A behavioral foundation for understanding unethical populist leadership

Purpose This contribution is set up as a conceptual paper aimed at the development of a framework for a behavioral explanation and a moral assessment of populist leadership. Design/methodology/approach A literature review is performed, resulting in 16 propositions. The propositions can be used for a QCA study. Findings The framework is conceptually extended to the exercise of control by trust and distrust in the relation between leaders and potential followers. The dominance of symbolic expressi