Populism

Core findings

1. Personality, and particularly the trait agreeableness, predicts voting for populist parties or politicians (Bakker et al 2016).

2. Personality, particularly extraversion and openness, predict vote switching (Bakker, Klemmensen, Norgaard, Schumacher 2016).

3. The level of political cynicism makes populist voters unique compared to other voters (Schumacher and Rooduijn 2013).

4. Mainstream parties copy and paste the successful electoral formula of populist parties of emphasizing welfare chauvinism (Schumacher and van Kersbergen 2016).

 

Work in progress

1. A causal analysis of the relationship between agreeableness and populist voting using panel data, a conjoint experiment and a psychophysiological study. This work has been presented at the ICA conference in San Diego (2017) and the ISSP conference in Edinburgh (2017). Click here for the slides. And click here for the blog about this research.

 

Publications

PDF  Pdf version    Appendix  Appendix    Blog  Blog    Replication Materials  Replication Materials
Nr.CitationSupplements
Gijs Schumacher, Matthijs Rooduijn & Bert Bakker (2022). Hot Populism? Affective responses to antiestablishment Rhetoric. Political Psychology, 43, 5t.
Bert Bakker, Gijs Schumacher & Matthijs Rooduijn (2020). The populist appeal. Personality and anti-establishment communication. The Journal of Politics.Replication
Gijs Schumacher & Ingo Zettler (2019). House of Cards or West Wing? Self-reported HEXACO Traits of Danish Politicians. Personality and Individual Differences , 141, 173–181.
Gijs Schumacher & Kees van Kersbergen (2016). Do mainstream parties adapt to the welfare chauvinism of populist parties? Party Politics, 22, 3. PDF
Bert Bakker, Matthijs Rooduijn, & Gijs Schumacher (2016). The Psychological Roots of Populist Voting: Evidence from the United States, the Netherlands and Germany. European Journal of Political Research, 55, 2.
PDF  Appendix Replication Materials Blog
Bert Bakker, Robert Klemmensen, Asbjørn Nørgaard & Gijs Schumacher (2016). Stay Loyal or Exit the Party? How Openness to Experience and Extraversion Explain Vote Switching. Political Psychology, 37, 3. PDF Appendix Replication Materials Blog
Gijs Schumacher & Matthijs Rooduijn (2013). Sympathy for the 'Devil'? Voting for Populists in the 2006 and 2010 Dutch General Elections. Electoral Studies, 32, 1. PDF  Appendix Replication Materials

Chapters / Data / Other

PDF  Pdf version    Appendix  Appendix    Blog  Blog    Replication Materials  Replication Materials
Nr.CitationSupplements
Bert Bakker, Matthijs Rooduijn, & Gijs Schumacher (2017). Response to Schimpf and Schoen’s Response to Bakker, Rooduijn and Schumacher (2016). Open Science Framework. November 24. osf.io/5u8t6.
PDF
Bert Bakker, Matthijs Rooduijn, and Gijs Schumacher (2016). “The Populist Personality.” In The Science of Trump. Explaining the Rise of an Unlikely Candidate, eds. John Sides and Henry Farrell. The Monkey Cage. PDF
Bert Bakker, Matthijs Rooduijn, & Gijs Schumacher (2016). The Psychological Roots of Populist Voting: Evidence from the United States, the Netherlands and Germany. European Journal of Political Research, 55, 2. PDF Appendix Replication Materials Blog