Why do European citizens support populism? A comparative study of demand-side and supply-side explanations

European democracies have witnessed the progressive affirmation of populist parties in the last two decades. This thesis draws from the suggestions of the theoretical literature on populism to study why Europeancitizens support populist parties. In doing so, the aim of this thesis is twofold: on the one hand, it applies the ideational approach to populism to investigate support for populism from a comparative perspective; on the other hand, it seeks to understand how demandside and supply-side factors contribute to explaining the cross-country andtemporalheterogeneityintheirelectoralperformances. Thisthesis focuses on two demand-side factors (i.e., social marginalisation and sociotropic concerns about economy) and two factors of the supplyside (i.e., liberal institutional arrangements and party competition). Theresults show that, first, populist parties attract significant support fromcitizens perceiving socially marginalised, especially in wealthy and globalised contexts; whereas sociotropic concerns about economy do not lead to higher support for populism. Second, liberal institutional arrangements increase the anti-institutional appeal of populist parties; whereas party competition on a core element of the far-right populist ideology (nativism) does not affect support for far-right populism to a great extent. This thesis shows that an approach that integrates both demandandsupplyside perspectives is beneficial to understand the reasons underlying support for populism.