1 Introduction

The rise of populist politicians and their electoral success in recent years have raised the salience of populism worldwide. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, popular candidates such as Donald Trump (a right-wing populist) and Bernie Sanders (a left-wing populist) built their campaign platforms around anti-elitist, anti-establishment narratives. Even Hillary Clinton, a centrist establishment candidate, occasionally resorted to populist rhetoric such as “take on Wall Street”. In Europe, right-wing populist movements that arose in response to the 2008 financial crisis and the Syrian refugee crisis are threatening the very survival of the European Union project. The U.K.’s decision to leave the E.U. in the summer of 2016 and Donald Trump’s electoral victory shocked many, but also emboldened populist movements across Europe, spearheaded by Nigel Farage in the U.K., Marine Le Pen in France, Norbert Hofer in Austria, and Geert Wilders (dubbed the “Dutch Donald”) in The Netherlands. There is no question that populism, particularly right-wing populism, is—at least temporarily—“on the rise” (Broning 2016). The “populist Zeitgeist” that Cas Mudde (2004) declared we live in is nowhere near over.Footnote 1

Any student of populism would agree that the concept is nebulous and susceptible to conceptual stretching and straining (Sartori 1970).Footnote 2 Populism has been called “elusive”, “protean” (Ionescu and Gellner 1969, 1, cited in Gidron and Bonikowski 2013), “mercurial” (Stanley 2008, 108), and, conceptually and politically, an “empty signifier” (Laclau 2005). There have been plenty of attempts to characterize populism, yet many definitions do not allow for falsifiability (Popper 2005). For example, Mudde defines it as “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people” (2004, 544). Such a definition begs the question of what office-seeking politician would not benefit from rhetoric that vilifies those in power, and has not done so? Most politicians, particularly those who have not obtained power, assign blame to the incumbents and take advantage of negativity bias (Mayhew 1974). Democracy, after all, is politics as an expression of the general will of the people, and hence, any kind of democratic system is somewhat populist in nature (Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017). Thus, Mudde adroitly calls populism a “thin-centered ideology” that can be combined with other ideologies, such as communism, nationalism, and socialism (2004, 544). This helps explain why “populists” come in all sizes and shapes: from communists like Mao Zedong and Hugo Chavez, to anti-communists like Joseph McCarthy, to religious conservatives like Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Jarosław Kaczyński.

The vagueness of the concept, however, should not dissuade scholars from its study. Despite scholarly debates over whether the concept is neutral or antonymous (Laclau 2005; Žižek 2006), its negative connotations are accentuated in the media and politics. It is often associated with illiberalism, authoritarianism, and conspiracy theories surrounding elite corruption (Muller 2016).

This paper disaggregates the concept of populism and focuses on a particular branch that is believed to be an impediment to democracy: exclusionary right-wing populism—an ideology that is usually associated with welfare chauvinism, social illiberalism, and opposition to immigration and globalization. The inclusionary–exclusionary dimension of populism has profound policy implications: inclusionary populism, often seen in Latin America, advocates the political and economic inclusion of minority groups, whereas exclusionary populism, often seen in Europe, does the opposite. This notable distinction was observed during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were both called “populists”; however, their views on how ethnic and religious minorities should be treated diverged drastically.

What facilitates exclusionary right-wing populism? We explore this question in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, in particular, the “Visegrad Four”: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. In all four countries, the hearty celebrations of the 2004 E.U. entrance degenerated into sour populist resentment only a few years later with profound political consequences: the ascendancy of right-wing, populist politicians, and political parties that have weakened, if not reversed, the region’s democratic consolidation. Yet, the intensity of right-wing populism and its electoral success has varied considerably across the Visegrad Four. In Poland and Hungary, right-wing populists have consistently won votes and come to power, whereas in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, despite periodic surges in right-wing support, the right-wing vote share has been lower.

