People-centrism is a central tentant of populism. In attitudes research, it is often measured by asking respondents whether they agree with statements emphasizing the people and their will as key factors in politics. However, the term “the people” can be understood differently based on national contexts. In most European contexts, “the people” can be interpreted in either civic or ethnic terms. The civic view sees the people as citizens of a political community, promoting inclusiveness. In contrast, the ethnic view perceives the people as ethnically homogeneous groups with a shared cultural heritage, implying exclusivity. These differing interpretations can lead to validity issues when civic and ethnic understandings of “the people” are used interchangeably in surveys about populist attitudes.
More precisely, if the survey items are framed mainly in an ethnic notion, it may skew responses from populist radical right voters, who may score high not because of populism but due to their nativism or nationalism. It is crucial to distinguish between these constructs, as populism is often confused precisely with nativism, usually under the populist radical right umbrella.
To explore this, we conducted a split-ballot wording experiment that varied the terminology used for “the people” in populist attitude items, using Croatia as an illustrative case study. Preliminary results indicate that populist radical right voters score higher with ethnic terminology, raising important questions about the content validity of populist attitude scales across different contexts.