The Education Divide and Support for Populists

Abstract The growing political importance of the education divide has been extensively studied and is often linked to the growth of populist parties. This chapter examines this education-populism association by asking whether it is really populism that is appealing to lower-educated citizens. Using a literature review and novel analyses, it shows that this is not the case. There is strong evidence for a negative relation between educational attainment and support for radical right-wing populist parties, but not for radical left-wing or other types of populists. This suggests it is not (solely) the particular populist message of radical right-wing populist parties that attracts lower-educated voters, but their nativist message—either as the main cause or in combination with populism. The chapter thus re-emphasizes that it is of essential importance not to equate nativism and populism: while there is a clear educational divide for nativism, this is not the case for populism.