In many middle- and high-income countries, democracy is under pressure. Populist parties are electorally successful and even participate in governance in several countries. This often goes hand in hand with the erosion of democratic institutions. All too often, this is interpreted as a reaction from the losers of globalization and the postmodern upheaval. However, in this project, we want to investigate the dynamic relationships between micro-, meso-, and macro-level processes that contribute to questioning democratic institutions. This mainly involves considering how the political system and political actors themselves contribute to this and become more alienated from (parts of) the ‘people’. New parties and movements have jumped into the gap left by the classical institutions.