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Recent research in the populism literature has devoted considerable efforts to the conceptualisation and examination of populism on the individual level, that is, populist attitudes. Despite rapid progress in the field, questions of adequate measurement and empirical evaluation of measures of populist attitudes remain scarce. Seeking to remedy these shortcomings, we apply a cross-national measurement model, using item response theory, to six established and two new populist indicators. Drawing on a cross-national survey (nine European countries, n = 18,368), we engage in a four-folded analysis. First, we examine the commonly used 6-item populism scale. Second, we expand the measurement with two novel items. Third, we use the improved 8-item populism scale to further refine equally comprehensive but more concise and parsimonious populist measurements. Finally, we externally validate these sub-scales and find that some of the proposed sub-scales outperform the initial 6- and 8-item scales. We conclude that existing measures of populism capture moderate populist attitudes, but face difficulties measuring more extreme levels, while the individual information of some of the populist items remains limited. Altogether, this provides several interesting routes for future research, both within and between countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the influence of populism on democratic quality in Latin America. It draws on findings of qualitative work on this question as well as a theoretical framework by Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser to test whether the assumptions and results of both are applicable in a comparative study. It is expected that populist actors have a negative impact on democratic quality when they are in government, but that they positively influence democratic quality when they are in opposition, where they can function as a corrective. Further, it is expected that these effects vary depending on the level of consolidation. A linear mixed-effects model and data from eighteen Latin American countries in the period 1995–2009 was used to evaluate the hypotheses. Generally, it was found that populist actors in opposition have a large positive influence on democratic quality and that populist actors in government have a negative influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]