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Populists are considered the greatest challenge to liberal democracy today. Who are they, why are they successful, and what happens next? These are the three main questions addressed in this dissertation. Conceptually, it starts with an ideational definition, according to which populism is to be found in the realm of ideas. It combines praise of common people as a virtuous, homogeneous group, a belief in absolute popular sovereignty in politics, and despise of evil, conspiratorial elites. Based on that, theories suggest that the basic reason for these actors' success lies on an erosion of perceived legitimacy of state institutions. Multiple causes have been presented, which can lead to such a loss of confidence: political and economic crises, endemic corruption, elite collusion, and large-scale social transformations, to name a few. On the other hand, consequences of populism, especially at the attitudinal level, have been scarcely studied. Some have suggested that it might increase even more one's distrust in political institutions, it might influence participation, and can have an impact on tolerance. Research on this area, however, is still in its infancy. This thesis uses several methods to address these issues. In the first empirical chapter, I use content analysis to classify electoral manifestos and candidates' speeches from 146 parliamentary parties in 28 countries, mostly between 2010 and 2015, on a scale of how populist they are. These include most countries in Western Europe, South and North America. The next chapter turns to causes. With fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), I analyze what is behind populists' success across those cases at the country-level. Findings indicate two combinations of conditions: high corruption in Latin American democracies, and elite collusion in European ones. I proceed by testing these causes at the micro-level, using data from the World Values Survey for a sample of those countries (23). At the individual level, the best predictor of support for more populist parties is lack of trust in political institutions. From that, the next part investigates consequences. With similar models, we observe that populism seems to also decrease political trust, and has some impact on participation. Moreover, right-wing populism appears to cause an increase in intolerance. Given the importance of political trust on both sides of the coin, some pages are dedicated to disentangle the relationship between it and populism. I start by investigating this relation among populists in power, with a comparative case study of Bolivia and Ecuador. I find that elected populist leaders adapt their discourse to target actors who can be credibly framed as elites, remaining anti-elitist. And so do supporters, who follow leaders in redefining the elite and remain anti-establishment while being in favor of the government. Last but not least, I use various methods and data sources to identify the direction of causality between populism and trust as attitudes. Results indicate that, rather than a causal connection, the two seem to be manifestations of a common, more fundamental, psychological attribute. This thesis approaches the populist phenomenon from different sides, and concludes with recommendations on how to identify such actors, the contexts in which they rise, and what to expect once they are there.
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