Populism as Trigger of Denialism

Can pre-existent populist attitudes induce and activate denialism? To answer this question this paper relies on an experimental study that was designed to test a hypothesized cause-effect relation between populist and denialist attitudes and includes a cross-national representative sample composed of 1000 citizens from Portugal and the United Kingdom. This empirical approach is based on the development and previous testing of a new scale to measure denialist attitudes, as well as the conceptualization of different forms of denialism. Denialism is substantiated in some forms of populist discourses and attitudes, e.g., populism denies not only the evidence, but often also the complexity of problems and solutions. Extant research has demonstrated that populism is often associated with a disbelief in science or a denial of evidence. The hostility of some right-wing populists towards climate change warnings is well documented (Kahn-Harris, 2018) and there is a significant association between the rise of populism in Europe and the level of mistrust around vaccines (Kennedy, 2019). More recently, the pandemic crisis further polarized positions towards vaccination and strengthened the belief-driven groups that reject vaccination on principle propelled by the spread of conspiracy theories and fake controversies (often linked to denialism). Preliminary analysis points to the role of populism in denialism, a relation that is moderated by political ideology. This study is part of research project Matrix (DOI: 10.54499/PTDC/CPO-CPO/4361/2021) which is funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).