Economic Insecurity and Populist Voting in Europe: A Conditional Analysis of Trust, Ideology, and Crisis Response

Abstract

This thesis investigates the conditions under which economic insecurity translates into support for populist parties in Europe. While existing literature often treats insecurity as a universal driver of populist alignment, this study advances a conditional framework, arguing that the political effects of economic hardship depend on how individuals interpret their experiences. Drawing on eleven rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS), the analysis extends Guiso et al.’s (2023) turnout-corrected strategy while significantly broadening the country sample and incorporating post-pandemic labor shocks.The empirical approach combines Linear Probability Models (LPMs) and Heckman selection models to estimate both the likelihood of voting and the propensity to support populist parties, using fixed effects, full sample weights, and exogenous weather instruments for turnout correction. Populist vote is operationalized through the PopuList dataset, and economic insecurity is captured as a multidimensional index combining income difficulty, job risk, and unemployment history. Moderating variables include institutional trust, left–right ideological orientation, and exposure to COVID-era labor disruptions.Findings reveal that economic insecurity does not consistently predict populist voting on its own. Rather, its effects are contingent: insecurity becomes politically consequential only among individuals who report low institutional trust, identify with the political right, or experience acute economic shocks. These interaction effects are robust across LPMs and validated, though less pronounced, in Heckprobit estimates. By contrast, the analysis offers limited support for the hypothesis that economic insecurity suppresses turnout, and in several cases finds that hardship is associated with higher electoral participation. This challenges prevailing theories of grievance-driven disengagement and underscores the interpretive role of ideology and trust in shaping political behavior.By shifting the focus from universal mechanisms to conditional effects, this thesis contributes to a more nuanced understanding of populist demand. It argues that economic explanations must be integrated with individuals’ existing ideological preconceptions and their attitudes towards political institutions. The findings underscore the importance of meaning-making processes and suggest that insecurity alone does not determine electoral behavior without the mediating influence of trust, ideology, and context.