Warming up’ to populist leaders: a comparative analysis of Argentina and Spain

What makes populist leaders, responsible for many episodes of democratic backsliding, especially appealing to a significant part of the electorate? In the following pages we argue that the effect of perceptions regarding leaders’ ‘warmth’ causes them to be perceived as having good intentions toward...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Carty, Emily, Torcal, Mariano
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10230/60034
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/60034
http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/jspp.10107
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Populism
Leader evaluation
Leader personality
Warmth
Stereotype content model
Descripción
Sumario:What makes populist leaders, responsible for many episodes of democratic backsliding, especially appealing to a significant part of the electorate? In the following pages we argue that the effect of perceptions regarding leaders’ ‘warmth’ causes them to be perceived as having good intentions toward and even being part of ‘the people,’ resulting in a more positive overall evaluation among citizens with more critical views of democratic representativeness (external political efficacy). We test this hypothesis in two very different political systems, Argentina and Spain, using data from original surveys that contain batteries of questions on warmth and competence trait dimensions for multiple leaders in both countries. The results show that while perceptions of traits along both warmth and competence dimensions are important for the evaluation of all leaders in democratic systems, the interactive effect between external political efficacy and perceptions of warmth is important for explaining more positive evaluations of populist leaders.