Ioannis Andreadis

Elites' and Voters' Attitudes towards Austerity Policies and their Consequences in Greece and Portugal

This article analyses the attitudes of the political elite and voters in Greece and Portugal vis-à-vis the Troika bailouts, austerity policies and the attribution of responsibilities for the crisis. Using both elite and mass surveys with similar questions, the article explores to what extent the elites and voters share similar attitudes, what might explain possible differences between these two groups and between the two countries and what this information can tell us about the quality of political representation in Greece and Portugal. The differences between the countries are explained mainly by the severity of the crisis and austerity policies in each country, but also by the diversity of political conditions.

A new populism index at work: identifying populist candidates and parties in the contemporary Greek context

ABSTRACT Interrogating available indexes from a discourse-theoretical point of view, this paper utilizes a reformulated populism index in order to identify populist parties. In particular, the index is applied in a candidate survey carried out in Greece in 2015. Findings indicate that this index allows for a clear differentiation between populist and non-populist parties. Based on candidate attitudes, SYRIZA and ANEL belong to the first group whereas New Democracy, PASOK and River to the second. The examination of additional survey items reveals a clear ideological division within the populist camp: right-wing populism is exclusionary, while left-wing populism more inclusive and pluralist.

A Method for the Estimation of Voter Transition Rates

Abstract Recent advances in the field of ecological inference have provided researchers with new tools to estimate voter transition rates in two‐party systems, based on contingency tables. Although some researchers have moved from the 2×2 case to the broader R×C ecological inference problem, voter transition estimation remains a difficult and tedious goal. As a result, scholars of multiparty systems still struggle with their data. In this paper we follow a new approach and we propose a new method that deals with this issue. Using two data sets, one from the French presidential elections in 2007 (first and second round) and one from the Greek parliamentary elections (2004 and 2007), we demonstrate that the proposed method provides good estimates of voter transition rates.

Start Spreading the News: A Comparative Experiment on the Effects of Populist Communication on Political Engagement in Sixteen European Countries:

Although populist communication has become pervasive throughout Europe, many important questions on its political consequences remain unanswered. First, previous research has neglected the differential effects of populist communication on the Left and Right. Second, internationally comparative studies are missing. Finally, previous research mostly studied attitudinal outcomes, neglecting behavioral effects. To address these key issues, this paper draws on a unique, extensive, and comparative experiment in sixteen European countries (N = 15,412) to test the effects of populist communication on political engagement. The findings show that anti-elitist populism has the strongest mobilizing effects, and anti-immigrant messages have the strongest demobilizing effects. Moreover, national conditions such as the level of unemployment and the electoral success of the populist Left and Right condition the impact of populist communication. These findings provide important insights into the persuasiveness of populist messages spread throughout the European continent.

Populism from Below: Socio-economic and Ideological Correlates of Mass Attitudes in Greece

ABSTRACT The paper offers a first-time investigation of populism at the mass level in Greece. Its objectives are to examine the socio-economic factors which facilitate the adoption of populist world views and to identify the ideological correlates of populism. Findings reveal that the strongest socio-economic predictors are (low levels of) household income and education. Populist attitudes are more pronounced among left-wing citizens and strongly associated with euroscepticism and opposition to economic liberalism. However, the relationship of populism with anti-immigrant and anti-democratic attitudes appears to be mediated by left–right ideology, thus providing evidence that mass-level populism in Greece comes in both left-inclusionary and right-exclusionary varieties.

Hellenic Panel Study: European Election Study 2014

The Hellenic Panel Component of the Voter Study of the European Election Study 2014 (EES2014) is part of European project covering Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands Sweden, and Denmark. The research question behind this initiative is the possibility of lasting re-alignments (or de-alignments as the case may be) that may be initiated by the 2014 European Parliament election. The causes of such potential realignments are, of course, not the election itself but the sovereign debt crises and its consequences in a number of European Union member countries, plus the migration issue as a consequence of single market regulations. In order to identify such realignments, we are interested in comparing the voting behaviour of respondents in the European Parliament election of May 2014 with the subsequent 1st order national election vote (“vote” here refers to both participation and party choice).