RELIGIOSITY AND NEW POPULISM

Religiosity is a factor influencing political activity. Its impact may support democratic attitudes or encourage populist tendencies. Research so far has not found earlier co-occurrence of religiosity with populist attitudes in Poland. However, the social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has made it possible to look for changes in this respect. The main social effects in the new populism dimension have involved the strengthening of existing and the emergence of new conspiracy theories. The results of our research have allowed us to positively verify the research model and confirm the conjecture that religiosity is a significant predictor of new populist attitudes, which may contribute to a change of the democratic state idea. Unlike the classical type of populism, understood as an ideology, new populism is explained in terms of worldview, helping individuals to understand the complexity of the surrounding world using functional generalisations.