Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic populists were gaining a lot ground in mainstream politics. However, a recent study suggests that the pandemic seems to have slowed down support for populist politics. Bennet Institute for Public Policy. Here is an excerpt:

Support for populist parties and politicians, and agreement with populist sentiment, has diminished during the pandemic, according to a “mega-dataset” taking in attitudes of over half a million people across 109 countries since 2020.

A University of Cambridge team say there are clear signs of a turning tide for the “populist wave”, as the mishandling of coronavirus by populist leaders – along with a desire for stability and a decline in “polarising” attitudes resulting from the pandemic – starts to move public opinion.

The authors of the new report, from Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy (CFD), describe the study as the first global overview of how the Covid-19 crisis has affected political beliefs.

Read the full article here.