Jiajia Zhou (University of Toronto), “Clarifying the Threat of Populism: Place and Party Organizational Strength”

U.S. ET: February 1 (Thursday), 8 – 9 PM

JST: February 2 (Friday), 10 – 11 AM

Zoom Registration: Link

Paper is available here.

Author: Jiajia Zhou (University of Toronto)

Abstract:
In this paper, I investigate the relationship between party organizational strength and populist electoral success. I attempt to bridge the gap between micro-level theories of politician strategy and voter demands and macro-level theories of crisis and globalization through an understanding of local party strength and support for populism. I test my hypotheses by examining within-country variation in Japan. I utilize measures for party organizational strength and party-voter linkages in a municipal-level panel dataset that spans more than 1,000 municipalities and six lower house elections from 2000 to 2014, two of which occurred during the leadership of an anti-elite populist maverick in Japan’s dominant party. This paper contributes to literature on place-related determinants of populist support and questions existing views of the populist threat as uniquely tied to a particular ideology or the challenges of globalization. More broadly, the paper aims to bring clarity to questions of a phenomenon that may involve both genuine pursuits of stronger representation and potential threats to democratic stability.

Presenter: Jiajia Zhou (University of Toronto)

Discussants: Paul Kenny (Australian Catholic University) and Charles McClean (Yale University)

Chair: Amy Catalinac (New York University)