We argue that right-wing populist movements draw on moral beliefs in the cultural purity of nationhood and its centrality to the preservation of national identity—what we call restorative nationalism. Restorative nationalism is shaped by historical circumstances, and embodied in political memories that are passed down from one generation to another (e.g., through the education system). It can be activated and animated by rhetorical and cultural symbols, and has a lasting impact on public opinion and political behavior. Restorative nationalism often reflects on a historical period of perceived greatness and glory, often juxtaposed with an ensuing period of trauma and humiliation, and calls for the restoration of a glorious past.

The following section presents the puzzle and the research question. The third section discusses the concept of restorative nationalism. The fourth section uses qualitative evidence from Central and Eastern Europe to demonstrate how politicians exploit restorative nationalism in political campaigns. The fifth section uses European Social Survey (ESS) data to demonstrate that voting for right-wing populist parties is strongly associated with restorative nationalism, but not with anti-elite, anti-establishment beliefs. The conclusion explores the theoretical implications of our findings and future research directions.

2 The Puzzle

Before presenting our hypotheses and findings, it is important to first discuss the empirical puzzle to demonstrate that the variation in our dependent variable is real and worth investigating. First and foremost, we want to challenge the myth that populism, if defined as anti-elite, anti-establishment sentiment, is “on the rise”. Figure 1 tracks anti-elite/anti-establishment sentiment in Europe using a question that has been asked in all ESS waves since 2002: “On a scale of 0–10, how much do you trust politicians?” We separate the answers by region. Interestingly, between 2002 and 2014, Europeans’ trust in politicians has moved little overall with the exception of Southern Europe.Footnote 3

Fig. 1
figure 1

Trust in politicians in Europe, by region

ESS data also demonstrate some regional variation in popular trust of politicians. Nordic countries are the most trusting (4.9 out of 10 in 2014), whereas those in Southern Europe display the lowest level of trust (2.1 out of 10 in 2014). The Visegrad Four also exhibit some of the lowest levels of trust in politicians (2.7 out of 10 in 2014) and in political institutions such as parties, parliament, and the legal system. Among the 21 countries surveyed in 2014, Poles reported the second-lowest level of trust in parliament (2.8 out of 10; the European average is 4.5 out of 10); the second-lowest level of trust in politicians (2 out of 10, European average = 3.6); the lowest level of trust in political parties (2 out of 10, European average = 3.6); and the second-lowest level of trust in the legal system (3.6 out of 10, European average = 5.3).Footnote 4

Figure 2 shows that the Visegrad Four has fairly similar levels of trust/distrust toward political elites. Overall, the region, like the rest of Europe, exhibits little change in trust in politicians in the past decade.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Trust in politicians in Visegrad four countries

However, the votes received by right-wing populist parties in the four countries demonstrate a persistent divide between Poland and Hungary, on one hand, and Czech Republic and Slovakia, on the other hand. Figure 3 tracks the percentage of parliamentary votes received by right-wing populist parties in the Visegrad Four. Populist right-wing vote share has spiked since the late 1990s in Hungary and Poland, yet has remained lower in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, despite a recent rise.Footnote 5

Fig. 3
figure 3

Legislative election performance of right-wing populist parties in Visegrad four countries

What survey and behavioral data tell us is that assertions about a “populist rise” suffer from a certain degree of “presentist bias” (Gidron and Bonikowski 2013, 25). It should be emphasized, however, populism here is measured with anti-elite/anti-establishment sentiments. Recent electoral history in Europe, on the other hand, demonstrates increasing access to power of radical right-wing populist politicians and parties. Hence, the puzzle we seek to address is what has helped European right-wing populists come to power in a despite the lack of significant change in anti-establishment sentiment? In other words, what explains voting for these right-wing populist parties?

