression analysis and consists of three consecutive stages. First, individual mean-scores for the 10 values are calculated using the corresponding items. Second, individual overall means are calculated using the 21 items. Third, centered scores for the 10 values are obtained after subtracting to each one the overall mean score. Alternative operationalizations of values, such as using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), have been discarded following ESS recommendations (Schwartz 2003, 2016).
Social benefits/services place too great strain on economy; Social benefits/services prevent widespread poverty; Social benefits/services lead to a more equal society; Social benefits/services cost businesses too much in taxes/charges; Social benefits/services make people lazy. Scales have been rearranged when necessary so higher values always represent positions in favor of social benefits. Respondents declare the extent to which they agree with the statements in a five-point scale (strongly agree-strongly disagree).
Immigration bad or good for country's economy; Country's cultural life undermined or enriched by immigrants; Immigrants make country worse or better place to live. Scales have been rearranged when necessary so higher values always represent a positive view of immigrants and immigration. Respondents position themselves in each of the scales using a 11-point scale (ranging between 0 and 10).
Including left–right self-positioning besides preferences towards immigration and redistribution looks to account for all possible triggers of voting that refer to thick ideologies. The interpretation of these three coefficients alone could be tricky because these variables are related (although collinearity diagnosis show no issues in that regard), but such detailed specification of the model allows a better identification of how certain values relate to populist voting regardless of traditional policy preferences.
The importance of the distinction between higher education and other categories has been long stablished in studies of populism (Hawkins et al. 2012). To measure it, I use the ESS question that measures the highest level of education successfully completed. The ESS question builds upon the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED).
No multicollinearity issues are expected. The Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) was consistently below 2 in all regressions run.
Although using voters of radical non-populist parties as reference had been ideal for these purposes, there are few in the survey. For the classification of mainstream parties as left or right-wing I have utilized data from the Chapel Hill Experts Survey (Polk et al. 2017). I selected most voted parties among the non-populist forces that share the left–right ideological space with populist forces. For right-wing mainstream parties, I choose most voted parties among the conservative, Christian-democratic and liberal parties. For left-wing mainstream ones, the most voted party in the socialist family. The division of families by CHES is based upon membership or affiliation with European Parliament families, the Parliament and governments database (Döring and Manow 2019), and self-identification. A table with all parties considered is available in the online appendix (Table OA.4).
Only 3 of the populist parties considered are not located below 3 or above 7 in the left–right scale, according to Polk et al. (2017). These are LDD (Belgium), M5S (Italy), and FI (Italy), and the latter obtains a 6.7 in the scale according to the experts. Analyses excluding LDD and M5S do not alter the main findings obtained.
Separate country-by-country regressions analyses were conducted too. As expected, decreasing the number of cases affected confidence intervals and significance tests, but the direction of main effects was still observable. Results largely support the existence of a negative effect of universalism and a positive one of security in voting for RPPs and confirm the overall negative importance of conformity in voting for LPPs and RPPs. Country-by-country results are much less clear regarding tradition (e.g., a strong positive association exists with voting for RPPs in Norway and Switzerland), which highlights the importance of considering different arenas of competition. Complete results are available upon request from the author.
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Acknowledgements
Previous versions of this paper were presented at the ECPR General Conference in Wroclaw and the Conference of the European Communities Studies Association in St.Gallen. I am indebted to Klaus Armingeon, Michael Bayerlein, Sarah Engler, Tina Freyburg, Irene Landini, Jana Lipps, Philipp Lutz, Dominik Schraff, Tim Vlandas, and David Weisstanner for their comments. I would also like to thank the members of the School of Economic and Political Science at the University of St.Gallen for their feedback in the Department Research Seminar. Special thanks go to Ciaran O’Flynn for kindly editing and proof-reading the manuscript.
Funding
This research was supported by the Research Committee of the University of St.Gallen [IPF-1031522], the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion of Spain [PGC2018-098207-B-I00], and the Consejería de Ciencia, Universidades e Innovación of Comunidad de Madrid [2019-T2/SOC-16513].
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Marcos-Marne, H. The Effects of Basic Human Values on Populist Voting. An Analysis of 13 European Democracies. Polit Behav 44, 1863–1881 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09689-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09689-8