Responsive Or Responsible Populist Parties In A Multilevel Electoral System: Longitudinal Analysis Of German Parties

Despite the fact that populist studies obtained a substantial place in political science, available English literature on the topic lacks attention to such a crucial aspect of populism as party responsiveness while their strategy first of all relies on it. Particularly, responsiveness of populist parties has been hardly studied at regional level. This research suggests an experimental and potentially reproducible measurement of party rhetorical responsiveness, solid textual data on party rhetoric in social networks, and an alternative explanation of low or high responsiveness in the framework of the responsiveness-responsibility dilemma. Responsiveness was measured on collected Twitter data for the years 2009-2020 as well as Eurobarometer survey data on the main problems citizens face. Responsiveness-responsibility dilemma will be examined in a comparative case study of regional parties from the Bavarian Landtag using party manifestos and party members' performance in the Landtag.