Populism in an Identity Framework: A Feedback Model

Abstract

Drawing upon the social psychology concept of identity entrepreneurs (Haslam et al., 2010), we develop a feedback model between politicians and the public that strongly emphasizes the circumstances in which public opinion may facilitate populist discursive elements and politics. We thus consider the success of populism as neither inherently driven by political leaders nor primarily driven by increasing populist attitudes in the public and acknowledge the fragmented nature of the populist discourse emphasized by recent studies. We raise the question of whether there is a populist collective identity, which is accountable in terms of populist rhetorical elements, and how it changes over time. To answer this question, we apply the proposed framework to the case of the rise and development of the populist discourse in Switzerland while accounting for its dynamic adaptation to raising public concerns and for the influence of its core rhetorical elements on individual voting behavior.