How did populist governments handle the COVID-19 pandemic? Did they act as erratic, irrational and unsound – in short: ‘populist’ – as observers expected them to do? Through which social policies did they respond to the hardships caused by the pandemic? And, what does populist governance explain about these governments’ social policies? This article explores these questions through a comparative analysis of a diverse set of six populist governments. We first conceptualize, operationalize and measure populist governance by constructing a novel Populist Governance Index. Second, we describe and measure governments’ welfare policies through a novel Social Policy Response Index. Third, we relate social policy responses to variations in populist governance across countries. Our mixed-method study suggests that populism explains the politics rather than the policies of populist governments. We conclude that this is the case because populism fundamentally defines a mode of governance rather than policy content

Do populist politicians use simpler language to get closer to ‘ordinary’ citizens? Current studies – both qualitative and quantitative – are divided on whether populist actors actually use simpler language. Analysing a large corpus of text of German parliamentary debates from January 1991 to September 2021, this article aims to resolve this controversy by measuring language complexity in parliamentary discourse. The article hypothesizes that populist actors use simpler language, following their ideal of a simplified world between ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The analysis, however, positively refutes that, and instead shows that right-wing populist actors use the most complex language. Left-wing populists seem to use somewhat average language complexity. At the same time, the study finds that language complexity decreased significantly in the German parliament over time. Additionally, this article shows that language complexity is context-specific and people-dependent. As such, this article also discusses simple language as a tool for substantive and surrogate representation.

The radical right is now able to impose its personnel and its agenda as the ‘new normal’ for a different European Union (EU). Nevertheless, there is still a lack of research into how this normalization is circulated by radical-right members of the European Parliament (MEPs), eager to be part of the social world of the liberal democratic European parliamentarians. This process of normalization is investigated in this article by carrying out a critical discourse analysis of the argumentation used by radical-right MEPs to reject an EU regulation supposed to preserve press freedom, currently threatened by the radical right in many EU member states: the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). The analysis shows that these MEPs have been keen to use a series of topoi to claim their embeddedness in liberal democracies, while mobilizing symbols and meanings revealing their autocratic roots and their willingness to redefine media freedom.

Why are populist radical-right party activists intensely motivated to become involved in their party? These activists combine disaffection with politics, anxiety and the emotion dynamic known as ressentiment on the one hand, with high-intensity, low-reward political activism and a sense of long-term political efficacy on the other hand. This article contributes to a better understanding of the expressive, emotional and identity-based incentives behind party activism. It proposes a Spiral of Ressentiment model. In this model, individuals’ complex emotions of ressentiment are transformed into collective ressentiment through relationships within the party. The party relieves this ressentiment by providing a sense of belonging and hope for the future, but party messages and stigmatization then reignite ressentimentful feelings. This study uncovers the feedback loop through which populist radical-right parties both alleviate and encourage ressentiment emotions by analysing 50 in-depth interviews with Vlaams Belang local activists and party representatives.

The vast presence of populism in contemporary political discourse has introduced a narrative steeped in nostalgia, evoking images of a revered national past and delineating a stark division between the ‘authentic us’ and the ‘alien them’. While these messages resonate with a substantial portion of citizens, they concurrently foster identity-driven animosity and derogation. In a pre-registered experiment in the Netherlands (with data collected between January and March 2023), we distinguish the influence of nostalgic narratives and scapegoating on societal sentiments, revealing their pivotal role in exacerbating current levels of polarization. Our findings underscore the potential of nostalgic narratives to shape affective sentiments towards ideological and social in-groups, while also influencing sentiments towards out-groups. Messages featuring scapegoats were found to intensify positive sentiment towards in-groups, while simultaneously diminishing positive sentiment towards out-groups. This research underscores a crucial mechanism underpinning the ebb and flow of identity-based sentiments. The results indicate that nostalgic discourse, particularly when intertwined with scapegoating, can serve as a catalyst for the intensification of in-group affinity and the exacerbation of out-group aversion. In essence, our study underscores the far-reaching implications of nostalgic narratives in perpetuating societal animosity and polarization and sheds light on a critical facet of contemporary political discourse.

Research focused on digital tools and the Global South has enhanced our understanding of electoral campaigning. Although big data and social media seem to be game-changers in contemporary politics, studies of data-driven campaigns highlight that the reality does not always match the potential. Moreover, research into campaigns in Africa, East Asia and Latin America has enriched our knowledge, underlining that digital campaign tools are at their most effective when combined with more traditional means of campaigning, when clicks are combined with mortar. Rallies, in particular, remain an important mode of campaigning given both the information conveyed by their physical location, and the popularity of the candidate or party indicated by the size of the crowd. Reviewing the advances in scholarship, however, highlights that despite changes in the modes of campaigning, the key ingredient of a campaign remains a clear and compelling message to mobilize and persuade the electorate.

This review article points to a number of ways in which the study of political participation has followed separate tracks, hence preventing it from deploying its full potential. We argue that the field stands to benefit much from ‘bridging’ different approaches and insights, combining those from different disciplines or subdisciplines. We review works that try to build such bridges, with the aim of encouraging dialogue across the disciplinary boundaries between political science and political sociology, on the one hand, and sociology and social movement studies, on the other. We advocate that students of political participation take such ‘bridges’ seriously in their work and employ them as the basis for new dynamic theorization. We suggest five possible ways in which the study of political participation may combine different perspectives and research traditions. Three of them are theoretical: bridging rationalist, structuralist and culturalist theoretical approaches; bringing together cognitive (attitudes) and affective (emotions) explanations; and combining macro- and micro-level accounts. The fourth is methodological: bridging qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches. The fifth is substantive: bridging a focus on electoral (institutional) participation with one on non-electoral (non-institutional) participation.

This article surveys the recent literature on the politics of memory. It sets out the nature of research in this area over the last 25 years and distils its main trends and areas of focus. Investigating monographs and edited volumes published since the year 2000, it gives an overview of a rich and evolving area of study. It demonstrates the extent to which the increasing politicization and securitization of memory has started to underpin new strategies for political conflict with different groups on different levels using collective memory to assert identities. While the boundaries between the national and the transnational in studying the politics of memory are often blurred, the article broadly distinguishes between studying political conflict within and between states.