genealogy Article Modern Forms of Populism and Social Policies: Personal Values, Populist Attitudes, and Ingroup Definitions in Support of Left-Wing and Right-Wing Welfare Policies in Italy Anna Miglietta * and Barbara Loera   Citation: Miglietta, Anna, and Barbara Loera. 2021. Modern Forms of Populism and Social Policies: Personal Values, Populist Attitudes, and Ingroup Definitions in Support of Left-Wing and Right-Wing Welfare Policies in Italy. Genealogy 5: 60. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy 5030060 Received: 13 April 2021 Accepted: 16 June 2021 Published: 23 June 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Department of Psychology, University of Turin, 10 Via Verdi, 10124 Torino, Italy; barbara.loera@unito.it * Correspondence: anna.miglietta@unito.it Abstract: We analyzed the relationship between modern forms of populism and citizen support for exclusive welfare policies and proposals, and we focused on support for left-wing- and right- wing-oriented welfare policies enacted or proposed during the Lega Nord (LN)–Five Star Movement (FSM) government in Italy (2018–2019). In light of the theoretical perspective of political ideology as motivated by social cognition, we examined citizens’ support for the two policies considering adherence to populist attitudes, agreement on the criteria useful to define ingroup membership, and personal values. We also took into account the role of cognitive sophistication in populism avoidance. A total of 785 Italian adults (F = 56.6; mean age = 35.8) completed an online survey in the summer of 2019 based on the following: support for populist policies and proposals, political ideologies and positioning, personal values, and ingroup boundaries. We used correlation and regression analyses. The results highlight the relationships between populism and political conservatism. Populism was related to the vertical and horizontal borders defining the “people”; cognitive sophistication was not a relevant driver. We identified some facilitating factors that could promote adherence to and support for public policies inspired by the values of the right or of the left, without a true ideological connotation. Keywords: modern populism; policy support; exclusive welfare; personal values; political ideologies 1. Introduction We aimed to analyze the relationship between modern populism and support for social policies using the generalized favor of Italian citizens towards the welfare measures issued by the 2018–2019 government as a case study. In that year, the government was led by the Five Star Movement (FSM) and the Lega Nord (LN). As is known (e.g., Ivaldi et al. 2017; Carlotti and Stella 2020), both parties frame their political discourse in populist rhetoric, but differ in their foci on societal issues. LN shows a defined alt-right populist party profile: its main political goals are the defense of national sovereignty against the European Union (EU) and the disparities caused by immigration and multiculturalism. Due to their emphasis on the values of security, conformity and obedience, LN political discourse is framed in authoritarian–populist rhetoric (Norris and Inglehart 2019). The ideological frame of the FSM is more ambiguous, as the movement eludes the common classification of populist parties. Norris and Inglehart (2019) include the movement among political actors who share more liberal values than authoritarian–populist parties; however, others underline that it does not display either a (left- or right-wing) radical profile or a fully left–libertarian or anti-austerity profile (Hobolt and Tilley 2016; see also Van Hauwaert and Van Kessel 2018). Due to this difference, the policy indications on welfare issued by the LN–FSM government have stressed the contradictions between the authoritarian instincts of the right and the egalitarian instincts of the left. In a similar frame, it would have been reasonable to expect mutual critiques from the two parties’ electorates. Nevertheless, the FSM–LN government enjoyed robust and generalized support. A public opinion poll run on a national sample after one year in charge reported that 52% of Italian voters approved Genealogy 2021, 5, 60. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy5030060 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/genealogy