최근 호

The most fundamental question in populism studies is, “What is populism?” The answers can be broadly categorized into three approaches. The first and most widely cited is the ‘ideational approach,’ which regards populism as a specific ‘ideology.’ Cas Mudde, a leading proponent of this view, defines populism as “a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ and ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people” (Mudde, 2004, p. 543). The term ‘thin-centered’ signifies that populism by itself cannot offer a complete worldview; it must attach itself to other ‘thick’ ideologies, such as nationalism or socialism, to manifest as a concrete political program. This definition is highly useful for explaining phenomena such as Trump’s right-wing populism combining with nationalism and Sanders’ left-wing populism merging with socialism.

A second approach views populism not as a specific ideology but as a ‘strategy’ for political mobilization. Kurt Weyland defines populism as “a political strategy through which a personalistic leader seeks or exercises government power based on direct, unmediated, and noninstitutionalized support from large numbers of followers” (Weyland, 2001, p. 14). This perspective focuses less on the ideological content of populism and more on the method of mobilization, where a charismatic leader bypasses established parties and institutional intermediaries to connect directly with the masses. It offers significant insights for analyzing the American political context, where populism often erupts around specific ‘leaders’ like Trump or Sanders rather than through institutionalized parties.

A third approach understands populism as a ‘political style.’ Benjamin Moffitt analyzes populism not as an ideology or strategy but as a set of political performances characterized by “appeals to ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite,’ bad manners, and the enactment of crisis, breakdown or threat” (Moffitt, 2016, p. 27). This perspective highlights how populists use language, imagery, and behavior to position themselves as ‘outsiders’ and to provoke public discontent with established political norms. This study’s focus on the ‘narrative of crisis’ and the ‘language of threat’ aligns directly with this stylistic approach. While this study adopts Mudde’s ideational definition as its basic analytical framework, it aims to integrate these various approaches by examining how populists articulate that ideology through specific ‘language’ and ‘performance.’

The debate over ‘why’ populism has surged is largely bifurcated into two explanatory models, the ‘economic grievance theory’ and the ‘cultural backlash theory.’ The economic grievance theory posits that the ‘losers’ of globalization, deindustrialization, and neoliberal economic restructuring have become the core support base for populism. As Dani Rodrik has pointed out, while globalization may increase aggregate wealth, its benefits are unevenly distributed, leading to income stagnation and job insecurity for low-skilled workers exposed to import competition (Rodrik, 2018, p. 29). This sense of economic deprivation and anxiety about the future is channeled into anger against the political establishment, leading to support for populists who promise to ‘close the borders and bring back the jobs.’ The support Trump garnered in the Rust Belt and the youth support for Sanders’ critique of the ‘billionaire class’ underscore the importance of these economic factors.

In contrast, the cultural backlash theory, advanced by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, locates the root cause of populism’s rise not in economics but in a conflict of values (Norris & Inglehart, 2019, p. 3). According to them, Western societies have undergone a ‘Silent Revolution’ over the past several decades, shifting toward post-materialist and progressive values (e.g., multiculturalism, gender equality, environmental protection). However, this rapid value shift has induced a sense of existential threat and status loss among certain segments of the population that hold traditional, authoritarian values—particularly older, less educated, and rural male voters. Feeling that their values and way of life are no longer mainstream, they are powerfully drawn to authoritarian populists who call for a return to a ‘great past’ and the defense of traditional values. The fact that immigration and Islam have become central mobilizing issues for populist parties in Europe lends credence to the cultural backlash thesis.

More recent research emphasizes that these two factors are not mutually exclusive but interact in complex ways. Economic insecurity can amplify cultural anxieties, and cultural identity can serve as a lens through which economic interests are interpreted (Gidron & Hall, 2017, pp. 57-84). However, existing studies have largely focused on determining which factor is the ‘more’ significant predictor. This study takes a step further by focusing on the difference in ‘narrative construction’—that is, how populists strategically ‘link’ these two sources of public discontent and frame one as the fundamental ‘cause’ of the problem and the other as its ‘consequence.’

As reviewed thus far, research on populism has accumulated significant scholarly achievements in conceptual definition and causal explanation. However, two limitations exist in the prior literature that this study aims to address. First, most comparative research has focused on intra-European comparisons or on the cases of the United States and the United Kingdom (Brexit), leaving a relative dearth of studies that directly and systematically compare the rhetorical strategies of multi-party populism in continental Europe with two-party populism in the United States. Second, the debate over the importance of economic versus cultural factors has not sufficiently progressed to an analysis of how these factors are ‘framed’ and narratively reconstructed within populist discourse.

