Sep 22
Populism and Positional Blurring in Context: How Dimensionality and Ideology Constrain Strategy
Populists often employ vague and elusive policy prescriptions, but we do not know if this facility for obfuscation is inherent to populism or if it is a response to other characteristics of these parties or their competitive environments. This paper uses data from Europe alongside novel, validated Latin American data to test the argument that populists tailor their strategies to the dimensionality of their party system and populism’s host ideology. We find that populists blur their economic positions in multidimensional systems and when they adopt exclusionary thick ideologies. Populist parties in unidimensional party systems and those with inclusionary thick ideologies, however, present clear economic positions. These findings, and the extension of this research field beyond Europe for the first time, have implications for the study of populism as a global phenomenon. Populism and the actors who deploy it should be theorized complexly as strategic actors embedded in diverse social and political systems, structuring the opportunities and constraints these parties adapt to in the electoral arena.
Prof Gunderson’s research interests include party competition in developed democracies, party systems, inequality, and political behavior. It has been published in the British Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Policy and Society, Party Politics, the European Journal of Political Research, and Electoral Studies. In his dissertation, he argued that one cause of political change, broadly defined, in European politics is the weakening of party brands—the image in voters’ minds of who parties are and what they stand for. These party brands are crucial because they form the foundation of how citizens identify, distinguish, and evaluate the political parties competing for their votes. He deploys large-N quantitative, experimental, and interview methods to investigate various ways that party brands have changed over time and influence citizens' political behavior, as well as developing a deeper understanding of the processes that have led to brand convergence.
Join us Sept 22, 5-6:30pm at Multicultural Center, reception immediately following