In this interview with Maurits Meijers, we discuss the result of an expert survey that covers 250 political parties across 28 European countries. They do not simply ask if a party is populist, but how populist it is. Moreover, other dimensions of these parties are considered: their ideological position, their use of emotional tones, and much more. The data are available for downloading at Harvard Dataverse and you can play with the interactive tool to have a better grasp of the characteristics that come with populism.
I’m glad that they didn’t approach this topic with the rather limited view on populism that every populist has to be a right wing politician. Populism is not a political stance, it’s a method, a tool, a certain way to talk and communicate. Many politicians are populists. Left, right, center, anyone.
