Digitalization and Populism: Cross-Country Evidence

Abstract

The current paper aims to analyze the impact of digitalization on the rise of populism in recent decades. To this purpose, it empirically investigates the impact of the business sector's digital adoption on populism using data for 82 countries. The cross-country regression estimates indicate that digital adoption by the business sector increases populist rhetoric the leader party adopts. Additionally, cross-country regression results show that the level of democracy decreases while corruption increases populist rhetoric. The cross-country regression estimation results also indicate that digitalization increases populism for both left-wing and right-wing political parties. These results indicate that digital adoption by the business sector should not be excluded from empirical studies.