Chapter 34 Further Reading

Foundational Theory

Mudde, Cas, and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser. Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2017. The clearest and most accessible introduction to the ideational approach. Covers definition, variants, causes, and consequences in under 200 pages. Essential reading for anyone entering this research area.

Mudde, Cas. "The Populist Zeitgeist." Government and Opposition 39.4 (2004): 541–563. The article that established the thin-ideology framework as the leading approach in comparative politics. More technical than the book but valuable for understanding the definitional debates it resolved.

Müller, Jan-Werner. What Is Populism? University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Emphasizes anti-pluralism as populism's defining feature and offers a normatively engaged account of why populism is a problem for liberal democracy. A useful complement to Mudde's more value-neutral approach.

Laclau, Ernesto. On Populist Reason. Verso, 2005. The foundational text for the discursive/political-theoretical approach to populism (contrasting with Mudde's ideational approach). Laclau treats populism as a fundamental political logic rather than a deviation from normal politics. Important for understanding left-populist movements and the debate about whether populism can be democratically productive.

Measurement and Methods

Akkerman, Agnes, Cas Mudde, and Andrej Zaslove. "How Populist Are the People? Measuring Populist Attitudes in Voters." Comparative Political Studies 47.9 (2014): 1324–1353. The original validation study for the CAP survey instrument. Shows how the instrument was constructed, tested for reliability and validity, and applied cross-nationally. Essential methodology reading.

Rooduijn, Matthijs, and Teun Pauwels. "Measuring Populism: Comparing Two Methods of Content Analysis." West European Politics 34.6 (2011): 1272–1283. The foundational text for populism density measurement using dictionary approaches. Validates the method against expert ratings of party populism and discusses limitations.

Hawkins, Kirk A., and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser. "The Ideational Approach to Populism." Latin American Research Review 52.4 (2017): 513–528. Reviews the ideational approach from a measurement perspective, comparing survey, text analysis, and expert coding methods. Valuable synthesis of methodological options.

Causes

Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart. Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge University Press, 2019. The most comprehensive empirical statement of the cultural backlash thesis, using survey data from 50+ countries. Dense with data and strong on cross-national comparison.

Autor, David, David Dorn, Gordon Hanson, and Kaveh Majlesi. "Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure." American Economic Review 110.10 (2020): 3139–3183. The most rigorous empirical statement of the economic anxiety thesis in the US context, showing the relationship between Chinese import competition exposure and political polarization including right-populist voting.

Inglehart, Ronald F., and Pippa Norris. "Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash." HKS Working Paper RWP16-026, 2016. Available free online. Shorter than the book; good introduction to the empirical debate about economic vs. cultural explanations.

Consequences and Democratic Backsliding

Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge University Press, 2010. The foundational text on competitive authoritarianism as a regime type. Provides the conceptual framework for understanding how populist governments erode democracy without formal coups.

Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. Crown, 2018. Accessible synthesis of research on democratic backsliding, focused on the US but drawing on comparative cases. Strong on the role of political norms and guardrails in constraining would-be authoritarians.

Grzymala-Busse, Anna. "Hoist on Their Own Petards? The Reinvention and Collapse of Postcommunist Parties." Party Politics 8.4 (2002): 389–407. Provides context on post-communist party system collapse that created the opportunity structure for Orbán's populism in Hungary.

Global Cases

Gidron, Noam, and Bart Bonikowski. "Varieties of Populism: Literature Review and Research Agenda." Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Working Paper 13-0004, 2013. Excellent survey of populism scholarship across regions and disciplines. Available free online.

Weyland, Kurt. "Clarifying a Contested Concept: Populism in the Study of Latin American Politics." Comparative Politics 34.1 (2001): 1–22. Critiques the ideational approach from a political-economy perspective and argues for a strategy-based definition. Important dissenting view that sharpens understanding of the ideational approach's scope.

Data Resources

V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Project: vdem.net — Provides annual cross-national data on democratic quality, including specific measures of electoral democracy, liberal democracy, and populism-related institutional features. Free access.

Comparative Manifesto Project (MARPOR): manifesto-project.wzb.eu — Coded party manifestos for parties in democratic elections worldwide since 1945. Enables large-scale text analysis of party positions including populist content.

Global Populism Database (Tony Blair Institute): Institute for Global Change populism data. Tracks populist parties in power globally with consistent coding rules.

PopuList: popu.list — Identifies populist, far-right, far-left, and Eurosceptic parties in European elections. Cross-referenced with electoral results.