Constitutional Democracy

The research paper design assignment consists of an 8-10-page (double space) paper.  The structure of the paper should include the following points: A statement of the research question and an explanation of its relevance An explanation of your theory and a statement of the specific hypothesis to be tested Descriptions of the sample and variables included in the analysis Presentation of methods (i.e. how you plan to test your hypothesis) Discussion and conclusions Your references should use the APSA format.  Please write about the political phenomenon of Populism. The research question is: “What has led to the intense development of populism in countries with a constitutional democracy?” The hypothesis is: “Populism has gained traction in recent years because people have increasingly been losing faith in their elected officials, seeing them as a corrupt elite.” The independent variable would be people losing faith in their elected officials. The dependent variable would be populism gaining traction. I believe that as Western nations are realizing that their constitutional democracies are failing them, they are looking for people to blame. Of course, the logical blame would land on elected officials who are meant to uphold this democracy. The rise of populism in the U.S. can be seen in the 2016 election. Many folks voted for Trump because “he is a businessman, and therefore more trustworthy than politicians,” who they believe have been failing the people for years. However, people are really just looking for anyone to blame. Populism can become a steady track towards fascism, but it is also oftentimes mislabeled. As bipartisanship in the U.S. has deepened, populism has naturally found a spotlight. Brexit led to a labeling of all opposition groups as populist, whether left or right. Sources and helpful articles: https://www.britannica.com/topic/populism https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/what-is-populism/607600/ http://www.obela.org/system/files/Populism.pdf https://www2.daad.de/medien/mudde_rovira_kaltwasser_2017_populism.pdf Please only reference scholarly/peer reviewed sources in the paper itself.