Knotz, Carlo M., Juliana Chueri and Alyssa M. Taylor

Populist right-wing voting: the (conditional) role of implicit bias
2024

We contribute to research on populist and radical right-wing politics by studying how, and under which conditions, subconscious or “implicit” racial attitudes influence populist right-wing support. Specifically, we study the effect of implicit bias against persons with darker skin tones on voting for right-wing populist parties, and how this effect differs depending on macro-level conditions (the degree of stigma linked to supporting a populist right-wing actor) and micro-level factors (explicit psychological and ideological variables such as ethnocentrism, social dominance orientation, and general left–right ideology). To do so, we use data from an original survey conducted in the United States (where right-wing populism emerged out of an established mainstream party) and Germany (where the right-wing populist party remains controversial and politically isolated). We find a statistically and substantively significant effect of implicit bias on right-wing populist voting in the US, net of a range of demographic and ideological controls, and we also find that this effect is positively reinforced by a conservative ideology. We find no corresponding effects in the German context. Our findings suggest that implicit bias has stronger effects in the absence of stigma or attitudinal ambiguity.