State of the field: How to study populism and adjacent topics? A plea for both more and less focus

Abstract

As a result of the steady rise of populist parties and politicians all over the world – and particularly since the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump – populism research has become increasingly popular and widespread. The field, however, also faces some tricky challenges. First, it is easy to confuse populism with related concepts like, for instance, ‘nativism’ and ‘Euroscepticism’. This brings the risk of sloppy conceptualisation, and, as a result, invalid inferences. Second, populism research remains relatively detached from adjacent fields, and fruitful fertilisation across literatures is still rather uncommon. In order to deal with these challenges, populism research should become both more and less focused. How can these two seemingly conflicting recommendations be reconciled? When it comes to conceptualisation/categorisation strategies and drawing conclusions from studies by other researchers, populism scholars should employ a narrow framework and be precise, distinctive and consistent. Yet when it comes to exploring the literature in search of new hypotheses, scholars should employ a more open mind‐set. After all, theories developed in adjacent fields can inspire populism scholars to formulate innovative new questions and expectations.