Attending to the wrong issue in the political spectrum: Right-wing populism for left-wing concerns in the EU

This study aims to explore the relationship between populism and the national concerns expressed by citizens in the European Union (EU). In particular, we seek to determine if a certain type of populism in the countries (right or left) responds to the leading national concerns (cleavages). In order to do so, we examine the national concerns and the type of populism in the EU’s Eastern and Western member-states, separately, and then compare them. Results show, first, that right-wing populism in the EU is much more common than left-wing populism, and, second, that the East and the West share to a large extent similar national concerns that are left-wing in nature. We conclude that the predominant type of populism in the EU does not overlap with the type of concerns on a national level. Implications for this tendency are provided.