Caught in the COVID Quandary – When Populists Can’t Help But Adopt Liberal Positions

Radical right-wing populist parties are understood as radically anti-elite and people-centered anti-pluralist parties. The latter means the rejection of particularist positions in favor of a homogeneous concept of the people representing a unified will. Dissenters are generally regarded by populists as different or not belonging to "the people." Compared to major issues such as immigration and public corruption that populists favor, COVID-19 splits populations and the government's actions to contain the pandemic encounter both strong public support and strong opposition. While radical populists often feed on the resentment of people dissatisfied with government policies, it seems unlikely that populists can claim that there are unified positions or a general will of "the people." Arguably, this poses a dilemma for people with a normally anti-elite and people-centered, anti-pluralist orientation, and raises the question, first, of which dimension of populism, anti-elitism or anti-pluralism, is the more important. Second, we ask how such people respond to stringent anti-COVID policy measures imposed by the state compared to non-populists. To explore these questions, we draw on an original survey conducted in Austria and use a conjoint survey experiment that examines the reactions of populists and non-populists to a set of hypothetical government measures.