The Great Transition Towards Populism in Indian Politics: Populist Attitudes and Populist Radical Right (PRR) Voting in the 2019 Indian General Election
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23210230241289448 |
| Author | Jinwon Han |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
The Great Transition Towards
Populism in Indian Politics: Populist
Attitudes and Populist Radical Right
(PRR) Voting in the 2019 Indian
General Election
Jinwon Han1
Abstract
While extant research has identified several determinants of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s unprec-
edented victory in the 2019 general election, they have overlooked the party’s populist radical right
(PRR) nature, particularly under the leadership of Narendra Modi. Based on the demand side of PRR
voting, this article examines the effect of Indian voters’ populist attitudes on their voting choices for the
BJP during the 2019 election. Using binary logistic regression (BLR) and conducting a robustness check,
this article identifies that the variable of individuals’ populist attitudes does indeed exert a significant
effect on their vote choices for the BJP during the 2019 election. In addition to this main variable, a
number of controls that were included in the analysis were also found to be significantly correlated
with the dependent variable. In light of the findings, the article proposes some theoretical implications.
Keywords
Populist attitudes, the populist radical right (PRR) party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Narendra
Modi, India
Introduction
Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured an overwhelming triumph in the 2019
general election. This electoral outcome holds profound importance within the realm of Indian politics,
as the BJP obtained 303 seats in the 17th Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament), surpassing its 2014
tally of 282 seats. This marked the highest vote share by the BJP since the 1989 general election, consoli-
dating its substantial majority even further.
Many studies have attempted to explain the reasons behind the BJP’s landslide victory in the 2019
Indian general election. For instance, some have emphasized Narendra Modi’s charismatic leadership
(Shastri, 2019) or the ideological shift in Indian politics and the BJP’s broadened social coalition
(Chhibber & Verma, 2019).
Original Article
Studies in Indian Politics
12(2) 183–203, 2024
© 2024 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/23210230241289448
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1 Institute of Indian Studies (IIS), Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), Seoul, Republic of Korea
Corresponding author:
Jinwon Han, Institute of Indian Studies (IIS), Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), Seoul 02450, Republic
of Korea.
E-mail: jinwonhan@hufs.ac.kr
184 Studies in Indian Politics 12(2)
Despite their substantial contributions, these works have neglected to consider the fundamental nature
of the BJP as a populist radical right (PRR) party, particularly under the leadership of Narendra Modi
(Ammassari et al., 2022; Chacko & Jayasuriya, 2018; Chatterji et al., 2019; Leidig & Mudde, 2023;
McDonnell & Cabrera, 2019). Hence, it would be imperative to interpret the electoral outcome in the
2019 general election through the lens of populism.
In contemporary times, there has been a notable surge in right-wing populist parties as well as leaders,
not only in India but also globally. The rise of these political entities implies that they are frequently
favoured by a significant proportion of voters worldwide. Regarding this intriguing global phenomenon,
numerous studies have investigated the diverse factors that prompt voters to choose PRR parties. While
these debates have exhibited varying perspectives, they are primarily rooted in either the supply-side or
demand-side approaches to PRR voting (Spruyt et al., 2016).
The scholarship grounded in a supply-side framework highlights the significance of contextual factors
in explaining the vote choice for PRR parties (Medeiros, 2021). Scholars in this strand depict the public
as a passive entity easily mobilized by various contexts conducive to populism, including socio-
economic crises, political party strategies, or shifts in the political landscape (Mounk, 2018; Rico et al.,
2017). In this context, they assume that individuals’ voting choices in favour of PRR parties are sponta-
neously shaped by these contextual elements.
While such conceptualization has merit, its limited generalisability poses a challenge to adequately
explaining real-world scenarios. This constraint becomes apparent in situations, where populist demand
and voting preferences for PRR parties are observable in countries that lack contextual elements associ-
ated with PRR voting choices (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017).
To fill this conceptual gap, recent scholarly works highlight the importance of examining PRR vote
choices from the perspective of its demand side (e.g., Bakker et al., 2016; Medeiros, 2021; Spruyt et al.,
2016). These discussions argue that, while contextual factors may play a role in shaping people’s voting
choices for PRR parties, the primary influence comes from individual-level factors. Among these
individual-level determinants, a significant portion of academic research specifically focuses on voters’
populist attitudes (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017; Spruyt et al., 2016).
Populist attitudes refer to a set of populist ideas that manifest as specific attitudes at the individual
level, underlying populist proclivities and a potential populist vote (Silva et al., 2022; Van Hauwaert
et al., 2020). The scholarship centred on this perspective views the public as an active agent capable of
contributing to the rise of populism, assuming that individuals’ vote choices in favour of PRR parties are
largely influenced by their populist attitudes.
Among these two mainstream approaches, this article adopts the demand-side perspective due to the
following considerations. First, while the supply-side explanations have primarily been introduced and
regarded as a robust framework, they seem to exhibit limited generalisability, as previously described.
Second, and of greater significance, a specific case in this article, namely, the Narendra Modi-led BJP,
provides an ideal opportunity to explore whether the existing demand-side theories on PRR, largely
derived from European contexts, can be applicable beyond Europe (Ammassari et al., 2022).
With this background, this article seeks to identify whether there exists a significant statistical corre-
lation between Indian voters’ populist attitudes and their voting choices for the BJP in the 2019 general
election and, if so, to explore the manner in which the former influences the latter. To achieve this
research purpose, a binary logistic regression (BLR) model is employed in this article. The article will
elaborate on the rationale behind employing this specific methodology in the third section.
The remainder of this article is structured as follows: the second section presents an in-depth discus-
sion of the core concepts of populism and populist attitudes. In this section, the article elaborates on the
theoretical connection between individuals’ populist attitudes and their voting preferences in favour of
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