Radical Choices Voiced Online. The Determinants of Populist Support in France and in The Netherlands

Hypotheses on why people vote for populist parties are abound, yet academic findings are inconclusive. Some suggest that populist parties’ success is due to their candidates’ appeal, others see as explanatory factors a general dissatisfaction with representative democracy or the agreement with populist policy proposals. Most studies– particularly those based on national elections studies– suffer from the problem that too few populist voters are identifiable and too little is known about their opinion structure to simultaneously test all these explanations. Through online Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) in The Netherlands and France we have compiled unique datasets including tens of thousands populist parties’ supporters with responses on a large number of issues, leadership evaluations and societal perceptions. By comparing the 2012 French and Dutch elections in which Marine Le Pen’s(Front National) and Geert Wilder’s PVV run, this study finds that despite the broadening political agenda of right-‐wing populist parties (RPPs), leadership evaluation and agreement on cultural issues remain the dominant drive of RPPs’ vote intention.