Populist Attitudes and Conspiracy Beliefs in Slovak Society: Pandemic vs Post-pandemic Data
Populist Attitudes and Conspiracy Beliefs in Slovak Society: Pandemic vs Post-pandemic Data

Summary/Abstract: The continued success of populist political subjects can be observed in many countries in recent years, including Slovakia. Society is polarized, and dissatisfaction, anger, and fear are coming to the fore. This has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which, as a crisis, typically increases the potential for the spread of unfounded or even conspiratorial beliefs. As the occurrence of the mentioned phenomena postulates similar questions, the study's objective is to identify the rate of occurrence of populist attitudes and trust in conspiracy content during and after the pandemic. At different stages of the pandemic course, the prevalence of populist attitudes in the sample of Slovak adult men and women (N = 1345) and the tendency to trust conspiracy beliefs both in general and specifically in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic are examined. Using the Populist Attitudes Scale, the Generic conspiracist beliefs scale, and the authors' questionnaire on belief in conspiracy claims related to the COVID-19 virus, we found a high prevalence of the variables of interest, with the highest rates observed in women, people of older age and people with lower education. Across the different phases of data collection, attitudes and beliefs were relatively stable, and a linear association was observed between them. The results demonstrate the validity of the study of populist attitudes and the tendency to believe in conspiracy content, while at the same time raising questions for further research.

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