Protest eller ideologi? Vänsterpopulism och väljarbeteende i Europaparlamentsval

Abstract

Populist parties on both sides of the political spectrum continue to gain support in the European union. Their electoral support is often referred to as a symptom of the decline in political trust that is widespread across nation-states. Earlier research has mainly been focusing on the radical right despite the fact that left-wing populist parties are becoming more prominent in party-systems all over Europe. By focusing on electoral behaviour regarding the supporters of the populist left in the elections to the European parliament, where protest voting is a fairly common phenomenon, my purpose is to broaden our understanding for how political discontent and ideology affect voting behaviour regarding populism. The results from my logistic regression analysis indicate that protest voting is a far better explanatory factor than ideological voting regarding why citizens choose to support left-wing populist parties - regardless of socio-demographical factors. Nevertheless, ideology still proves to be a significant factor, which suggests that a vote for a left-wing populist party should not solely be regarded as a protest vote.