How we devised our ‘How populist are you?’ quiz

The Guardian’s “How populist are you?” quiz has been devised by Team Populism, a group of academics studying the subject in universities around the world. Answers are aggregated to position each respondent on a matrix combining populism and conventional left/right ideology.

The model is based on the so-called ideational definition of populism, using definitions by the political scientists Cas Mudde, a professor at the university of Georgia, and Kirk Hawkins, an associate professor at Brigham Young University. Hawkins was one of four academics who helped build the quiz. The others were Bruno Castanho Silva (University of Cologne), Nina Wiesehomeier (IE University), and Levente Littvay (Central European University).

The placement of the political leaders was done by asking experts on each politician to complete the same survey as if they were that politician. To make this more reliable, several experts – academics, journalists and others – were asked to complete the survey for each politician, and an average taken of their interpretations.

Team Populism offer a fuller explanation of the academic research on which they based the methodology (pdf).

The full list of leaders and the experts who helped plot their positions on the results map is below.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador: Viridiana Rios, Harvard University; Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Diego Portales University; Alan Riding, ex-New York Times; Stéphanie Rousseau, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru; Carlos Menéndez, Diego Portales University.

Angela Merkel: Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser; Gustavo A Flores-Macias, Cornell University; Mark Rice-Oxley, the Guardian; Philip Oltermann, the Guardian; Matt Qvortrup, Coventry University; Michael Koß, LMU Munich; Marcel Lewandowsky, Helmut Schmidt University; Kate Connolly, the Guardian.

Barack Obama: Kirk Hawkins, Brigham Young University; Sheila Croucher, Miami University; Kenneth Roberts, Cornell University; Mark Rolfe, University of New South Wales; Olivier Jutel, University of Otago.

Bernie Sanders: Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser; Kirk Hawkins; Sheila Croucher; Kenneth Roberts; Paul Lewis, the Guardian; Gary Younge, the Guardian; Joshua Dyck, University of Massachusetts; Olivier Jutel; Levente Littvay, Central European University; Peter Kivisto, Augustana College.

Donald Trump: Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser; Kirk Hawkins; Kenneth Roberts; Joshua Dyck; Levente Littvay; Sabrina Siddiqui, the Guardian; Peter Kivisto.

Emmanuel Macron: Matteo Cavallaro, University Paris 13; Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, City College of New York; Ivan Llamazares, University of Salamanca; Angelique Chrisafis, the Guardian; Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, UNED.

Evo Morales: Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser; Alan Riding; Stéphanie Rousseau; Kirk Hawkins; James Dunkerley, Queen Mary.

Matteo Salvini: Andrea LP Pirro, Scuola Normale Superiore; Matteo Cavallaro; Carlo Invernizzi Accetti; Ivan Llamazares; Angela Giuffrida, the Guardian; Matteo Pucciarelli, La Repubblica; Mattia Diletti, Sapienza University of Rome; Lisa Zanotti, Leiden University; Pietro Castelli Gattinara, University of Oslo; Caterina Froio, Oxford University.

Nigel Farage: Massimiliano Panarari, LUISS; Peter Walker, the Guardian; Richard Hayton, University of Leeds; Paul Webb, University of Sussex; David Lawrence, Hope Not Hate; Robert Ford, University of Manchester; Richard Whitaker, University of Leicester.

Pablo Iglesias: Raul Gomez, University of Liverpool; Antonio Barroso, LSE; Irene Martín Cortes, UAM; Santiago Anria, Dickinson College; Enrique Arroyas, UCAM; Jorge Galindo, University of Geneva; Pedro Luis Pérez Díaz, UCAM.

Viktor Orban: Andrea LP Pirro; Levente Littvay; Kevin Deegan-Krause, Wayne State University; Andras Toth, Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Istvan Grajczjar, King Sigismund College; András Bozóki, Central European University; Bartek Pytlas, LMU.