Project description
How populists shape mainstream politics
Protecting democratic discourse requires an understanding of how mainstream politicians respond to populist pressure. Populist parties can shift debates, influence policies and alter the legislative agenda, challenging stable governance. Analysing these effects helps safeguard democracy and inform better policy strategies. Yet, evidence on how politicians adjust to populist opponents has been limited. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the POPULISMCONTAGION project will study French parliamentary elections from 1958 to 2024. Using candidate manifestos and natural language processing, it examines changes in policy focus, rhetoric and populist tone. Additionally, it will explore how populist candidates influence mainstream campaigns and whether these adjustments carry over into legislative behaviour, providing fresh insight into the interaction between populism and democracy.
Objective
The European Council included a free and democratic Europe on its strategic agenda for 2024-2029. However, the success of several populist parties is a serious threat to achieving this goal. Understanding how mainstream politicians respond to this pressure can reveal shifts in the broader democratic discourse. Focusing on French parliamentary elections between 1958 and 2024, for which there are individual candidate manifestos, this project will be the first to credibly show how political candidates strategically adjust their campaigns to populist opponents. The project will use natural language processing methods to study the adjustment in three dimensions: policy topics, their rhetorical complexity, and the level of populism. Leveraging regression discontinuity designs and exploiting two-stage elections and the quasi-random presence of a populist candidate in the second round, the project will show the causal effect of populist candidates on mainstream ones. The project will also provide for the first time evidence of whether this adjustment is constrained to the political campaign or impacts the legislative activity of elected politicians by analysing their policy topics, the complexity of their legislation, and the level of populism in their debates.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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35122 Padova
Italy
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