{"title":"From Objectivist Bias to Positivist Bias: A Constructivist Critique of the Attitudes Approach to Populism","authors":"Seongcheol Kim, A. Mondon","doi":"10.1177/14789299231225403","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article undertakes a critique of the attitudes approach to populism, predicated on survey-based operationalisations of populism as a set of attitudes. Our critique is threefold: first, the move of reducing ‘the elite’ to ‘the politicians’ in survey items – beginning with the foundational Akkerman scale – is at odds with the constructivist underpinnings of Mudde’s ideational definition that this literature largely draws on, where ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ are understood as contingent constructions that can take on a wide range of meanings depending on the ideological permutation. Second, our corpus linguistics-based overview of empirical patterns within the ‘populist attitudes’ literature indicates a skewed focus on the far right within this literature, contrary to the ideological variability of populism following the ideational definition. Third, the reliance on public opinion surveys points to the danger of reifying public opinion and attributing objective qualities to ‘the people’ as such. In assuming categories such as ‘the elite’ to stand for determinate referents such as ‘the politicians’ in survey-based operationalisations, the positivist bias of the attitudes approach paradoxically mirrors the objectivist bias (following Sartori) of early populism research that reduced the identity of ‘the people’ in populism to determinate socio-structural categories such as the peasantry.","PeriodicalId":46813,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Political Studies Review","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299231225403","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article undertakes a critique of the attitudes approach to populism, predicated on survey-based operationalisations of populism as a set of attitudes. Our critique is threefold: first, the move of reducing ‘the elite’ to ‘the politicians’ in survey items – beginning with the foundational Akkerman scale – is at odds with the constructivist underpinnings of Mudde’s ideational definition that this literature largely draws on, where ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ are understood as contingent constructions that can take on a wide range of meanings depending on the ideological permutation. Second, our corpus linguistics-based overview of empirical patterns within the ‘populist attitudes’ literature indicates a skewed focus on the far right within this literature, contrary to the ideological variability of populism following the ideational definition. Third, the reliance on public opinion surveys points to the danger of reifying public opinion and attributing objective qualities to ‘the people’ as such. In assuming categories such as ‘the elite’ to stand for determinate referents such as ‘the politicians’ in survey-based operationalisations, the positivist bias of the attitudes approach paradoxically mirrors the objectivist bias (following Sartori) of early populism research that reduced the identity of ‘the people’ in populism to determinate socio-structural categories such as the peasantry.
期刊介绍:
Political Studies Review provides unrivalled review coverage of new books and literature on political science and international relations and does so in a timely and comprehensive way. In addition to providing a comprehensive range of reviews of books in politics, PSR is a forum for a range of approaches to reviews and debate in the discipline. PSR both commissions original review essays and strongly encourages submission of review articles, review symposia, longer reviews of books and debates relating to theories and methods in the study of politics. The editors are particularly keen to develop new and exciting approaches to reviewing the discipline and would be happy to consider a range of ideas and suggestions.