Nervi rei publicae: local governments as economic populists?

ABSTRACT

This article introduces a novel Mixed Populism Indication approach to the study of economic populism in the democratic polity to examine populism at the level of local government in the Czech Republic. In particular, we apply quantitative methods to a financial data of 5804 local government units sample to assess economic populism. This quantitative selection is developed on the principles of financial analysis, which form the basis of the algorithm we propose to process financial data. This is followed by an in-depth, qualitative evaluation of election results and the spatial context of suspected cases. From the results for the municipal environment, we identify populism as strategy used by some local governments. As a part of this strategy, local authorities target outsiders (non-residents) who own property. Although this policy of hostility to outsiders goes against the rational economic interests of the residents, they support this policy in local elections. Finally, this article argues that local political leaders in small municipalities act as populists in shaping tax policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Populism
• economic populism
• local government
• budget policy
• Czech Republic

Acknowledgments

We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bohuslav Pernica

Bohuslav Pernica researcher at the Masaryk University; he focuses on issues of poorly functioning public policy (e.g. corruption, populism, etc.) on the level of central and local government in post-communist environment in his research.

Jan Fuka

Jan Fuka assistant professor and head of the Department of Administrative and Social Sciences at the Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Pardubice. His research interests include public administration, security, public management, and ethics. He lectures at his home university and partner universities in Europe.

Robert Baťa

Robert Baťa associate professor in the Department of Administrative and Social Sciences at the Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Pardubice. His scientific field includes environmental sciences, sustainability, and public policies. He lectures at his home university and also cooperates with other European universities, mostly in Germany.

Pavel Zdražil

Pavel Zdražil assistant professor at the University of Pardubice; he focuses on the issues of regional development, disparities, and integration processes in Central and Eastern European countries in his research. He has authored or co-authored about 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications.