A considerable challenge for identifying the core components of a beliefs system consist in examining their position within the overall structure of the entire beliefs system. Modeling them as a network of interconnected attitudes and beliefs, this research aims to investigate the centrality of adherence to populist ideology and ideological attitudes in relation to negative feelings towards immigrants and voting behavior. The research will examine data from a sample of about 800 Italian adults through the implementation of a network analysis model. Study 1a will investigate the degree of centrality of the distinct dimensions of people sovereignty, anti-elitism, people homogeneity and Manichaeism in structuring populist attitudes. Study 1b will attempt to highlight the potential key role played by the ideological attitudes of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation within the broader beliefs system including voting behavior, populist attitude and anti-immigration stances.
The present research could substantially contribute to clarifying the main contents of populist ideology, which are the central beliefs that characterize it and the nucleic dimensions that make it salient for individuals. This would represent a significant advancement in the literature which, despite having already extensively investigated populist ideology and its characteristics, has not yet provided a unitary and coherent view. Populist ideology has been declined through the dimensions of the belief in popular sovereignty, the hostile view of political elite, the perception of the people as a virtuous and homogeneous entity, and the Manichean moral distinction between the pure people and the corrupt elite (Akkerman et al., 2014; Mudde, 2004; Schulz et al., 2018; Silva et al., 2017). However, its fundamental content, that is the one capable of synthesizing it and making it attractive to voters, has never been highlighted. Study 1a of the present project may succeed in the attempt of filling this gap by providing a clear view about the composition of populist ideology, populist attitude and the adherence of individuals to its constitutive tenets.
Moreover, Study 1b could allow to find evidence about the social psychological variables that make the ideological plasticity of populism one of its fundamental and attractive characteristics. Such ideological plasticity is able to affect individual attitudes and allow populism to encounter remarkable electoral success across the world (Ibsen, 2019; Inglehart & Norris 2016; Rodrik, 2018). Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer, 1996) and social dominance orientation (SDO; Pratto et al., 1994) could be found as the key classical ideological attitudes that shape the attractiveness of populist narratives, favoring the vote for populist parties and explaining their connections with the emergence of hostile and prejudicial attitudes towards minority groups. To date, the investigation of underlying mechanisms of the recent success of populist ideology is extensive, but it has neglected the individual psychological dimension. The dynamics connecting populism with concerns of economic and cultural nature related to anti-immigration have been prevalently deepened from a sociological perspective, leaving aside the psychological characteristics of individuals. The examination of individual differences pertaining to values and orientations based on power and hierarchies, on rejection of diversity and denial of pluralism may represent an innovative and original point of view to add to the already extensive literature about populism.