Populist but pluralist? : populist attitudes and preferences for political pluralism in parliament and government

Abstract

In the ideational approach to populism, populism and pluralism do not go together. While evidence indeed suggests that populist politicians consider a politically pluralist parliament as an obstacle to the expression of the true people’s will in politics, it is however an open question whether ‘the people’, and especially those with high populist attitudes, are just as opposed towards pluralism in parliament and coalition government. Thus far, evidence of a negative relationship between populist attitudes and preferences for pluralism in politics has been inconclusive. We asked ca. 2000 Dutch respondents—raked to be representative of the population—to draw up their ideal assembly and to select the parties that they wish to be part of coalition government. Results show that populist attitudes positively associate with the total number of parties included in the assembly, and non-negatively with the number of parties in the coalition. Parties with government experience, however, are much less preferred. These results shed new light on the presumed incompatibility between populism and pluralism.