engleski

Public opinion surveys: a new measure

The first goal of this project is to suggest a psychometrically validated scale to measure populism as an attitude. We start with the core dimensions that compose the concept, develop batteries of questions to tap into them, and conduct exploratory analyses to identify those dimensions which can be found among the public. Confirming the ideational theory, we find three stable constructs that are clearly part of populism among our original 145: people- centrism, anti-elitism, and Manichaean outlook. We use two rounds of cross-national validation in order to reduce the original number of items for each into a short scale, and reach a final battery that can be used either with nine or six statements. Confirmatory factor analysis and Item Response Theory models show that the scale captures a broad range of the construct and has high cross-national validity.

Anti-elitism ; people-centrism ; Manichaean outlook ; attitude scale ; cross-national validation

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