Economic insecurity and the demand for populism in Europe

• Published in: Economica (London) Vol. 91; no. 362; pp. 588 - 620
• Main Authors: Guiso, L., Herrera, H., Morelli, M., Sonno, T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-04-2024
• Subjects: Insecurity; Populism; Security
• ISSN: 0013-0427; 1468-0335
• DOI: 10.1111/ecca.12513

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.
This paper is part of the Economica 100 Series. Economica, the LSE “house journal” is now 100 years old. To commemorate this achievement, we are publishing 100 papers by former students, as well as current and former faculty. Tommaso Sonno obtained his PhD from the LSE and is a CEP Associate. luigi Guiso obtained his MSc from the LSE and is a fellow at the CEP.