Common Sense as a Political Weapon: Populism, Science Skepticism, and Global Crisis-Solving Motivations
Published in Political Psychology
Authors: Christian Staerklé, Matteo Cavallaro, Anna Cortijos-Bernabeu, Stéphane Bonny
This research examines the relationship between populist thinking and global crisis-solving motivations concerning climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from five European countries (Switzerland, France, Finland, Greece, and Italy), we test a model where crisis-related science skepticism—understood as the defense of commonsense knowledge against scientific expertise—mediates the association between populist thinking and crisis-mitigation attitudes. The results show considerable convergence across national contexts. Relative deprivation predicts endorsement of two core components of populism’s thin ideology, people sovereignty and antielitism. These subdimensions of populism are linked to science skepticism, although variably across contexts. Science skepticism then leads to a lower sense of personal responsibility for climate change mitigation and to negative attitudes towards a governmental measure to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings further show that under specific conditions, the populist request for greater democratic participation may mobilize individuals to get involved in crisis mitigation. Overall, our results highlight the role of politicized common sense in motivating and justifying opposition to measures and policies based on scientific expertise. We conclude that science skepticism, rather than populism per se, explains cynical and dismissive attitudes towards global crises.
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