What's in a buzzword? A systematic review of the state of populism research in political science

Abstract Although attention to populism is ever-increasing, the concept remains contested. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of research and identifies tendencies conflation host ideologies in political science through two-step analysis. First, we conduct quantitative review 884 abstracts from 2004 2018 using text-as-data methods. We show that scholars sit at “separate tables,” divided by geographical foci, methods, ideologies. Next, our qualitative analysis 50 articles finds common with other ideologies, resulting analytical neglect former. We, therefore, urge researchers properly distinguish “what it travels with” engage more strongly dynamic interlinkages between thin thick