Public opinion surveys : a new scale

Abstract

Abstract: In recent years, scholars have started to measure and explain populism at the micro-level, as an attitude that individuals hold about politics. Multiple scales have been proposed but, as the overview by Van Hauwaert et al. indicates, they all have limitations. Most do not capture a broad range of the phenomenon – being able to discriminate only among moderately populist and moderately not-populist individuals – and have little cross-cultural validity. Starting out with 145 items, we have used standard scale-development approaches from psychology to produce a short battery of six to nine indicators measuring populist attitudes, divided into three dimensions. The scale has conceptual breadth, and travels well across 18 samples collected in 14 different countries from Europe and the Americas.