At Common Cause, we often find ourselves grappling with a striking paradox: why, when people report placing high importance on universalism and benevolence values that predict deeper levels of social and environmental concern, isn’t faster progress being made on social and environmental justice? Indeed, why – on so many fronts – is such progress being rapidly unpicked?

Look closer, and this contradiction becomes even more puzzling. With the help of Paul Hanel from the University of Essex, we examined UK data from the European Social Survey (ESS) spanning 2002–2020. The trend, though uneven, shows that UK citizens increasingly prioritise universalism and benevolence values, and—consistent with the Schwartz circumplex model of values—are de-emphasising opposing values of power and achievement.

As time passes, people are placing greater importance on helpfulness, friendship, social justice, equality, and environmental protection. And yet, at the same time, we witness the growing electoral success of right-wing populist parties promoting political platforms that often stand in direct conflict with these very values.

Why the apparent democratic disconnect?

Right-wing populism: rising support or opportunist rogues?

Political scientist Larry Bartels argues that the rise of right-wing populism across Europe cannot be taken to reflect a shift in public attitudes. Invoking the theorist E.E. Schattschneider, Bartels cautions against overstating the connection between what people would like in a democracy, and what people get:

“Our understanding of democratic politics is based on a tremendously exaggerated notion of the immediacy and urgency of the connection of public opinion and events.”

In a 2024 essay for Foreign Affairs, Bartels expands on this:

“The gains of populist and far-right forces have less to do with a genuine shift in political beliefs among the public than they do with changing elite politics… Misconstruing the nature and appeal of populism muddles a clearer understanding of the contemporary political landscape.”

It’s tempting, but perhaps misleading, to trace the origins of political change to the changing values of the electorate, rather than the personal ambitions of new and opportunist political leaders. 

Bartels draws on data from the European Social Survey to suggest that public attitudes towards some of the key preoccupations of right-wing populist parties have changed little over the course of the last twenty years. 

For example, favourability toward immigrants and support for European integration rose slightly on aggregate over the period 2002-2020. And Bartels finds negligible changes in ideological polarisation, trust in parliament and politicians, or satisfaction with democracy.

Why then is there an apparent “wave” of support for populist parties across Europe? Bartels suggests that we’re not experiencing an upsurge of public support for the political agendas of right-wing populist parties. Rather, he argues, new political dynamics are influencing the way in which a persistent, yet limited, reservoir of support for populist right-wing policies interacts with mainstream political process. 

He suggests two possible reasons for this.

1) Right-wing populist parties across Europe bask in disproportionate levels of media attention 

Bartels suggests that the mainstream media pays particular attention to right-wing populist parties across Europe, with the effect of increasing their accessibility to voters, and skewing voters’ perceptions of their popularity. 

In fact, while in some countries there has indeed been a marked increase in support for right-wing populist parties, in others such support has fallen. Across Europe, he argues, there is evidence for only a marginal increase in such support over the period 2002-2020. 

Admittedly, his analysis is not yet extended to cover the events of the last five years. But over the period that he has examined, Bartels suggests that the widespread perception of the rise of right-wing populist parties is in large part the result of disproportionate media attention being paid to these.

Consider the UK, where the Green Party and their supporters often complain that disproportionate media attention is focused on the gains of the right-wing populist Reform party, even when the Green Party’s electoral gains may be numerically more significant. 

If this bias exists (it would be interesting to see quantitative analysis substantiating this claim), then it seems set to reinforce a populist – and indeed masculinist – view of democratic politics.

Consistent with claims that the mainstream media tends to focus disproportionately on the electoral gains of right-wing populist parties, a great deal of attention has been paid recently to a presumed “surge” in support for such parties among young men. In the UK, an apparently greater increase in young women’s support for the Green Party has been far less widely reported. At the 2024 general election in the UK, 12% of voting men aged 18-24 voted for Reform, as against 24% of voting women in the same age range voting for the Green Party – but consumers of mainstream media in the UK will likely have heard much more about those men than the women.

2) Demand for right-wing populist parties may not have changed much, but supply surely has

Second, Bartels argues that while levels of support for right-wing populist policies may have changed little on aggregate across Europe, there are now a greater range of potential homes for voters who want to lend their support to parties promoting these policies. In Bartel’s language, there has been an increase in supply of right-wing populist parties, against a backdrop of little change in public demand for such parties. Presumably this increase in supply needn’t simply reflect an increase in the number of such parties, but also in their media profile and their accessibility to voters.

But Bartels goes further, presenting evidence that there is almost no correlation between right-wing populist sentiment and right-wing populist vote share. In other words, wide variation in the electoral success of right-wing populist parties across Europe has almost nothing to do with variation in public opinion. 

Indeed, he highlights several specific examples of cases where right-wing populist parties have done well in national elections not because of any public surge in support for their policies, but rather – he argues – because of public disenchantment with an incumbent government.  

Meanwhile, centrist governments add grist to the mill

At the same time, politically centrist incumbent governments, which are defending against the electoral success of insurgent populist right-wing parties, embrace a populist policy agenda that takes them ever further away from people’s real concerns.

Take, for example, the widespread narrative, at least in the UK, that economic downturns have driven a shift in voter priorities, ushering people into the arms of right-wing populist parties. 

Bartels argues that this narrative isn’t supported by the data. 

He finds that economic disaffection is a weak predictor of identification with right-wing populist parties, and an even weaker predictor of electoral support for such parties. “There is… almost no relationship at the individual level between feelings of economic disaffection and support for right-wing populist parties”, he says.

This is a damning finding for incumbent governments, such as the Labour Government in the UK, which argues that the only way to stem the tide of right-wing populism is to promote economic growth – including by making yet deeper cuts to public services and backsliding in its support for net zero. 

If Bartels is right, a focus on economic growth as a strategy to avert economic disaffection and thus stem support for right-wing populist parties may prove a counterproductive exercise – especially if, while pursuing economic growth, an incumbent government further embeds populist narratives. 

Yet, while commitment to social and environmental concerns runs strong, these concerns are widely belittled and dismissed.

As Nesrine Malik puts it: There is a “widening gulf between people’s reality and what they are relentlessly told they actually believe in and care about”. She speaks to the role of the media in its incessant attempts to persuade most of us – as people concerned about the wellbeing of our fellow humans and other living beings – that we are peculiarly adrift, bobbing alone in some eddy, far from the preoccupations of the mainstream.

In the same vein, Common Cause Foundation presents evidence that there is a gulf between what people believe their fellow citizens believe in and care about, and what those citizens actually believe in and care about. This values perception gap is consequential, because these misperceptions predict – among other outcomes – lower commitment to various forms of civic engagement and lower support for prosocial and proenvironmental policies. 

What Malik concludes for the UK may well be true of many other countries: “the UK is not a regressive country, but increasingly a progressive society with some very regressive people holding most of the power”. Our misperceptions of what our fellow citizens care about may be pivotal in keeping those rogues in power.

If we’re to close the gap between what people care about and the priorities of the governments that many of them help to elect, we can start by recognising and amplifying the values that most people already share, and highlighting the evidence that most of us are placing ever greater importance on values of social justice, equality and environmental protection.

Image from KC Green’s web comic strip