Ressources 📚🤖📄🗣 for Automatic Populism Detection

In my research 👨‍🔬 on this topic, I came across several papers and other resources. This open repository is intended to provide an overview of the current state of automatic populism detection. Since I'm sure I've missed some ressources, this repository will be open to anyone who would like to contribute as a contributor 👥. You can also open a pull request ⬆️ or send me a message (📧 mail or 🐥 twitter) for any paper, dataset, workshop etc. you come across.

Note: tl;dr provide a short summary (two sentences) generated by 🤖

📄 Literature

Text Analysis

• Erhard et al. (2023): PopBERT. Detecting populism and its host ideologies in the German Bundestag [Paper]
  tl;dr

  This paper presents a method for detecting populist language in political discourse, using a dataset from the German Bundestag (2013-2021) and a transformer-based model, PopBERT, to identify and quantify core dimensions of populism. The study reveals PopBERT's strong predictive accuracy and potential for dynamic analysis of populist language use in German politics, offering possibilities for cross-domain applications and related classifiers. (generated by 🤖)
• Reinhardt et al. (2023): Varieties of antigenderism: the politicization of gender issues across three European populist radical right parties [Paper]
  tl;dr

  This study analyzes how populist radical right parties in Germany, Italy, and Sweden use social media to shape their gender discourse, revealing that public recognition and legal protection of gender equality significantly influence their framing. A low level of gender issue contestation leads to femonationalist framing, while higher contestation fosters antigenderist discourse, both rooted in a common nativist ideology. (generated by 🤖)
• Klamm et al. (2023): Our kind of people? Detecting populist references in political debates [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study introduces "MoPE", a dataset that annotates references to "The People" and "The Elite" in German and English political debates. This methodology offers a nuanced way to detect and study populist rhetoric in texts, providing insights beyond traditional dictionary-based approaches. (generated by 🤖)
• Jankowski/ Huber (2023): When Correlation Is Not Enough: Validating Populism Scores from Supervised Machine-Learning Models [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The paper critically examines Di Cocco and Monechi's (DCM) method of using supervised machine learning to predict parties' populism scores from election manifestos. It argues that DCM's validity checks are insufficient, and their approach may not accurately measure populism, emphasizing the need for comprehensive model validation. (generated by 🤖)
• Brause/ Kinski (2022): Mainstream party agenda-responsiveness and the electoral success of right-wing populist parties in Europe [Paper]
• Bonikowski et al. (2022): Politics as Usual? Measuring Populism, Nationalism, and Authoritarianism in U.S. Presidential Campaigns (1952–2020) with Neural Language Models [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study examines whether mainstream U.S. political actors used discursive elements commonly associated with the radical right, such as anti-elite populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism, before Donald Trump's 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Using advanced neural language models, the research finds that Trump's campaigns amplified and rearranged existing political-cultural tropes, combining long-present elements from both parties with a more explicit form of exclusionary nationalism. (generated by 🤖)
• Breyer (2022): Populist positions in party competition: Do parties strategically vary their degree of populism in reaction to vote and office loss? [Paper] parliamentary debate speeches
  tl;dr

  This study examines how political parties strategically adjust their populist positions in response to party competition, using German and Austrian parliamentary debate speeches from the 1990s to 2018. Findings reveal that both mainstream and populist parties exhibit more populist tendencies when in opposition, and their reactions to electoral losses are nuanced, emphasizing the need to merge populism research with party competition theories. (generated by 🤖)
• Schwalbach (2022): Talking to the Populist Radical Right: A Comparative Analysis of Parliamentary Debates [Paper]
  tl;dr

  This research examines the dynamics of established parties' interactions with right-wing populist parties in Western European parliaments. Using text-as-data methods on parliamentary debates, the study finds that while government-opposition dynamics predominantly shape discussions, right-wing populist parties intensify polarization on immigration topics and become the focal point in these debates, underscoring the need to analyze strategic party interactions within the parliamentary setting. (generated by 🤖)
• Lehmann/ Zehnter (2022): The Self-Proclaimed Defender of Freedom: The AfD and the Pandemic [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study examines how the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a prominent populist radical right party, adapted its policy stance during the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing the party's press releases from January 2020 to March 2021, voter intentions, and election outcomes. While the AfD initially had an inconsistent response, it later concentrated on criticizing the government's lockdown measures and supporting anti-coronavirus protests, framing its stance as a critique of the elite; however, this strategy hasn't boosted the party's support among voters. (generated by 🤖)
• Dai/Kustov (2022): When Do Politicians Use Populist Rhetoric? Populism as a Campaign Gamble [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study investigates the factors influencing politicians' use of populist rhetoric, proposing that less popular political actors are more inclined to use such rhetoric as a strategy to increase their chances of winning. Using a comprehensive corpus of U.S. presidential campaign speeches from 1952 to 2016 and a novel automated text analysis method, the research demonstrates that candidates with lower polling numbers consistently employ more populist rhetoric, irrespective of their party affiliation or incumbency. (generated by 🤖)
• Schürmann/ Gründl (2022): Yelling from the sidelines? How German parties employ populist and crisis-related messages on Facebook [Paper]
  tl;dr

  Analyzing 3,500 Facebook posts from German political parties, the study reveals that outsider parties, especially AfD and the Left, frequently use populist and crisis-related messages, while mainstream parties are more reserved in their populist communication. The research highlights the role of a party's position in the system in shaping its social media strategy and how this influences public perceptions of societal conditions. (generated by 🤖)
• Cabot et al. (2021): Us vs. Them: A Dataset of Populist Attitudes, News Bias and Emotions [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study introduces the "Us vs. Them" dataset, containing 6,861 Reddit comments annotated for populist attitudes and emotions. Using this dataset, the research employs computational models, particularly the RoBERTa model, to automatically detect populist rhetoric, emphasizing the role of emotions and group identification in such discourse. (generated by 🤖)
• Rehbein et al. (2021): Who is we? Disambiguating the referents of first person plural pronouns in parliamentary debates [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study investigates the use of first person plural pronouns in political speeches, develops an annotation schema for their disambiguation, and presents a method to automatically resolve these pronouns in German parliamentary debates. The research underscores the significance of pronouns in political messaging and the complexities of identifying their intended references. (generated by 🤖)
• Cocco/ Monechi(2021): How Populist are Parties? Measuring Degrees of Populism in Party Manifestos Using Supervised Machine Learning [Paper] [Code]
  tl;dr

  The study introduces a method to gauge parties' populism levels using supervised machine learning on national manifestos, enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of textual analysis in comparative populism research. This approach offers a continuous populism score, enabling detailed party landscape analysis and reducing classification errors, as demonstrated by examining populism trends in six European countries over nearly two decades. (generated by 🤖)
• Cassell (2021): The comparative effectiveness of populist rhetoric in generating online engagement [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study examines how individuals engage with populist campaign content on social media compared to other common democratic content types. Using an original dataset of campaign tweets from national actors across five countries, the research suggests that populism resonates more with Twitter users in specific contexts, leading to higher online engagement than its alternatives. (generated by 🤖)
• Cassell (2021): The Populist Communication Strategy in Comparative Perspective [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study investigates the communication strategies of populist and non-populist actors during national elections, considering both content and delivery style. Analyzing tweets from national-level candidates in five countries, the research identifies significant differences in what actors discuss and how they present their messages, emphasizing the importance of delivery style in understanding overall communication strategies. (generated by 🤖)
• Lacatus (2020): Populism and President Trump’s approach to foreign policy: An analysis of tweets and rally speeches [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study analyzes President Trump's campaign communication and tweets leading up to the 2018 mid-term election to understand how populist rhetoric influenced his foreign policy approach. The research reveals that Trump's foreign policy, influenced by Jacksonian populism and anti-elitism, opposes migration and multilateralism and is skeptical of the U.S.'s role in a liberal global order, yet there are discrepancies between his non-interventionist campaign discourse and actual foreign policy actions. (generated by 🤖)
• Gründl (2020): Populist ideas on social media: A dictionary-based measurement of populist communication [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The article introduces a dictionary-based method to measure populist communication in German on social media, capturing the full spectrum of populist ideology, including people-centrism and demands for people's sovereignty. Using this approach, the study analyzes populist messages from parties in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, revealing intra-party differences and demonstrating the method's high convergent validity and reliability. (generated by 🤖)
• Trau (2019): Talking about, for, and to the People: Populism and Representation in Parliamentary Debates on Europe [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study delves into how Members of Parliament in Britain, Germany, and France use discourse to emphasize the importance of representing 'the people' in parliamentary debates on Europe. The analysis reveals a dual dynamic of enacting the people's voice and making debates accessible, suggesting that these discourse strategies are not exclusive to populist movements, underscoring the need to differentiate between populist style and ideology. (generated by 🤖)
• Lacatus (2018): Populism and the 2016 American Election: Evidence from Official Press Releases and Twitter [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study conducts a systematic analysis of the 2016 US presidential election campaign discourse, focusing on press releases and tweets from Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump. Findings reveal that while Sanders and Trump heavily utilized populist rhetoric for distinct left and right agendas, Clinton employed it minimally, primarily in reaction to her opponents. (generated by 🤖)
• Dai (2018): Measuring populism in context: A supervised approach with word embedding models [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The paper introduces a computer-assisted method combined with word embedding models to identify populism in political texts, offering a measure that's consistent across different languages and regions. Demonstrated on English-language party manifestos and Chinese news articles, the method accurately detects populist content, paving the way for comprehensive, global studies on populism. (generated by 🤖)
• Sturz/ Bernauer (2018): Supply and Demand of Populism: A Quantitative Text Analysis of Cantonal SVP Manifestos [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The article analyzes the varying degrees of populism among 24 cantonal branches of the SVP using quantitative text analysis of party manifestos and relates these findings to individual populist attitudes from the 2015 Selects survey. Results show diversity in populism levels among the SVP branches even after a party split, with limited evidence linking contextual populism to individual-level populist attitudes, though some patterns associated with the BDP party are observed. (generated by 🤖)
• Halterman et al. (2018): How Right Wing is Right Wing Populism? Evidence from the Manifesto Corpus [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study examines whether right-wing populist parties in Europe differ from other right-wing parties in their stance on welfare and gender equality using data from political party platforms (1990-2015) processed by a multilingual convolutional neural net. Results indicate no significant differences between the two groups on these issues, though more successful populists tend to have more centrist views. (generated by 🤖)
• Bonikowski/ Gidron (2016): The Populist Style in American Politics: Presidential Campaign Discours [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The study analyzes populist rhetoric in US presidential elections from 1952 to 1996, defining populism as a discourse that contrasts the virtuous public against a corrupt elite. Using automated text analysis on 2,406 speeches, the research finds populism to be a strategy used by both major parties, with its prevalence linked to a candidate's distance from the presidency, suggesting populism is mainly a tool for political challengers, especially those positioned as outsiders. (generated by 🤖)
• Sim et al. (2013): Measuring Ideological Proportions in Political Speeches [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The paper introduces a method to determine the ideological stances of U.S. Presidential candidates based on their speeches. Using a Bayesian Hidden Markov Model and ideological cues from politically annotated writings, the study successfully deduces the ideological proportions in speeches, offering insights into candidates' positions during the 2008 and 2012 elections. (generated by 🤖)
• Matthijs, R./ Taun, P. (2011): Measuring populism: Comparing two methods of content analysis [Paper]
  tl;dr

