Who is more populist on the campaign trail: Donald Trump or Nigel Farage? Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn?

Team Populism, a network of political scientists, analysed the text of at least two campaign speeches of a series of well-known politicians. They gave these speeches an average score, depending on the extent to which they contained populist rhetoric.

How populist do you think these rightwing politicians were?

That Steve Bannon should appear near the top of a list of rightwing populists, scoring higher on the populism scale than Donald Trump, should surprise no one. Bannon scripted much of Trump’s populist rhetoric during the 2016 presidential campaign, and since then he’s been delivering highly populist speeches of his own across Europe, demonising elites in Wall Street, Davos, Brussels and Washington.

“The elites are the greediest, most incompetent group that’s ever had control of a society,” Bannon declared in a speech in Hungary in which he also described the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, as “Trump before Trump”. According to this analysis, Orbán was considerably more populist than Trump, at least when he was in campaign mode.

Politicians tend to score twice as high for populism on the campaign trail than for speeches delivered in office. The Global Populism Database, which was launched this week, was based on the average populism score given to four types of speech: campaigns (the speeches used in this quiz), famous, ribbon-cutting and international.

“Only the Hugo Chávez-level populists are populist all the time, even once they’ve been elected, when their audience may consist of diplomats, or a few people at a ribbon-cutting ceremony,” said Dr Bruno Castanho Silva of the University of Cologne.

Nigel Farage, the ex-leader of Ukip, struck firmly populist notes during his victory speech on the night of the 2016 UK referendum, which he hailed as “a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people”. In contrast, the score for Jair Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil, was only just enough to classify his speeches as somewhat populist. Castanho Silva said that while Bolsonaro’s election speeches were deeply critical of political corruption, they also tended to be highly partisan and often lacked the romanticisation of “the people” that is a hallmark of populist discourse.

How populist were these leftwing politicians?

There is heated debate in the UK over whether Jeremy Corbyn is a populist. After scrutinising Labour’s 2017 election manifesto, Luke March, from Edinburgh University, concluded that the populist label was “at best, a half-truth”. However, according to Team Populism’s analysis of two speeches Corbyn gave during the general election, the Labour leader used solidly populist rhetoric, as in his declaration that “our Westminster system is broken and our economy is rigged” and his claim that both are “run in the interests of the few”.

This kind of rhetorical flourish puts Corbyn in the populist bracket, though his speeches fall short of the uber-populist addresses of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and Greece’s prime minister, Alexis Tsipras.(Tsipras sky-high score seems a product of the timing of his speeches – the 2015 election, prior to his capitulation to the lenders that bailed out the Greek economy; by all accounts, he moderated his language since.)

Campaign speeches by Mexico’s leftist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is a friend of Corbyn’s, scored in the “very populist” range. However, even though he has only been in power for a few months, AMLO, as he is known in Mexico, appears to be adhering to the pattern of dropping his populism once in office; other speeches have produced an average score that only just qualifies as moderately populist.

In the US, the trio of Democratic politicians on the list conform to expectations. The most populist was Bernie Sanders, whose speeches channelled much of the rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street movement, claiming to serve the interests of “the 99%” over “a handful of billionaires, their super-PACs and their lobbyists”. Hillary Clinton scored very low on the populism scale, putting her in the same “not populist” bracket as Angela Merkel and Barack Obama, although the latter’s speeches did contain small levels of populist discourse. That may come as a surprise to the ex-president, who in 2016, after explaining how he wanted to clamp down on tax evasion, address inequality and improve the lives of ordinary people, quipped: “I suppose that makes me a populist.”

Find them on the scale 1 Jeremy Corbyn Leader of the Labour party since 2015 Based on 2017 Not populist Most populist 2 Bernie Sanders US senator and unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination Based on 2016 Not populist Most populist 3 AMLO Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president of Mexico, elected in summer 2018 Based on 2018 Not populist Most populist 4 Barack Obama Two-term Democratic president of the United States Based on 2012 Not populist Most populist 5 Nicolás Maduro President of Venezuela since the death of his patron Hugo Chávez in 2013 Based on 2013 Not populist Most populist 6 Hillary Clinton Former US secretary of state, and Democratic presidential candidate Based on 2016 Not populist Most populist 7 Alexis Tsipras Prime minister of Greece since 2015, and throughout the Greek debt crisis Based on 2015 Not populist Most populist How close were you? 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 Not populist Somewhat populist Populist Very populist 1. Jeremy Corbyn Your guess: 0 Answer: 1.3 2. Bernie Sanders Your guess: 0 Answer: 0.8 3. AMLO Your guess: 0 Answer: 1.6 4. Barack Obama Your guess: 0 Answer: 0.4 5. Nicolás Maduro Your guess: 0 Answer: 1.6 6. Hillary Clinton Your guess: 0 Answer: 0.1 7. Alexis Tsipras Your guess: 0 Answer: 1.8 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 Not populist Somewhat populist Populist Very populist Find them on the scale 1 Donald Trump Republican president of the United States and New York landlord Based on 2017 0.5 1 1.5 Not populist Most populist 2 Angela Merkel Long-serving German chancellor from the conservative CDU Based on 2013 Not populist Most populist 3 Nigel Farage MEP and former Ukip leader Based on 2016 Not populist Most populist 4 Viktor Orbán Prime minister of Hungary, 1998 - 2002 and 2010 to present Based on 2018 Not populist Most populist 5 Matteo Salvini Leader of Lega, the far-right junior partner in Italy's governing coalition Based on 2018 Not populist Most populist 6 Jair Bolsonaro President of Brazil, and former army officer Based on 2018 Not populist Most populist 7 Steve Bannon Campaign adviser to Donald Trump and latterly to right-wing parties across Europe Based on 2018 Not populist Most populist How close were you? 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 Not populist Somewhat populist Populist Very populist 1. Donald Trump Your guess: 0 Answer: 0.9 2. Angela Merkel Your guess: 0 Answer: 0 3. Nigel Farage Your guess: 0 Answer: 1.5 4. Viktor Orbán Your guess: 0 Answer: 1.8 5. Matteo Salvini Your guess: 0 Answer: 1.1 6. Jair Bolsonaro Your guess: 0 Answer: 0.6 7. Steve Bannon Your guess: 0 Answer: 1.6 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 Not populist Somewhat populist Populist Very populist





