Using political psychology to understand populism, intellectual virtues, and democratic backsliding

Abstract

Political scientists have argued that populism is an ideology that can occur on both the left and the right, whereby people begin to see politics as a battle between the people and a powerful elite that fails to represent the people's interest and are attracted to political candidates who vow to fight corruption. In this chapter, I examine how research in political psychology can help to explain the motivations underlying citizens' attraction to populist ideologies and candidates. I argue that the same cognitive processes driving people toward populism are those that undermine the intellectual virtues, which in turn decreases support for democratic norms and can lead to democratic backsliding. In particular, I examine the role of emotions like threat, uncertainty, and anger in driving both support for populism and decreasing tendencies to support open-minded discussion and debate. I also consider how misinformation and attraction to conspiracy theories plays a role in the link between populism and antidemocratic tendencies.