Populism – the ideology which divides most of an electorate against some ‘other’ elite – is primarily caused by economic marginalisation (the denial of an equal opportunity to participate in a domestic economy).  To justify this, I will explain how pertinentmacroeconomic trends throughout the turn of the millennium have exacerbated this issue.  Additionally, I will examine a panoply of additional theses for the rise of populism, and demonstrate why, although valid, they are not as pivotal as economic marginalisation in this regard.

The best evidence for economic marginalisation’s role in instigating support for populism can be seen through three cardinal developments.  Europe’s populist parties have been referred to as the ‘children of the financial crisis’; their support increased by seven percentage points between the last pre-2008 election and the first post-2008 one, and an additional four in the subsequent vote as the economy slowly recovered (Funke and al., 2017).  Such disasters enable them to denounce a selfish financial elite for making the ‘little man’ pay for their mistakes, pointing to the dearth of regulation in the banking sector preceding the 2008 crisis.  These suppositions are complemented by their potent cults of personality, which are deployed to present their election as the only solution to the country’s ailments, typically by using more unnuanced language than their mainstream competitors to highlight society’s issues and their responses.  

Moreover, economically marginalisation has strengthened since the 1980s, a generation after the introduction of meritocracy, when the concept began to stifle, rather than support, social mobility. Inequality along meritocratic lines in education led to inequality in the workforce,producing high incomes that enabled them to buy even more unequal education for their children, creating a vicious cycle (Markovits, 2020).  This feeling of abandonment is reinforced by the political landscape, which is tilted towards the financial elite in multifarious ways.  As the race to possess the largest electoral campaign budget intensifies, candidates have to divert more of their own earnings for this purpose.  Thus, elections increasinglyfavour the wealthy, which tarnishes the idea of a ‘free and fair democracy’, and social democratic parties (which focus heavily on eradicating economic marginalisation and are primarily led by lower-income groups) have declined.  In addition, there has been a dramatic uptick in corporate lobbying, with the amount spent on it doubling in America over the last two decades, resulting in politicians focusing more on issues which have an infinitesimal effect on the average citizen (Drutman, 2015).  Unsurprisingly, this anger towards such a repressive system amplifies demand for a political force which would upend it, which populism promises to do.  

Globalisation has also instigated a populist backlash, epitomised by Brexit, as workers from developing countries take over roles in primary and secondary industries.  Demagogues highlight the injustice of these redundancies, attributing them to lax labour, environmental, and tax standards in other countries, and vow to implement protectionist measures in response.  The extent of market flexibility, which reduces economic marginalisation, strongly contributes to populist support as well.  From 2001-2011, 20.7% of Canadian manufacturing jobs were lost due to high demand for Chinese imports, but 60% of the laid-off found jobs elsewhere.  Although this impact was less than half in America, a small job pool led to resentment against this nation’s financial elite, whereas there is no dominant Canadian populist (Acemoglu and al., 2016).

There is a significant caveat here: one should not conflate economic marginalisation withinequality, as the former describes an unfair financial outcome i.e., when one is disadvantaged by factors irrelevant to hard work, such as generational wealth, race, etc.  Indeed, inequality is not positively correlated with right-wing populism, as proven byvarious EU-wide studies, and most affluent individuals voted Republican in the previous twoUS elections.  This may be because right-wing populists associate material success with hard work, emphasising the ‘American Dream’ or ‘British Promise’, and hence believe that unequal outcomes can occur fairly (Starmans et al., 2017).  This is further demonstrated by the fact that non-financial disasters from 1870-2014, which aggravate inequality, had no effect on right-wing populist support.

Conversely, there is a positive relationship between left-wing populism and inequality, in addition to economic marginalisation. Two observations prove this; firstly, this ideologyreceives the most support in the most unequal democracies, situated in southern Europe and Latin America (Van Dyck, 2021).  Moreover, most left-wing populists make aggressive redistribution their utmost priority, setting them apart from conventional left-wing parties, which do not view this policy as paramount in order to win over the centre. This starklycontrasts with right-wing populist theory, which dislikes such measures as it is believed to force equal outcomes on society, irrespective of citizens’ effort (Alesina et al., 2018). Such deviation may be because left-wing populists perceive inequity to be the unfortunate consequence of luck, citing factors such as genetics, and that government intervention is required to rectify this.  However, since inequality only increases support for a subset of populists, economic marginalisation is the sole overarching determinant for populism.

An equally prominent theory for the rise in populism is a reactionary hatred for an increasingly multiculturalist society.  This stems from psychology, as individuals have evolved to possess the ‘us versus them’ mentality ever since small groups of humans needed to compete for precious resources, such as food and water (Bergland, 2018).  Bolstered by mankind’s status quo bias, they thus relish in experiencing a sense of community when united against a ‘common enemy’.  There are three further reasons for the increase in ‘cultural populism’.  As borders open further, a growing body of socially conservative voters protest topreserve their country’s homogeneity; something as simple as acknowledging that the USwill become non-majority white by 2050 made many white Americans feel a sense of disempowerment (Craig & Richeson, 2014).  Such cultural insecurity is buttressed by the accompanying shift in a state’s power dynamics, as highlighted by the tenure of America’s first minority president, and the subsequent reactionary election of Trump.