3 The Moral and Nationalist Roots of Populism

We hypothesize that voting for right-wing populist parties may be explained by the activation of moral beliefs about the cultural purity of nationhood that recalls a perceived halcyon era, and the idea that returning to this era can somehow be achieved by preserving the nation’s cultural (and often ethnic) purity—we call this restorative nationalism. While every country expresses a certain degree of nationalism, restorative nationalism is reactive. If nationalism is the undercurrent, restorative nationalism represents the waves: it is triggered by cultural change that usually follows modernization, immigration, and the weakening of national boundaries. Cultural change that takes place due to exogenous circumstances threatens a nation-state’s traditional national identity. Those who experience greater psychological difficulty in adapting may become nostalgic for a past envisioned to be purer, simpler and, for all intents and purposes, better (Ding and Javed 2017). Right-wing populist movements often draw on (and/or manufacture) popular longing to restore a purer, greater past.

Morality is central to populism: populist claims are inevitably Manichean claims that juxtapose a righteous people against an immoral elite (Laclau 2005; Mudde 2004, 2017). As Robert Jansen eloquently explains: “such a Manichean discourse…emphasizing the immorality of the elite, is instrumental to the rhetorical project of elevating the moral worth of—and collapsing competing distinctions within the category of—‘the people’” (2011, 84). Moral claims have enormous mobilizational power (Jasper 1997). Research demonstrates that perceived moral transgressions heighten an audience’s emotional state and make it more susceptible to unconventional (e.g., violent) beliefs and behavior (Haidt 2012; Javed 2017).

The (perceived) power imbalance between elites and the people lends further moral potency to populist claims. Ultimately, populists seek to take power away from elites and return it to the people. Hence, Mudde (2000, 27) argues that populist politicians are “reluctantly political”: they benefit from rhetorical moral attacks on power holders, but also seek to attain positions of power to right the wrongs and exercise the will of the people. For this reason, populist leaders are often charismatic and capable of spinning convincing tales about right and wrong, and in particular, the immorality of the elites (Taggart 2000).

Nationalism is an attractive ideology to political populists. Mudde (2000, 38) asserts that populists’ “reference to the undivided people sits well with nationalists’ belief in the nation; the two are often mixed in the dichotomy of the national people versus the anti-national elite”. Based on the populist discourse, elite immorality lies in their betrayal of the “common man”, who represents the nation’s identity. Who this “common man” is may vary from place to place and over time, but his or her image is always native, loyal, upright, and hardworking, and does not take more than he contributes.Footnote 6 He (or she) usually belongs to the nation’s ethnic majority.Footnote 7 The populist discourse contends that elites, to reap personal economic or political benefits, take advantage of the innocence and integrity of the common man, and sell the country out to multinationals, foreigners, and minorities—to the detriment of his or her welfare. The common man thus becomes a political sacrifice. In response, he (or she) longs for a past when the nation was purer and greater.

Right-wing populism is especially enthralling during times of hardship, uncertainty, and rapid social transitions. In recent years, E.U. integration has become a convenient moral target of right-wing populists, whose main critique is that liberal elites have sold their national interests to minorities, immigrants, and multinationals. In the aftermath of the Syrian civil war, populist right portrays refugees in Europe as moral intruders. For example, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has called refugees rapists, potential terrorists, job-stealers, and “poison” for the nation (Kroet 2016). In the face of cultural change, moral, nationalist messages that draw on symbols of historical glory (and trauma) appeal strongly to those who feel their traditional identity is being jeopardized.

4 How the Populist Right Exploits Restorative Nationalism

The rise of European nation states as self-contained political entities in the seventeenth century redefined what it means to be a people. According to Ernest Gellner (2008), various political and cultural homogenizing forces arose during this period to destroy and reconfigure local cultures into national ones. To nationalists, the nation is a “heartland” (Taggart 1995)—a notion that is associated with symbols of purity and stability, and a place that engenders feelings of security and belonging. When the “heartland” is perceived to be under threat, nationalists are drawn to its defense.

In post-communist societies, nationalism looms particularly large. Unlike in China, where the communist movement was mostly homegrown, communism in Eastern Europe was imposed by an intruding foreign power (Bunce 2005; Pei 2009). As Keith Darden and Anna Grzymała-Busse (2006, 89) argue, in the 1980s, “opposition movements claimed to be rescuing the nation from the grasp of an alien, imposed, and illegitimate communist regime”. They show that pre-communist schooling and literacy led to the formation and transmission of a national identity that helped bring down communist regimes.

