Populism and Social Polarization in European Democracies

The objective of this article is to explain populist attitudes that are prevailing in a number European democracies. Populist usually lead social protests and votes. We capture the wave by relying on values traditionally viewed as populist—such distrust institutions neighbors, rejection migrations, strong preferences for law order—rather than voting behavior. Our study covers period 2004–2018 25 countries which we match aggregated indicators polarization based ESS SILC survey micro-data. show varies dramatically across regions, but at same time, some convergence observed. estimations confirm, most cases, positive statistically significant relation between attitudes. (JEL codes: D63 I30)