Therefore, this study seeks to fill this gap in the literature by conducting a comparative analysis of how populists in the distinct political systems of the United States and Europe construct crisis narratives around ‘economic deprivation’ and ‘cultural threat’ to suit their political objectives. This approach will make a unique academic contribution by empirically testing the macro-level debate on the causes of populism at the micro-level of populist language, and by concretely elucidating the influence of political institutions on the manifestation of populism.

As articulated in the research questions, this study’s core endeavor is to move beyond mere keyword frequency to systematically identify and analyze the underlying ‘causal logic’ and ‘narrative frames’ employed by populist actors. To achieve this, our qualitative content analysis followed a rigorous, multi-step procedure designed to deeply engage with the textual data. Initially, building upon our theoretical framework, we established predefined lists of core keywords. These keywords were specifically developed for two primary frames: the ‘Cultural Threat’ frame, encompassing terms such as ‘immigration,’ ‘border,’ ‘identity,’ and ‘sovereignty,’ and the ‘Economic Deprivation’ frame, including terms like ‘jobs,’ ‘trade,’ ‘class,’ and ‘inequality.’ These keywords served as crucial initial anchors, guiding us in identifying relevant textual segments within the broader dataset. Moving beyond this initial identification, we then meticulously examined the surrounding linguistic context of each identified keyword, often extending our analysis to full sentences and even entire paragraphs. This crucial step involved segmenting the text into ‘semantic units’—distinct passages where a clear argument, a specific causal statement, or a descriptive frame was being constructed. For instance, a sentence such as ‘Uncontrolled immigration threatens our national identity and takes away our jobs’ was not simply noted for its keywords but coded as a single semantic unit, recognized for expressing both cultural threat and economic deprivation, explicitly linked by an underlying causal chain.

Within each delimited semantic unit, our analysis intensified to explicitly identify and map causal relationships. We diligently searched for linguistic indicators of causality, which included phrases such as ‘because of,’ ‘leads to,’ ‘as a result of,’ ‘consequently,’ ‘undermines,’ and ‘protects against.’ This focused approach allowed us to systematically discern how various factors were presented as either causes or effects. Specifically, we mapped whether cultural factors were articulated as the root cause leading to economic consequences—a pattern frequently observed in European far-right discourse—or vice versa, as often noted in American populist rhetoric. This granular examination was essential for apprehending the precise directional flow of the ‘crisis narrative’ being constructed. Beyond these individual causal links, our procedure then advanced to a comprehensive ‘narrative framing analysis,’ understanding how these semantic units coalesced into broader, coherent narrative structures. This involved several layers of inquiry: first, identifying the ‘Problem Definition’—how the core crisis, be it national decline or social division, was characterized; second, discerning ‘Causal Attribution’—who or what was explicitly or implicitly blamed for the problem (e.g., ‘corrupt elite,’ ‘immigrants,’ ‘unfair trade practices’); third, analyzing ‘Moral Evaluation’—what moral judgments were conveyed about ‘the people,’ ‘the elite,’ or ‘the threat’; and finally, pinpointing ‘Proposed Solutions’—how specific policy proposals (e.g., ‘border control,’ ‘healthcare for all’) were presented as direct remedies for the attributed causes.

While quantitative measures like keyword frequency provided an initial indicator of frame intensity, the qualitative analysis outlined above was critical for verifying that these keywords were not isolated occurrences but were indeed deeply embedded within the identified causal structures and comprehensive narrative frames. To ensure the highest level of methodological rigor and transparency, multiple readings and diligent cross-referencing of all coded segments were performed to guarantee consistency in interpretation across the dataset. Furthermore, all coding decisions, including the mapping of causal relationships, were meticulously recorded and managed within a structured qualitative data analysis software, such as NVivo or ATLAS.ti. This systematic documentation serves to maintain a comprehensive and auditable trail of the entire analytical process, thereby enhancing the study’s reliability and reproducibility.

The collected textual data are systematically analyzed through ‘Frame Analysis,’ as specified in the analytical framework presented in <Figure 1>. Framing refers to a narrative process that involves defining a particular issue (problem definition), diagnosing its causes (causal attribution), proposing solutions, and rendering moral judgments (moral evaluation). This study operationally defines two key ‘crisis frames’ employed by European and American populists and will analyze how these frames manifest within the texts.¹⁾

<Figure 1> 
Analytical Framwork

First, the Cultural Threat Frame constructs a sense of crisis wherein national identity, sovereignty, and traditional values are perceived as being undermined by external threats. In this study, the intensity of this frame is measured by focusing on keywords and logic related to ‘Immigration and Border’ and ‘Identity and Sovereignty.’

