A populist incitement? Populism, attack rhetoric, and support for political violence

Populists are known for their aggressive and uncompromising political style, and for rewarding a more combative behavior in their followers. Yet, virtually no evidence exists that aggressive populist rhetoric has an inciting effect among their followers towards greater support for political violence against political opponents. In this article, we present novel experimental evidence from four countries (Argentina, Czechia, Germany, Italy), assessing whether exposure to populist negative campaigning triggers greater support for political violence among their supporters. While we find only marginal evidence when looking at attacks in general, uncivil attacks from populists seem associated with a marginal uptick in support for violence among their followers – especially more severe forms of it (e.g., shooting political opponents). These results, while not excessively strong, shed a new light on the intersection between populism, aggressive rhetoric, and radical partisanship, and have possibly profound implications for a more comprehensive understanding of the roots of political violence in the public. All data and materials are openly available for replication.