What Makes Political Leaders Strong? Populism, Social Identity and Charisma

• In Event: Anger and Fear in Populist Politics

Abstract

Growing support for strong leaders 'who do not have to worry about parliament or elections' is widely seen as a sign of democratic deconsolidation, authoritarianism and rising populism (Eatwell and Goodwin, 2018; Mounk, 2018; Norris and Inglehart, 2019). However, the popularity of strong leaders is not associated with support for democratic regimes (Drutman et al., 2018; Malka-Costello, 2023). Recent empirical findings show that the demand for illiberal practices and authoritarian leadership increases especially when the supported party or leader is in power (Braley et al., 2023; Bryan, 2023; Fossati et al., 2022; Kingzette et al., 2021; Krishnarajan, 2023; Simonovits et al., 2022). Our paper takes a unique look at these social-psychological dynamics. Analysing data from a quantitative survey (N=1200) focusing on the leading candidates in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections, Viktor Orbán and Péter Márki-Zay, the paper examines the relationship between key political characteristics of supporters, such as populist attitudes and political identity (partisanship), and the social construction of charisma. To uncover the effects of these micro-level factors, we distinguish three levels of charisma attribution by looking at general hunger for charisma, concrete perceptions of real-life leaders' behaviour, and emotional attachment to these leaders. Our results show that personal characteristics affect charisma attributions in different ways. While populist attitudes support people's hunger for charisma, partisan identity overrides populism's effect on the behavioural and emotional aspects of charisma.

Authors

• Rudolf Metz, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences

• Bendegúz Plesz, Institute for Political Science, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Centre of Excellence of the Hun