Resentment,nostalgia and the underpinnings of a populist worldview

Abstract

Populism is now a constant in European politics, yet its underpinnings remain disputed. Socio-structural explanations are increasingly complicated by resentment and nostalgia. Studies often examine each notion in isolation and rely on implicit or over-simplified parameters, which fail to account for their differential impact on populism's constituent components. Adding nuance to this debate, we propose multi-dimensional conceptualisations of resentment (an amalgamation of ontological insecurity, group relative deprivation and powerlessness) and nostalgia (consisting of temporal and spatial dislocations). Using the 2019 Belgian National Election Study, these mechanisms are used to help explain the effect of social position on the three populist attitudes: people centrism, Manichaeism and anti-elitism. Our findings complicate widespread hypotheses: Educational attainment is a strong predictor of populism, as is nostalgia. Yet, education's effect on anti-elitism disappears when controlling for resentment. Conversely, nostalgia helps account for much of the explained variance in each populist attitude.