While nationalism might have helped Eastern Europe expels a foreign, repressive regime, it has also brought right-wing populist politicians to power in the post-communist period. In the early years of Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS), it successfully merged its nationalist and anti-communist rhetoric by accusing incumbents of corruption linked to Soviet/Russian influence. By exploiting “patriotic feelings of the Poles, their sense of traditional moral values, and their faith in Catholicism” (Fox and Vermeersch 2010, 334), the PiS gained sweeping control of the presidency, premiership, and the Sejm (parliament) in the 2015 election.

During the campaign, Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski accused the Civic Platform—the centrist, pro-European party that ruled Poland from 2007 to 2015—of selling out the country’s national interests to the E.U. (Traub 2016). A few months after the PiS victory, the cover of Wprost, a widely circulated Polish magazine, featured a photoshopped image of five leading E.U. politicians, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel situated in the middle, in Nazi uniforms, leaning over a map, with the headline “these people want to control Poland again (Znów chcą nadzorować Polskę)”. In this example, Poland’s historical grievance against Germany was invoked to garner populist support. In its first year in office, the PiS took on the country’s highest court, the civil service, and public media, prompting the E.U. to launch an unprecedented inquiry into the state of the country’s democracy.

Similarly, Hungarian politics has been dominated by right-wing populists, notably Fidesz and its leader Viktor Orbán, who has served as Prime Minister since 2010. Since taking office, the Orbán administration has implemented numerous bills that hinder the rule of law in Hungary (Rupnik 2012). Furthermore, JobbikFootnote 8 (Movement for a Better Hungary), a radical-right populist political party, has drastically expanded its vote share in the Hungarian Assembly to become the third-largest party in 2014. Jobbik describes itself as a patriotic Christian party with a mission to preserve Hungarian values, but is often characterized as neo-Nazi. It has played on fears of cultural change among some Hungarians (it is often criticized for racism and homophobia), and has called for a return to the pre-Treaty of TrianonFootnote 9 boarders.

Virág Molnár (2016) argues that far-right populist movements in Hungary became a powerful political force, and a “profitable business” due to a vibrant post-communist civil society that facilitated the production, spread, consumption, and performance of cultural symbols of a “Greater Hungary”:

Conservative civic groups have been instrumental in reinvigorating the symbolic vocabulary of a mythic nationalism that was widespread at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century as well as in the 1930s… These diverse groups draw on the symbolic imagery of Hungarians’ historic independence struggles against Ottoman occupation in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and later against Habsburg rule; the loss of Transylvania (and parts of Northern and Southern Hungary) after World War I; as well as Hungarian popular legends about Hungarian settlers from the time of the Hungarian Conquest at the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries. They blend this medley of historical motifs into a contemporary anti-capitalist rhetoric in which Hungarian independence is lost, for instance, to foreign multinational corporations and the EU (174).

E.U. membership created a political opportunity for a nationalist reinvigoration in both Poland and Hungary; national identity became a convenient locus for inter-party contestation: parties compete to define (and redefine) what it means to be a nation, and left–right distinctions overlap with national/non-national distinctions (Fox and Vermmersch 2010, 201). The most notable example is the transformation of Fidesz (Hungarian Civic Alliance) from a liberal youth organization (Federation of Young Democrats) in the early 1990s with a motto of “Don’t trust anybody over 35” into a conservative right-wing populist party within a decade. After turning right, Fidesz exploited restorative nationalist sentiments. On the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution in 2006, Fidesz called for “[resuming] the revolution” and fomented a week of riots targeting those in power, who they claimed to be “rebranded communists”. In 2010, on the nineteenth anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon, Fidesz again invoked the historical trauma of the post-WWI settlement to foment nationalist rhetoric (Rupnik 2012, 135). Reviving historical memories of tradition and glory greatly facilitated Fidesz’s political goals. In the early 1990s, as the liberal Federation of Young Democrats, the party had minimal parliamentary representation, but within a decade after switching to the right and adopting a rhetoric of restorative nationalism, it achieved a parliamentary supermajority in 2010, which it has maintained.