  The research compares two methods for measuring populism: classical content analysis and computer-based content analysis, using political parties from the UK, Netherlands, Germany, and Italy as case studies. The study confirms the viability of both methods for cross-country and temporal analysis and offers suggestions for integrating them in future populism research. (generated by 🤖)

Others

• Scheiring et al. (2024): The Populist Backlash Against Globalization: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence. [Paper]
• Weyland (2024): Democracy's Resilience to Populism's Threat: Countering Global Alarmism [Book]
• Dai/ Kustov (2023): The (In)effectiveness of Populist Rhetoric: A Conjoint Experiment of Campaign Messaging [Paper]
• Castanho Silva et al. (2022): Populism and Candidate Support in the US: The Effects of “Thin” and “Host” Ideology [Paper]
• Kaltwasser/ Taggart (2022): The Populist Radical Right and the Pandemic [Special collection]
• Huber et al. (2022): Explaining Populist Attitudes: The Impact of Policy Discontent and Representation [Paper]
• Moffitt (2022): How Do Populists Visually Represent 'The People'? A Systematic Comparative Visual Content Analysis of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders' Instagram Accounts [Paper]
• Otteni/ Weisskircher (2022): AfD gegen die Grünen? Rechtspopulismus und klimapolitische Polarisierung in Deutschland [Paper]
• Steiner/ Schimpf/ Wuttke (2022): Left Behind and United by Populism? Populism’s Multiple Roots in Feelings of Lacking Societal Recognition [Paper]
• Kustov (2022): Testing the backlash argument: voter responses to (pro-)immigration reforms [Paper]
• Böhmelt et al. (2022): Populism and intra-party democracy [Paper]
• Danieli et al. (2022): Decomposing the Rise of the Populist Radical Right [Paper]
• Heinze/ Weisskircher (2021): No Strong Leaders Needed? AfD Party Organisation Between Collective Leadership, Internal Democracy, and “Movement-Party” Strategy [Paper]
• Hunger/ Paxton (2021): What's in a buzzword? A systematic review of the state of populism research in political science [Paper]
• Flores-González (2021): The populist trinity of communication, ideology, and strategy: A proposal to enhance the analysis of populist discourses [Paper]
• Juen et al. (2021): Who wants COVID-19 vaccination to be compulsory? The impact of party cues, left-right ideology, and populism [Paper]
• Fölscher et al. (2021): Populist parties shifting the political discourse? A case study of the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa [Paper]
• Gennaro et al. (2021): Mobilization and the Strategy of Populism Theory and Evidence from the United States [Paper]
• Balta et al. (2021): Populist attitudes and conspiratorial thinking [Paper]
• Alexander Wuttke, Christian Schimpf & Harald Schoen (2020): When the Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts: On the Conceptualization and Measurement of Populist Attitudes and Other Multi-dimensional Constructs. In: American Political Science Review, 2020: 114, Heft 2, S. 356-374. [Paper]
• Marcos-Marne (2021): The Effects of Basic Human Values on Populist Voting. An Analysis of 13 European Democracies [Paper]
• Zaslove et al. (2021): Power to the people? Populism, democracy, and political participation: a citizen's perspective [Paper]
• Bayram/ Thomson (2021) Ignoring the Messenger? Limits of Populist Rhetoric on Public Support for Foreign Development Aid [Paper]
• Flores-González et al. (2021): The populist trinity of communication, ideology, and strategy: A proposal to enhance the analysis of populist discourses [Paper]