Second, the Economic Deprivation Frame constructs a sense of crisis in which ordinary working people are being deprived of economic opportunities by a corrupt elite and an unjust system. The intensity of this frame is measured by focusing on keywords and logic related to ‘Jobs and Trade’ and ‘Class and Inequality.’

To understand European populism, it is first necessary to grasp from a macro-perspective how widespread the phenomenon is and, specifically, what ideological tendencies it exhibits. A visualization based on The PopuList 3.0 dataset clearly illustrates the geographical distribution and ideological center of gravity of European populism.

<Figure 2> illustrates the widespread distribution of populist parties across the European continent. On the map, darker shades indicate a greater number of populist parties in a given country. From France and Italy in Western Europe and Denmark in Northern Europe to Poland and the Czech Republic in Eastern Europe, it is evident that populism is not a phenomenon confined to specific regions but is rather a pan-European political phenomenon. This suggests that the rise of populism may transcend the particular characteristics of individual nations and instead be a common response to structural pressures shared across the continent, such as European integration, immigration, and economic instability.

<Figure 2> 

A deeper examination of the ideological spectrum of populism reveals the pronounced dominance of the far-right. <Figure 3> illustrates the distribution of far-right parties, showing a high concentration in countries such as Italy, Austria, Poland, and Hungary, while also demonstrating a significant presence throughout Western Europe. Furthermore, the relative dominance of far-right versus far-left parties can be ascertained by the color intensity of the regional party distribution, where darker shades of red signify the prevalence of the far-right, and darker shades of blue indicate the dominance of the far-left. This map clearly illustrates that in numerous countries, including Poland, Hungary, Austria, and Italy, far-right populism overwhelmingly dominates its far-left counterpart. France and Italy, the core case countries for this study, are also marked in a strong shade of red, indicating the powerful influence of the far-right. Spain, with the recent rise of the Vox party, is now joining this trend. This macro-level data justifies the study’s focus on analyzing the discourse of right-wing populism, as it constitutes the most potent political force within the broader European populist movement and is therefore central to understanding the phenomenon.

<Figure 3> 

This raises the question what crisis narrative do these European right-wing populist parties employ to mobilize the public? To answer this, the present study analyzes their official election manifestos, assessing the intensity of both the ‘Cultural Threat’ frame and the ‘Economic Deprivation’ frame.

This trend becomes even more pronounced when analyzed at the level of individual parties. <Figure 4> presents a bar graph comparing the average intensity of the two frames for each party. The analysis unequivocally demonstrates that for the right-wing populist parties central to this study—namely, France’s National Rally (Rassemblement National), Italy’s Lega, and Spain’s Vox—the ‘Cultural Threat’ frame (yellow bar) overwhelmingly dominates the ‘Economic Deprivation’ frame (green bar). For the National Rally and Vox, the score for the Cultural Threat frame exceeds 80, demonstrating an intensity more than double that of the economic frame. In contrast, the left-wing populist parties, Spain’s Podemos and France’s La France Insoumise, exhibit the opposite pattern, with the Economic Deprivation frame being predominantly higher. This indicates that the crisis narratives of European populism are clearly delineated along ideological lines, strongly corroborating the argument that the core mobilizing force of right-wing populism is rooted in ‘culture.’

<Figure 4> 

The question then arises what, specifically, do they mean by this ‘cultural threat’? An analysis of the core keywords used by each party provides a qualitative answer to this question.

<Figure 5> presents a table analyzing the specific keywords for each party, revealing the concrete terms and logic that commonly constitute the ‘Cultural Threat’ frame among right-wing populist parties.

<Figure 5> 

A detailed examination reveals that the keywords for France’s National Rally center on ‘national identity,’ ‘sovereignty,’ ‘immigration control,’ ‘border control,’ and ‘patriotism.’ Within their discourse, these terms are not used in isolation but are strategically interwoven to construct a narrative where the very fabric of France - its distinct identity, cultural heritage, and national autonomy - is presented as being actively threatened. For instance, ‘immigration control’ is often framed not merely as a policy measure but as an urgent defense against the ‘loss of national identity’ and the ‘erosion of sovereignty,’ implying that uncontrolled influxes undermine the foundational cultural cohesion of the nation. Economic keywords, such as ‘protectionism’ and ‘economic patriotism,’ are then presented as instrumental tools, directly derived from this cultural imperative, to safeguard ‘French workers’ and national wealth, which are perceived to be under siege due to these cultural breaches. This constructs a narrative in which France’s distinct identity and sovereignty are threatened by uncontrolled immigration and supranational bodies like the EU. In contrast, their economic keywords, such as ‘protectionism’ and ‘economic patriotism,’ are framed primarily as economic instruments for defending cultural boundaries. In other words, economic policies designed to protect ‘French workers’ are predicated on the cultural logic that external threats, such as immigration and globalization, must first be curtailed.