Although Central Eastern Europe has experienced an overall rise in right-wing populist support, there is a considerable degree of variation. As shown in Section II, right-wing populist parties have received fewer votes in the Czech Republic and Slovakia than in Poland and Hungary. Why? We argue that historical legacies shape the range of rhetorical and symbolic resources available to political leaders, who draw on these ideas to form ideologies that appeal to particular groups. As Scott Straus (2015, x) describes, “[H]istory delivers a package of available ideas … [while] material conditions constrain the range of available options”. While political leaders have some autonomy in “synthesizing and developing” these ideas, their options are also constrained by national circumstances (Ibid.). Poland and Hungary’s historical pasts as “great” empires may have provided political actors with more symbolic and rhetorical resources with which to construct restorative nationalism.

5 Who Votes for the Populist Right? Evidence from the European Social Survey (2014)

Our empirical analysis relies on individual-level data from the seventh wave (in 2014) of the European Social Survey (ESS), a biannual cross-national survey that includes respondents from a selection of European countries (ESS 2016). This wave contains three of the Visegrad Four countries (Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland). Our empirical approach consists of running a set of linear probability modelsFootnote 10 of the following form for each country:

$$Y = \beta X + \gamma Z + \varepsilon ,$$

where Y is the dependent variable (a dummy variable that indicates whether the respondent voted for a particular populist party), X is a vector of key independent variables of interest (i.e., our measures of restorative nationalism), Z represents a vector of control variables, and ε is a stochastic error term. Our main hypothesis is that voting for a right-wing populist party is positively associated with strong feelings of restorative nationalism.

5.1 Measuring Restorative Nationalism

We include three key independent variables that independently measure our concept of restorative nationalism: Very Close to Country, Way of Life, and Follow Traditions. Very Close to Country is a dummy variable derived from respondents’ answers to Question D22 (“How close do you feel to [country]?”). It assumes a value of 1 when the respondent answers “very close”. We expect that those who feel closer to their country are more nationalist and hold stronger beliefs about what national identity should look like. In fact, one of the slogans of the Polish PiS is “Closer to the people”.

Way of Life is based on Question D6 (“How important should it be for [immigrants] to be committed to the way of life in [country]?”), and is measured on a scale that ranges from 0 (“extremely unimportant”) to 10 (“extremely important”). We expect that those who strongly believe that immigrants should be “committed to the way of life” in their country see national identity as being culturally homogenous and believe that it is important to preserve it.

Finally, Follow Traditions is based on Question D13, in which respondents are asked to register their agreement (or disagreement) with the statement “It is better for a country if almost everyone shares the same customs and traditions” on a five-point scale from 1 (“disagree strongly”) to 5 (“agree strongly”). We expect that those who strongly agree that everyone in a country should share the same customs and traditions also believe in preserving national customs and traditions.

5.2 Control Variables

We include a set of control variables in all specifications. The key alternative hypothesis we test is that voting for right-wing populist parties is motivated by anti-elite/anti-establishment sentiments. We capture this variable using Trust in Politicians, based on Question B5 (“Please tell me […] how much you personally trust [politicians]”.), and is measured on a scale from 0 (“no trust at all”) to 10 (“complete trust”). Trust in politicians is strongly correlated with trust in political parties (0.855**, p < 0.01) and trust in the country’s parliament (0.74**, p < 0.01).Footnote 11

It is often argued that populist movements are particularly attractive to the economically dissatisfied and those whose economic circumstances have worsened over time. Question B21 (“On the whole, how satisfied are you with the present state of the economy in [country]?”) forms the basis for the variable Satisfied with Economy, which measures respondents’ satisfaction with the state of their country’s economy on a scale from 0 (“extremely dissatisfied”) to 10 (“extremely satisfied”). It may be hypothesized that less economically satisfied people are more likely to vote for a right-wing populist party.