• Huber et al. (2021): Is populism a challenge to European energy and climate policy? Empirical evidence across varieties of populism [Paper]
• Eberl et al. (2021): From populism to the “plandemic”: why populists believe in COVID-19 conspiracies [Paper]
• Caravantes (2021): Tensions between populist and feminist politics: The case of the Spanish left populist party Podemos [Paper]
• Huber (2020): The role of populist attitudes in explaining climate change skepticism and support for environmental protection [Paper]
• Hameleers/ Fawzi (2020): Widening the Divide between Them and Us? The Effects of Populist Communication on Cognitive and Affective Stereotyping in a Comparative European Setting. [Paper]
• Devinney/ Hartwell (2020): Varieties of populism [Paper]
• Osuna (2020): From chasing populists to deconstructing populism: A new multidimensional approach to understanding and comparing populism [Paper]
• Meijers/Zaslove (2020): Measuring Populism in Political Parties: Appraisal of a New Approach [Paper]
• Leininger/ Meijers (2020): Do Populist Parties Increase Voter Turnout? Evidence From Over 40 Years of Electoral History in 31 European Democracies [Paper]
• Bos et al. (2020): The effects of populism as a social identity frame on persuasion and mobilisation: Evidence from a 15-country experiment [Paper]
• Neuner/ Wratil (2020): The Populist Marketplace: Unpacking the Role of “Thin” and “Thick” Ideology [Paper]
• Van Hauwaert/ Kaltwasser (2019): The populist citizen: Empirical evidence from Europe and Latin America [Paper]
• Mohrenberg et al. (2019): Love at first sight? Populist attitudes and support for direct democracy [Paper]
• Rooduijn (2018): State of the field: How to study populism and adjacent topics? A plea for both more and less focus [Paper]
• Mudde/ Kaltwasser (2018): Studying Populism in Comparative Perspective: Reflections on the Contemporary and Future Research Agenda [Paper]
• Manucci/ Weber (2017): Why The Big Picture Matters: Political and Media Populism in Western Europe since the 1970s [Paper]
• Huber/ Ruth (2017): Mind the Gap! Populism, Participation and Representation in Europe [Paper]
• Akkerman, Zaslove, Spruyt (2017): ‘We the People’ or ‘We the Peoples’? A Comparison of Support for the Populist Radical Right and Populist Radical Left in the Netherlands [Paper]
• Hawkins/ Kaltwasser (2017): What the (Ideational) Study of Populism Can Teach Us, and What It Can't [Paper]
• Huber/ Schimpf (2015): Friend or Foe? Testing the Influence of Populism on Democratic Quality in Latin America [Paper]
• Canovan (1999): Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy [Paper]

Blogs, Podcasts, News and other formats

• Markou (2024): Let's finally talk about anti-populism! [Blog]
• Mede (2023): Populism, Science and Public Discourse: An Interview with Niels Mede. http://elephantinthelab.org/populism-science-and-public-discourse-an-interview-with-niels-mede/
• Mudde (2023): The Netherlands underestimated the far right – and Geert Wilders’ victory is the result. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/23/netherlands-far-right-geert-wilders-victory-mark-rutte

📚 Datasets

• MoPe references of the people and the elite in parliamentary debates [Dataset]
• Reddit comments (populistic attitudes, Cabot et al. 2021) [Dataset]
• manifestos on sentence-level, Cocco/ Monechi 2021 [Dataset]
• speeches on paragraph-level, Dai/Kustov 2022 [Dataset]
• tweets [Dataset]

🗣 Talks, workshops and seminars on populism

• The Populism Seminar [Link]