The Contradictory Democratic Beliefs of Populist Citizens

Rise and Resilience of Populism in Eastern Europe

Professor Maurits Meijers discusses how European citizens who embrace populist beliefs view and participate in their countries' democracy. He argues that they support key democratic principles and institutions but tend to hold more majoritarian conceptions of democracy. He also finds that they are dissatisfied with political parties as institutions of political representation and are willing to sacrifice long-term democratic regime quality for better short-term policy representation. Speaker: Maurits J. Meijers is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science.