Varieties of Populist Attitudes and Their Link to Islamophobia in Switzerland

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show whether distinct varieties of populist attitudes emerge within a society, and how they relate to citizens’ Islamophobic attitudes. The study is based on a representative survey conducted in Switzerland in 2019. We used latent class analysis and multinomial regression analyses to identify latent subgroups, yielding five classes of populist attitudes: direct democracy devotees, individuals with populist tendencies, moderate populists, radical anti-elite populists, and radical-universal populists. Compared with the direct democracy devotees class, members of the moderate and the radical-universal populists classes are significantly more likely to hold anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attitudes and to be politically right-wing, while radical anti-elite populists are not associated with either anti-Muslim attitudes or a right-wing ideology.