Behavioral Foundations of Populism and Polarization
In this page I summarize the scientific output and dissemination activity for my ERC Starting Grant, no. 852526, on "Behavioral Foundations of Populism and Polarization" (POPULIZATION). This grant will be active until November 2025.
Objectives
Since the Great Recession of 2008, populist parties have scored major electoral successes around Europe. Nonetheless, the populist map of Europe has mixed colors: in some countries, voters rally behind right-wing parties promising closed borders while, in others, resentment towards rising inequality has fuelled left-wing movements; some other countries have been less susceptible to populist rhetoric. Why are populist parties more successful in some places (or times) compared to others? What makes right or left populism more prominent in some countries (or after certain crises)? This project tackles these questions with the tools of behavioral political economy, a blossoming field at the intersection of behavioral economics and political economy, which applies insights from cognitive psychology and methodologies from microeconomics to understand political behavior. I will address two fundamental issues that can shed light on the puzzling pattern of support for populism: the heterogeneity and time (in)stability of preferences and cognitive abilities; and the role of limited attention in shaping preferences and information processing. The combined output of these projects will greatly improve our understanding of European citizens' political preferences and how they affect economic and political outcomes.
Published Papers
Montanari, Giovanni and Salvatore Nunnari, "Audi Alteram Partem: An Experiment on Selective Exposure to Information," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Forthcoming.
Guenther, Laurenz and Timo Freyer, "Passive Inequality and the Dilemma of Meritocracy," Experimental Economics, 2025, 28(2): 379–400.
Alos-Ferrer, Carlos, Michele Garagnani, and Jaume Garcia-Segarra, "The Framing of Elections: Cooperation vs. Competition," Social Choice and Welfare, 2025, 65: 363–385.
Nunnari, Salvatore and Jan Zapal, "A Model of Focusing in Political Choice," Journal of Politics, 2025, 87(4): 1465–1481.
Galasso, Vincenzo, Tommaso Nannicini, and Salvatore Nunnari, "Positive Spillovers from Negative Campaigning," American Journal of Political Science, 2023, 67(1): 5–21.
Nichter, Simeon and Salvatore Nunnari, "Declared Support and Clientelism," Comparative Political Studies, 2022, 55(13): 2178–2216.
Alos-Ferrer, Carlos and Michele Garagnani, "Voting under Time Pressure," Judgment and Decision Making, 2022, 17(5): 1072–1093.
Nunnari, Salvatore, "Dynamic Legislative Bargaining with Veto Power: Theory and Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, 2021, 126: 186–230.
Working Papers
Nunnari, Salvatore, Eugenio Proto, and Aldo Rustichini, "Cognitive Abilities and the Demand for Bad Policy," Revise and Resubmit at Review of Economic Studies.
Nunnari, Salvatore and Massimiliano Pozzi, "Meta-Analysis of Distributional Preferences," Revise and Resubmit at Economic Journal.
Frydman, Cary and Salvatore Nunnari, "Coordination with Cognitive Noise," Revise and Resubmit at American Economic Journal: Microeconomics.
Bondi, Tommaso, Daniel Csaba, Evan Friedman, and Salvatore Nunnari, "Range Effects in Economic Choice: The Role of Complexity."
Guenther, Laurenz and Salvatore Nunnari, "Do Political Representation Gaps Cause Populism? Evidence from the 2025 German Election."
Imai, Taisuke, Salvatore Nunnari, Ferdinand M. Vieider, and Jilong Wu, "Meta-Analysis of Prospect Theory Parameters."
Benjamin Blumenthal and Salvatore Nunnari, "Reciprocity and Democratic Accountability."
Guenther, Laurenz, "Political Representation Gaps and Populism."
Behler, Paul and Laurenz Guenther, "Is History Repeating Itself? Populism in the Weimar Republic and Modern Germany.""