Populist and nativist attitudes: Does ingroup-outgroup thinking spill over across domains?
| Author | Jante Parlevliet,Bart Bonikowski,Matthijs Rooduijn |
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1465116521992876 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Populist and nativist
attitudes: Does ingroup-
outgroup thinking spill
over across domains?
Matthijs Rooduijn
Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam,
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Bart Bonikowski
Department of Sociology, New York University, New York, USA
Jante Parlevliet
Department of Business Models and Governance, De Nederlandsche
Bank, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Abstract
What are the attitudinal consequences of the growing pervasiveness of populism and
nativism? We conceive of both populism and nativism as binary moral frameworks
predicated on an antagonistic relationship between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Our study inves-
tigates the presence of spillover effects between these two forms of ingroup-outgroup
thinking among survey respondents in the Netherlands. We posit that exposure to
populist (nativist) messages fuels nativism (populism), but only among those positively
predisposed toward these messages in the first place. A first survey experiment, focus-
ing on antipathies toward refugees and Muslim immigrants, confirms the former expec-
tation, but a second experiment calls into question the latter hypothesis. Moreover, the
second experiment does not replicate the effects of populist message exposure on
general immigration attitudes. We discuss several possible reasons for these mixed
results.
Corresponding author:
Matthijs Rooduijn, Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15578, 1001 NB
Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Email: m.rooduijn@uva.nl
European Union Politics
2021, Vol. 22(2) 248–265
!The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116521992876
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Keywords
Ingroup-outgroup thinking, nativism, populism, survey experiment
Introduction
Recent studies have argued that populism and nativism are analytically distinct
phenomena. Populism concerns the ‘vertical’ relationship between the ‘good
people’ and a vilified elite (see Hawkins, 2010; Mudde, 2004; Mu
¨ller, 2016), where-
as nativism concerns the ‘horizontal’ antagonism between natives and non-natives
(Bonikowski, 2017; Mudde, 2007; Pappas, 2018). Because populism and nativism
are often combined in practice, scholars have advocated for the two concepts to be
theorized and measured separately (De Cleen et al., 2018; Rooduijn, 2019). At the
same time, however, it is important to note that populism and nativism also share a
common feature: both are manifestations of a general propensity to divide the
world into ingroups and outgroups, into ‘us’ versus ‘them’ (Bizumic and
Duckitt, 2012; Hawkins, 2010; Kinder and Kam, 2010; Schulz et al., 2020).
In this study, we hypothesize that exposure to populist or nativist messages
activates general ingroup-outgroup thinking, and thereby fuels binary classifica-
tion across cognitive domains (see Akrami et al., 2011; Zick et al., 2008).
Specifically, we predict that exposure to populist messages may strengthen nativist
attitudes (Bonikowski and Zhang, 2020), and exposure to nativist messages may
increase populist attitudes. We expect such spillover effects to be observed, how-
ever, only among individuals who are susceptible to populist and nativist messages
in the first place (see Hameleers and Schmuck, 2017; Kinder and Kam, 2010;
Sniderman et al., 2004; Valkenburg and Peter, 2013). Others are likely to ignore
the messaging or see it as antithetical to their political sensibilities (perhaps by
associating it with the opposite political camp) and recoil from it.
Using two nationally representative survey experiments fielded in the
Netherlands in 2017 and 2019, we find partial support for the hypothesized spill-
over effects. The first study shows that exposure to a populist message strengthens
antipathy toward refugees among supporters of populist parties. The second study,
however, finds no support for our expectation that a nativist message would
increase populism among supporters of nativist parties. Moreover, in a partial
replication of the first experiment using a different dependent variable, we fail to
observe significant differences in views about the social consequences of immigra-
tion between respondents who were exposed to a populist message and respond-
ents who were not. In the concluding section of the article we offer possible reasons
for these mixed findings.
Populism and nativism
There is growing scholarly consensus that populism is a Manichaean moral
(Hawkins, 2010; Mu
¨ller, 2016) outlook that pits the good, virtuous people against
Rooduijn et al. 249
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