In the case of Italy’s far-right party, Lega, the cultural keywords include ‘Northern Italy,’ ‘anti-immigration,’ ‘security,’ ‘national sovereignty,’ and ‘border control.’ Here, ‘Northern Italy’ functions as a regional identitarian anchor, often juxtaposed with ‘anti-immigration’ sentiments to create a localized cultural threat narrative that then scales up to the national level. ‘Security’ and ‘border control’ are depicted as immediate responses to protect this dual identity (regional and national) from external demographic pressures, which are implicitly linked to the perceived breakdown of social order and cultural norms. Economic keywords like ‘flat tax’ and support for ‘small businesses’ are contextualized within this defensive framework, promising to redirect resources and benefits exclusively to ‘true Italians’ by alleviating the perceived burdens imposed by immigration. This reveals a strategy of simultaneously leveraging both regional and national identities while framing immigration as the primary external threat to social security. Their economic keywords, such as the ‘flat tax’ and support for ‘small businesses,’ are linked to a logic that promises to redirect benefits to ‘true Italians’ by cutting the social costs associated with immigrants.

Spain’s far-right party, Vox, focuses on ‘Spanish unity,’ ‘national identity,’ ‘immigration control,’ and ‘traditional values.’ The discourse of Vox constructs a powerful dual cultural threat narrative. ‘Immigration control’ is explicitly framed as essential to preserve ‘Spanish unity’ and ‘national identity’ from external threats, while ‘traditional values’ are invoked to counter internal challenges, such as separatist movements (e.g., Catalan independence). These internal and external cultural challenges are presented as directly jeopardizing the unified cultural community of ‘Spain.’ Consequently, any economic grievances discussed are firmly situated within this overarching cultural struggle, positing that national prosperity and social cohesion can only be restored once these fundamental cultural and identitarian threats are decisively addressed. This points to a dual cultural threat narrative that frames not only external immigration but also internal separatist movements, such as the Catalan independence movement, as threats to the unified cultural community of ‘Spain.’

In summary, European right-wing populist parties consistently employ the ‘Cultural Threat’ frame as their core strategy for mobilizing the public. They define uncontrolled immigration, the loss of national sovereignty, and the erosion of traditional values as the fundamental crisis confronting society. Furthermore, economic hardships are presented as a direct consequence of this cultural crisis. That is, they construct the causal narrative that “because our identity and borders have been compromised, our jobs and welfare are now under threat.” These findings stand in stark contrast to the American populist narrative, which will be analyzed in the following section.

In contrast to European populism, which is centered on institutionalized ‘parties’ and employs a ‘cultural threat’ frame, American populism manifests around specific ‘leaders’ within the institutional framework of a robust two-party system, and it exhibits the distinct characteristic of placing ‘Economic Deprivation’ at the core of its narrative. This becomes particularly evident through a comparative analysis of the right-wing populism of Donald Trump and the left-wing populism of Bernie Sanders, who are located at opposing ends of the political spectrum. This section provides an in-depth analysis of the speech texts and related visual data of both leaders to argue that while their crisis narratives are ideologically opposed, they share a common structural foundation: identifying ‘the economy’ as the fundamental source of the problem.

To gain an intuitive understanding of the linguistic landscape of American populism, it is necessary to first examine the word clouds in <Figure 6> and <Figure 7>, which visualize the core vocabulary from the speeches of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The two figures clearly illustrate that they operate from distinct worldviews. Sanders’s vocabulary is concentrated on the domestic socioeconomic system and issues of class inequality, featuring prominent terms such as ‘healthcare,’ ‘government,’ ‘class,’ ‘billionaires,’ and ‘working.’ In contrast, Trump’s vocabulary is focused on the nation’s status, its borders, and its external economic relationships, with key terms including ‘great,’ ‘country,’ ‘america,’ ‘border,’ and ‘trade.’