In addition, we include a variable that measures individuals’ religiosity. Religion is an important political force in Central and Eastern Europe. Anna Grzymała-Busse (2012, 437) argues that in Poland, the fusion of religious beliefs and nationalism makes the church particularly powerful in mobilizing political support. Hence, the populist right in Poland has taken advantage of a common cultural understanding that “all Poles are Catholics” (Pankowski 2010). By contrast, in the Czech Republic, the church’s perceived historical stance against the nation has reduced overall religiosity in the country (Grzymała-Busse 2012, 2015). We use the dummy variable Church Attendance to proxy for respondents’ religiosity, based on Question C14 (“Apart from special occasions such as weddings and funerals, about how often do you attend religious services nowadays?”), coded as 1 for attending “at least once a month” or more frequently. It may be hypothesized that church attendance is positively associated with voting for right-wing populist parties.

Finally, we include a few standard demographic (i.e., age and gender) and socio-economic (i.e., education and income) variables. Years of Education records the number of completed years of full-time education. Income Decile corresponds to the respondent’s household income decile within their country.

6 Results

Table 1 presents the relationship between voting for the right-wing Polish PiS party and our measures of restorative nationalism. In Models 1–3, we include each measure of restorative nationalism (Very Close to Country, Way of Life, and Follow Traditions), respectively, and two key control variables: anti-elite sentiment measured by the level of trust in politicians (the lower the trust level, the more anti-elite) and individuals’ satisfaction with the state of the national economy. In Models 4–6, we include all controls.

Table 1 Linear probability model predicting voting for the PiS

The results from all six models show that each of the three measures of restorative nationalism is positively associated with voting for the PiS, and the coefficients are statistically significant. A Pole who feels “very close” to his or her country is 9.1% (7.3% with controls) more likely to vote for the PiS than one who does not. The more strongly a Pole thinks that immigrants should be committed to the way of life in Poland, the more likely he or she is to vote for the PiS: with every one-point increase on the 0–10 scale for Way of Life, his/her likelihood of voting for the PiS increased by 0.9% (8% with controls). Finally, Poles who believe that a country is better if almost everyone shares the same customs and traditions are more likely to vote for the PiS. With each one-point increase on the 1–5 scale for Follow Traditions, the respondent is 2.3% (1.6% with controls) more likely to vote for the PiS.

Interestingly, Trust in Politicians is not associated with voting for the PiS in four of the model’s six specifications. In the two models in which the coefficient for Trust is significant, Trust is found to be positively associated with voting for the PiS, contrary to the conventional belief that voting for right-wing parties is driven by anti-elite sentiment. The less satisfied a voter is with the Polish economy, the more likely he or she is to vote for the PiS, which supports our hypothesis. However, the negative relationship may also be explained by the PiS not being the incumbent in 2014. In addition, we find that older and more religious individuals are more likely to vote for the PiS.

Table 2 presents the relationship between voting for the right-wing Hungarian Jobbik party and our measures of restorative nationalism. In Models 7–9, we include each measure of restorative nationalism and two key control variables: Trust in Politicians and Satisfied Economy. In Models 10–12, we include the rest of the control variables.

Table 2 Linear probability model predicting voting for Jobbik

The results from all six models show that each of the three measures of restorative nationalism is positively associated with voting for Jobbik, and the coefficients are statistically significant. A Hungarian who feels “very close” to his or her country is 3.3% (7.1% with controls) more likely to vote for Jobbik than one who does not. The more strongly a Hungarian believes that immigrants should be committed to the way of life in Hungary, the more likely he or she is to vote for Jobbik. Finally, Hungarians who believe that a country is better if almost everyone shares the same customs and traditions are more likely to vote for Jobbik.

