The recent success of populist movements is often attributed to citizens’ economic grievances caused by external shocks such as import competition. The existing studies, however, have overlooked how institutional context matters for populist success in the age of globalization. We argue that import competition leads to support for populist parties only if mainstream parties fail to supply and cannot well respond to citizens’ policy demands. Using an analysis of populist support in 11 Western European countries between 2002 and 2017, we find robust evidence for our argument. The effect of import shock on populist voting is significantly conditional upon the ideological incongruence between the masses and the political elites. It suggests that the emergence of populist parties cannot be solely blamed on another country that has allegedly taken advantage of globalization, but is closely related to the failure of the traditional party systems to represent the interest of the citizens.
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