<Figure 6> 

<Figure 7> 

This distinction is confirmed more clearly and quantitatively in the bar graph presented in <Figure 8>. Sanders’s most frequent keywords are ‘healthcare,’ ‘medicare,’ ‘class,’ and ‘billionaires,’ demonstrating that his political focus lies in universal welfare and the resolution of class inequality. Conversely, Trump’s top keywords are ‘great,’ ‘country,’ ‘border,’ and ‘america,’ which reveal a nationalist aspiration to restore the nation’s glory and protect its borders from external threats.

<Figure 8> 

However, beneath these apparent distinctions lies a more significant commonality. Unlike their European right-wing populist counterparts, neither leader elevates ‘identity,’ ‘sovereignty,’ or ‘immigration’ per se to the status of primary keywords in their narrative. Instead, the language of both leaders converges on the broader category of ‘economic problems.’ Sanders diagnoses ‘class-based economic inequality’ as the core crisis, while Trump identifies ‘national economic decline.’ This is considered the primary evidence suggesting that American populism, irrespective of its left or right orientation, operates centrally around the ‘Economic Deprivation’ frame.

Donald Trump’s populist narrative is constructed upon the perception that a once-great America has declined and been exploited economically due to external adversaries and a corrupt internal elite. In his rhetoric, the ‘border’ and ‘illegal’ immigration are framed less as a purely cultural threat, as seen in the European cases, and more as an economic and security threat that drains national wealth, endangers American jobs, and engenders crime. The recurrent keywords in his speeches—such as ‘trade,’ ‘tariffs,’ ‘China,’ and ‘jobs’—demonstrate that his diagnosis of the crisis is fundamentally rooted in economic nationalism.

The bigram network analysis presented in <Figure 9> provides a clearer illustration of Trump’s narrative structure. This network visualizes key thematic clusters by linking pairs of words that frequently appear together in his speeches. The analysis reveals the formation of major clusters around media criticism centered on “fake-news,” border issues centered on “illegal-immigration,” and economic policies such as “independent-energy” and “slash-inflation.” Notably, the word “border” is strongly connected to security-related terms like “criminal,” “enforcement,” and “violent.” This indicates that he frames the immigration issue not as a cultural conflict, but as a problem of systemic failure—specifically, a breakdown of law and order and national security.

<Figure 9> 

Furthermore, Trump strategically employs highly negative emotional language to emphasize the severity of this economic decline and the associated security threats. A separately conducted word cloud analysis of negative sentiment vocabulary reveals that his speeches are replete with words such as ‘bad,’ ‘worst,’ ‘horrible,’ ‘crooked,’ ‘illegal,’ ‘fake,’ and ‘criminals.’ When compared to positive sentiment vocabulary, the frequency of negative terms like ‘bad’ and ‘worst’ is found to be as high as that of positive terms like ‘beautiful’ and ‘love.’ This can be interpreted as proof that he employs a typical populist style: framing the status quo as a total ‘disaster’ and ‘failure’ to justify his own emergence as a powerful savior.

Although ideologically opposed to Trump, Bernie Sanders also centers his crisis narrative on the ‘Economic Deprivation’ frame. However, his ‘enemy’ is not external nations or immigrants, but an internal one: ‘the billionaire class’ and the allied ‘corporate establishment.’ The prominence of ‘healthcare’ and ‘medicare’ as the most important keywords in his speeches signifies that he locates the root of all social problems in a structure of extreme economic inequality, wherein the majority of the population cannot even enjoy its basic rights.

An analysis of Sanders’s speeches reveals that he establishes a clear class-based conflict, positing that the ‘working class’ is systematically exploited by a small upper echelon, personified by ‘Wall Street’ and ‘greed.’ The solutions he proposes, such as ‘Medicare for All,’ ‘tuition-free college,’ and ‘raising the minimum wage,’ all constitute systemic reforms aimed at correcting this structure of economic inequality. In his rhetoric, the ‘crisis’ is not the contamination of national identity or culture, but the erosion of democracy itself by a powerful economic minority.

The empirical analyses in the preceding two sections have clearly demonstrated the existence of systematic and fundamental differences between the crisis narratives employed by European and American populism. The findings from Section 4.1 revealed that prominent European right-wing populist parties, such as France’s National Rally, Italy’s Lega, and Spain’s Vox, utilize the ‘Cultural Threat’ frame as their core mobilization strategy. Their manifestos are structured around keywords like ‘immigration control,’ ‘national identity,’ and ‘sovereignty,’ with economic problems presented as derivative consequences of this cultural and identitarian crisis. In stark contrast, the analysis in Section 4.2 showed that both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, despite being at opposite ideological poles, center their narratives on the ‘Economic Deprivation’ frame. Although Trump’s ‘economic nationalism’ and Sanders’s critique of ‘class inequality’ aim for different solutions, they share a common narrative structure that identifies the root of social problems in the failure of the economic system.

