A new populism? The case of Patrick Buchanan

Many observers of contemporary society hold that the traditional categories of right and left are breaking down or changing. In the 1996 campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination in the United States, Patrick Buchanan achieved some success by combining social conservatism with criticism of business. This combination could be expected to be particularly attractive to the working classes, so that Buchanan's campaign might signal the beginning of an ideological and class realignment. This paper uses national survey data to examine the social and ideological bases of Buchanan's support, and finds that: (1) support for Buchanan declined steadily with education, but not with income (2) Buchanan's supporters did not report particularly high levels of economic hardship and were conservative on economic issues. Thus, there were no signs of a dramatic departure from traditional alignments. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.