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Recent studies provide evidence that income inequality is a relevant driver for the electoral success of populist parties all over Europe. In this article, we aim to understand how exactly increasing income inequality can lead to support for populist parties. More specifically, we discuss four different attitudinal mechanisms from previous research: economic insecurities, trust in political elites, social integration, and national identity. We rely on eight waves of the European Social Survey and find that economic insecurities, trust in political elites, and national identity are linked to rising income inequality and populist support as expected. However, a causal mediation analysis shows that these mechanisms are not sufficient to fully understand the impact of income inequality on support for populists. This finding raises questions regarding the empirical support of existing theories to explain how macroeconomic changes in inequality became a pre-condition for the rise of populist parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior literature points to the importance of party power and ideology for interest group-party contacts in the legislative arena. But interest groups do not often have ideologies – they are typically active in a small number of policy domains and there may be different parties that share more similar preferences across different policy areas. Therefore, we examine whether and how party power and proximity in policy preferences predict the existence of party-interest group 'lobby routines' in specific policy domains, using a novel survey of representative samples of interest groups in seven long-established democracies. We find that groups often form routines with different parties in different policy areas and that preference proximity on relevant policy dimensions is positively associated with having such area-specific lobby routines. However, the results also suggest that powerful parties are more likely allies and that the effect of policy proximity on routines is positively conditioned by power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]