This clear divergence in crisis narratives cannot be explained merely by coincidence or the unique cultural characteristics of each society. This study contends that this difference is the result of strategic choices systematically shaped by the disparate political opportunity structures of each region: namely, Europe’s multi-party systems and America’s two-party system. Political institutions act as a key mediating variable that defines the range of rhetorical strategies available to populist actors and enhances the utility of specific narratives.

Europe’s multi-party and proportional representation systems provide a powerful incentive for political parties to seek electoral viability through ‘ideological differentiation’ and ‘niche voter mobilization.’ The primary objective for a far-right populist party is not to win an outright majority, but to secure a meaningful parliamentary foothold by mobilizing a segment of the electorate that is highly sensitive to specific issues. In this context, the ‘Cultural Threat’ frame possesses significant strategic value. As confirmed by the keyword analysis in Section 4.1, issues such as ‘immigration,’ ‘identity,’ and ‘security’ are exceptionally effective at directly stimulating the emotional and existential anxieties of voters, thereby building a homogenous and highly loyal support base. Through this frame, far-right parties establish a distinct ideological identity that differentiates them from mainstream conservative parties, creating fissures in the existing political landscape and carving out their own political space. In short, while economic issues involve a complex web of interests across various classes and can be subject to compromise, cultural issues are more advantageous for consolidating a support base by establishing a non-negotiable ‘us versus them’ dichotomy.

Conversely, America’s two-party system and winner-take-all electoral model impose a fundamentally different set of strategic imperatives on populist actors. In an American political environment where the emergence of a successful third party is virtually impossible, populists must utilize the platforms of the existing major parties to acquire power. This inevitably requires ‘broad coalition-building’ across diverse demographic groups to win party primaries and succeed in a nationwide general election.

Under these institutional constraints, the strategic utility of an exclusive ‘Cultural Threat’ frame diminishes, as it risks alienating potential segments of the required coalition. Instead, the ‘Economic Deprivation’ frame, with its more universal appeal, serves as a far more effective adhesive for uniting voters from different backgrounds into a single coalition. As the analysis in Section 4.2 illustrated, the key to Trump’s victory in the 2016 Republican primary and the general election was his success in appealing beyond the traditional Republican base to the working-class voters of the ‘Rust Belt,’ a traditional Democratic stronghold. His language of ‘Economic Deprivation’—centered on ‘unfair trade’ and ‘jobs moving overseas’—was able to directly resonate with voters feeling economic anxiety, transcending racial and religious lines. Similarly, Bernie Sanders’s surge in the Democratic primaries was possible because he galvanized a diverse coalition of young and progressive voters under the universal banner of combating economic inequality against the ‘billionaire class.’ In essence, the two-party system tends to compel populists to center their narrative on economic issues to ensure their message resonates with the broadest possible electoral coalition.

In conclusion, American populism, irrespective of its left or right orientation, diagnoses ‘economic deprivation’ as the fundamental crisis confronting society. Donald Trump identifies national economic decline and external economic exploitation as the core of the problem, while Bernie Sanders points to domestic class-based economic inequality and internal exploitation.

This reveals a fundamental difference from the narrative of European right-wing populism. As summarized in <Figure 10>, whereas the European narrative establishes the causal relationship “Cultural Threat (immigration) → Economic Deprivation (job loss),” the American populist narrative inverts this causality. Trump’s logic flows from “Economic Deprivation (factory relocation, unfair trade) → Socio-Cultural Collapse (crime, community disintegration),” while Sanders’s logic proceeds from “Economic Deprivation (class exploitation) → All Social Problems (crises in healthcare, education, and democracy).” In other words, both American cases share an ‘economic determinist’ narrative structure, in which economic problems are the root of all other issues.

<Figure 10> 

This narrative divergence is the result of a strategic choice stemming from the structural differences in political systems. Unlike Europe’s multi-party systems, the American two-party system tends to compel populist leaders to appeal to a broader coalition of economically anxious voters within a major party, rather than representing only a specific cultural group. This structural pressure acts as the key dynamic that causes the language of American populism to converge on the central axis of ‘the economy.’