It’s Us Against Them Up There: Measuring Populism in Youth as a Multidimensional Concept

Abstract Populism has emerged as a defining challenge for contemporary democracies, yet empirical research has largely overlooked younger populations during their critical phase of political development. This study examines populist attitudes among adolescents and young adults, addressing how this multidimensional construct manifests in youth and its implications for future research on youth populism. Drawing on a German sample of 523 participants aged 14 to 21, we adapted a validated adult measurement tool to assess three dimensions of populism: people-centrism, anti-elitism, and Manichean outlook. We tested scalar measurement invariance across age groups and employed bifactor modeling to distinguish general and specific components of populism. Validity was examined through associations with conspiracy mentality, authoritarianism, political trust, satisfaction with democracy, and voting intentions for populist parties. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the three-dimensional structure with satisfactory psychometric properties and full scalar invariance. Bifactor modeling revealed that anti-elitism serves as the core binding element of the three populism facets. The general populism factor showed substantial associations with conspiracy mentality, moderate associations with authoritarianism, and strong negative associations with political trust and satisfaction with democracy. Logistic regression analyses demonstrated that each unit increase in general populist attitude doubled the odds of supporting populist parties (AfD, BSW), with additional significant effects of gender and school track. The results support both the applicability and validity of the adapted instrument among youth and demonstrate that bifactor modeling offers a valuable approach for capturing populism's complexity as a multidimensional attitude comprising general and specific components.