Populist attitudes and political participation: hand and glove? : Analysing populist citizens' participation in political claim-making

In the academic and political debate on popular dissatisfaction with the functioning of representative democracy, the notions of populism and citizens’ political participation surface frequently. Populist citizens have been observed to be typically discontent with democracy, while criticism on the political establishment and representative politics figures prominently in populist parties’ discourse. In this context, participatory mechanisms have been noted as an adequate response to the rise of populist sentiments. Also, populist political parties explicitly advocate one mode of political participation: direct democratic devices. It is, however, not evident that populist citizens are interested in the input side of the political process. Given that academic literature on this topic is limited, this thesis explores to what extent populist citizens take part in conventional and/or innovative forms of political claim-making.