Collective Narcissism, Populism and Political Profiles in Andalusia and Catalonia

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54790/rccs.25

Keywords:

populism, Andalusia, Catalonia, collective narcissism

Abstract

This article explores the relation between populism and collective narcissism resorting to the empirical data provided by a survey conducted in Andalusia and Catalonia. Collective narcissism is the belief that the group one blongs to is exceptional and lacks the recognition it deserves. It should be expected that collective narcissism is a predictor of populism, insofar as the latter is grounded on the moralistic antagonism between the true people and its enemies. Our survey suggests that the relation between narcissism, populism and identity is complex, being mediated by contextual factors that are social and political in nature-linguistic self-identification standing out in the case of Catalonia. An additional finding is that Akkerman et al. (2014) scale fails to predict support for left-of left-wing populist parties.

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Author Biographies

Manuel Arias, University of Málaga

Professor of Political Science at the University of Malaga. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Berkeley and a Salvador de Madariaga Scholar at the Universities of Munich and New York. He is a specialist in environmental political theory; his other lines of research include populism, political liberalism and the digitalisation of the public sphere. He is the author of, among others, La democracia sentimental (2016) and Nostalgia del soberano (2020).

José Javier Olivas, National University of Distance Education

He directs two research projects in the Department of Political Science and Administration at UNED: "Populismo y Fronteras" and "Proyecto Interdisciplinar Comparado en Populismo y Secesionismo". He holds a PhD in Government and a Master in Public Policy and Administration from LSE, as well as a Research Associate at LSE IDEAS. His areas of interest include populism, Spanish politics, Brexit and civil-military relations. He has published in journals such as Governance, Politics and Society, European Journal of Political Research and European Journal of Communication, and is the author of the monograph Iberian Military Politics (Palgrave).

Enrique Clari, Autonomous University of Madrid

Predoctoral researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and INPhINIT fellow of the "la Caixa" Foundation. He has been a research assistant in the "Comparative Project on Populism" at the UNED and his latest publications have appeared in Party Politics and Comparative Sociology. His line of research focuses on the deterioration of the quality of democracy in Europe and the resurgence of authoritarian values in consolidated democracies.

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Published

2022-10-27

How to Cite

Arias Maldonado, M., Olivas Osuna, J. J., & Clari, E. (2022). Collective Narcissism, Populism and Political Profiles in Andalusia and Catalonia. CENTRA Journal of Social Sciences, 1(2), 121–138. https://doi.org/10.54790/rccs.25

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 2 (2022)

Section

Research Notes

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Copyright (c) 2022 Manuel Arias, José Javier Olivas, Enrique Clari

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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