In liberal democracies, high-profile authoritarian populist politicians—think Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni—continue to win free and open elections. This research explores the conditions associated with their electoral success using a conditional-process model of demand. Specifically, it investigates discrete factors associated with authoritarian predispositions and expressions and with populist predispositions and expressions. Based on literature identifying cultural, economic, and political threats as commonly hypothesized triggers of these expressions, I argue that perceptions of immigration as harmful to national culture activate both authoritarian and populist expressions. A multiple regression model is used to evaluate the hypotheses and identify conditions that activate these expressions. Future research into demand for populism would benefit from a more nuanced and robust concept of populist expressions. Much like authoritarian expressions, the variable should include a measurement independent of a particular politician or party, capturing intolerance toward cultural, economic, and political elites.
Social Sciences