The unfortunate coincidence between the migrant crisis and the apogee of Islamist terrorismduring the mid-2010s strongly bolstered populist support as well (Reynie, 2021).  The former siphoned significant government attention from other domestic causes, making natives feel politically isolated and thus fueling anti-establishment sentiment.  This is evidenced by their delight for Geert Wilders’ complaint that the mainstream was wholly composed of ‘fake politicians’ (Muller, 2016).  Additionally, the latter engrained subconscious bias against minorities in many locals’ psyches, which was reinforced by the media’s constant sensationalisation of these events, increasing the popularity of those who stood for xenophobic ideals.  Indeed, the right-wing populist parties PVV (from Netherlands) and PiS (from Poland) surged in the polls by ten percentage points in 2015 alone, and several European populists enjoyed a similar outcome (The Economist, 2015).

Populism is also unilaterally positioned to gain support from social conservatives. Since the 2010s, traditional right-wing parties, such as the Conservatives in Britain and the CDU in Germany, have quietly acquiesced to policies with neoliberalist and socially progressive elements, notably same-sex marriage and abortion. This alienates their former socially conservative supporters, an effect compounded by the fact that these parties cannot provide appropriate compensation for pursuing this liberal agenda, except if they reverse such policies.

However, social conservatism is less important than economic marginalisation in instigating populism.  Evidence for the former is dubious as there are manifold exceptions to the aforementioned thesis; Spain and Ireland have welcomed vast numbers of immigrantswithout much populist backlash, while the opposite has happened in many Eastern European polities (Berman, 2021).  Moreover, this factor only bolsters right-wing populist sentiment, as their left-wing rivals tend to cater to socially marginalised groups, arguing that equality should encompass the world’s denizens irrespective of extraneous characteristics.  From a global perspective, few countries even experience socio-cultural right-wing populism, as mass immigration only occurs in some of the world’s developed countries because they alonepresent economic opportunities.  In most cases, such social conservatism also hinges on economic outcomes, since despite our natural favouritism for our community, our attention for our material position typically trumps our affiliation with arbitrary beliefs.  This is why populist politicians usually accompany their racist finger-pointing with observations of job loss and lower wages, and why exclusionary attitudes increase during economic shocks (Boak, 2019).

The final element behind the rise of populism relates to citizens’ fears that politicians are not responding to a range of political issues effectively, otherwise known as ‘supply-side’ explanations.  Populists on all sides of the political spectrum lament the decline in responsiveness of government, citing problems such as corruption and a lack of law-and-order systems, and deploy this to stress their recurring anti-establishment themes.  This explained populist success in the Third World during the 1950s and 60s, when higher literacy rates and an expansion in mass media raised political expectations, but bureaucracies were too weak to meet them (Huntingdon, 1968).  In addition, some populists argue that previous administrations had handed over their country’s sovereignty to unelected authorities and underscore the injustice of suffering the consequences of their mistakes without an option to vote them out.  This grievance targets technocrats, but more commonly an economic bloc, asdemonstrated by Margaret Thatcher’s condemnation of a ‘European superstate’, and Marine Le Pen’s complaint that European Union (EU) interest rates, which affect the finances of French citizens, are controlled solely by Germany (Oudraad, 2021).  

However, the scale of this explanation for the rise of populism is relatively minute when compared to economic marginalisation. Mainstream politicians, from Joe Biden to Emmanuel Macron, also seek to improve the effectiveness of their political systems, thus such anti-establishment rhetoric cannot be a unique selling point for populists.  As for their resentment towards unelected powers, this is only an issue for a fraction of countries which are part of a binding union, since more universal institutions (most notably the UN) have less jurisdictionover a polity’s affairs.  In addition, this grievance is not as salient as economic marginalisation, as voters understand that populists wield little power to determine their standing within these international organisations.  The botched Brexit deal showed the difficulty of separating from them, whilst Poland’s and Hungary’s failure to resist the EU’s demands have led even the most hardline populists, including Giorgia Meloni, to avoid railing against them.  Moreover, such complaints may not strongly resonate with the electorate as these economic blocs also provide manifold benefits for their members, including financial stimulus and free trade agreements.

Economic marginalisation is not only deplorable in itself, but it is paramount to the ascendancy of populism.  Other factors, notably inequality, sociocultural attitudes, and the sluggishness of political institutions, can be instrumental but they only instigate populism in some instances.  Therefore, it is crucial that mainstream governments prioritise the citizens who they have failed to financially support for too long, if they wish to assure their survival, and that of the neoliberal era.

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