Trust in Politicians is not associated with voting for Jobbik in any of the model’s six specifications, demonstrating that the relationship between anti-elite sentiments and voting for right-wing populist parties is thin. Satisfaction with the state of the Hungarian economy is negatively associated with voting for Jobbik; however, the relationship is only statistically significant in one of the six models. We also find that older people are less likely to vote for Jobbik, and females are approximately 7% less likely to vote for Jobbik than males.

Table 3 presents the relationship between voting for the Hungarian Fidesz Party (which is to the left of Jobbik) and our measures of restorative nationalism. In Models 13–15, we include each measure of restorative nationalism and two key control variables: Trust in Politicians and Satisfied Economy. In Models 16–18, we include the rest of the control variables.

Table 3 Linear probability model predicting voting for Fidesz

The results show that restorative nationalism is positively associated with voting for Fidesz, and the coefficients are significant in four of the six models. Interestingly, Trust in Politicians is positively associated with voting for Fidesz in all six models, which means that anti-elite sentiments actually decrease the likelihood of voting for Fidesz. This may be explained by the hypothesis that conservatives are more trusting of political authorities (Haidt 2012), and therefore, a populist conservative is not as anti-elite and anti-establishment as we may otherwise expect.

Table 4 presents the relationship between voting for Dawn (Usvit), a right-wing populist, euroskeptic party in the Czech Republic and our measures of restorative nationalism.Footnote 12 In Models 19–21, we include each measure of restorative nationalism and two key control variables: Trust in Politicians and Satisfied Economy. In Models 22–24, we include the rest of the control variables.

Table 4 Linear probability model predicting voting for Dawn

The results from all six models show that no measure of restorative nationalism is correlated with voting for Dawn. This result is difficult to interpret, given that Dawn only has the support of 2% of the country’s population according to recent polls. However, it may also indicate that there is a latent variable that prevents restorative nationalism from working in favor of right-wing populist parties.

Overall, we find strong evidence in support of our hypothesis that restorative nationalism provides electoral support for right-wing populist parties, particularly in Poland and Hungary. We also find strong evidence that anti-elite/anti-establishment sentiment does not predict voting for right-wing populist parties; in fact, there is some evidence to suggest the opposite.

7 Concluding Remarks

In this article, we explore the sources of support for the populist right in Central and Eastern Europe. We find evidence that voting for right-wing populist parties is strongly associated with restorative nationalism—moral beliefs in the cultural purity of nationhood that recalls a perceived halcyon era, and the belief that returning to this era can somehow be achieved by preserving the nation’s cultural (and often ethnic) purity. This finding contributes to the existing scholarship that emphasizes the centrality of morality and nationalism to populist support.

Our findings also contribute to the existing theories of populism by showing that it is not always anti-establishment. We use data from the European Social Survey to demonstrate that, despite the rise of right-wing populist parties in Europe, anti-elite/anti-establishment sentiment in Europe has been decreasing for the past decade. We also find a little evidence that anti-elite/anti-establishment sentiment predicts voting for right-wing populist parties in Central and Eastern Europe.

Our findings have profound theoretical implications. We show that various beliefs that are commonly associated with populism—such as anti-elite/establishment sentiments and nationalism—might not correlate positively with each other. People may trust the political system yet still vote for a right-wing populist party/politician. Similarly, people may distrust politicians and the political system, yet refrain from voting for a right-wing populist party/politician. Such inconsistency may be explained by single-issue voters (Frank 2004) or the fact that people are capable of holding inconsistent or contradictory beliefs (Converse 2006; Zaller 1992). Future research should examine the preference order in the issue space of populist voters and, in particular, explore the distinction and overlap between nationalism and populism.

We further contribute to the literature on nationalism by proposing the concept of restorative nationalism as a reactionary response to cultural change. Restorative nationalism recalls a perceived halcyon era, and champions the belief that returning to this era can somehow be achieved by preserving the nation’s cultural, and often ethnic, purity. Restorative nationalism draws on rhetorical and cultural symbols of historical greatness, and is especially attractive to those who experience difficulty during social or economic transitions. Future research should explore whether certain nations are more susceptible to restorative nationalism (e.g., former empires) than others.