Dealing with populists in government: a framework for analysis

Abstract

There is growing research on populist actors and their impact on the democratic system, but little has been written on how to deal with populist actors in government. To respond to this question, in this article we develop a theoretical framework that distinguishes three levels of analysis. First, we identify the set of domestic and external actors that can try to cope with the coming into power of populist forces. Second, we offer an overview of the different strategies that can be employed to react against populist actors in government. Third, we argue that it is important to consider the timing of the reactions. In addition, we also present a brief summary of the articles that are part of this special issue.

Keywords:

• populism
• democracy
• political extremism
• Eastern Europe
• Latin America
• Western Europe

Acknowledgments

A previous version of this contribution was presented at the ECPR joint sessions of workshops, which took place in Salamanca (Spain) in April 2014. For helpful comments, we would like to thank the participants of the workshop called “Defending or Damaging Democracy? The Establishment's Reactions to Political Extremists in Liberal Democracies”. We also want to thank the journal editors for their extremely helpful suggestions.

Notes on contributors

Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the School of Political Science at Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile. He is the coeditor with Cas Mudde of Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) as well as the coeditor with Juan Pablo Luna of The Resilience of the Latin American Right (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). He wishes to acknowledge support from the Chilean National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FONDECYT project 1140101) and the Chilean Millennium Science Initiative (project NS130008).

Paul Taggart is Professor of Politics and co-Director of the Sussex European Institute at the University of Sussex. He is author of The New Populism and the New Politics (Macmillan, 1996), Populism (Open University Press, 2000), coeditor (with Aleks Szczerbiak) of Opposing Europe? The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism (Oxford University Press, 2008), and coeditor (with Katharine Adeney) of the special issue on ‘The Future of Democracy’ Government and Opposition (2015).

ORCID

Paul Taggart http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1535-3015

Notes

1. Akkerman and de Lange, “Radical Right Parties in Office”; de Lange, “New Alliances”.

2. On this topic, see amongst others, Burnell and Youngs, New Challenges to Democratization; Alonso et al., The Future of Representative Democracy; Norris, Democratic Deficit; Papadopoulos, Democracy in Crisis?; Merkel, Demokratie und Krise.

3. Abts and Rummens, “Populism versus Democracy”; Canovan, The People; Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist”; Plattner, “Populism, Pluralism, and Liberal Democracy”; Rovira Kaltwasser, “The Responses of Populism”; Stanley, “The Thin Ideology of Populism”; Taggart, “Populism and Representative Politics in Contemporary Europe”.

4. Armony and Schamis, “Babel in Democratization Studies,” 5; Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics.

5. Rovira Kaltwasser, “The Responses of Populism”.

6. Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism in Europe and the Americas; Rovira Kaltwasser, “The Ambivalence of Populism”.

7. Albertazzi and McDonnell, Twenty-First Century Populism; Canovan, The People; de la Torre and Arnson, Latin American Populism in the Twenty-First Century; Laclau, On Populist Reason; Mény and Surel, Democracies and the Populist Challenge; Panizza, Populism and the Mirror of Democracy.

8. Albertazzi and McDonnell, Twenty-First Century Populism; de la Torre, Populist Seduction in Latin America; Hawkins, Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism; Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe; Rovira Kaltwasser, “Latin American Populism”.

9. Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist,” 543; Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 23.

10. Hawkins, “Is Chávez Populist?”; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, “Populism”.

11. Plattner, “Populism, Pluralism, and Liberal Democracy”.

12. Ochoa Espejo, The Time of Popular Sovereignty.

13. Hawkins, Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism.

14. O'Donnell et al., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule; Higley and Gunther, Elites and Democratic Consolidation; Linz and Stepan, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes.

15. Brown, The Dynamics of Democratization; Burnell, “Promoting Democracy”; Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán, Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America; Stoner and McFaul, Transitions to Democracy.

16. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism.

17. Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism in Europe and the Americas.

18. Betz and Johnson, “Against the Current”.

19. Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, 14.

20. Meguid, “Competition between Unequals”.

21. Art, Inside the Radical Right.

22. Taggart, Populism, Ch. 8.

23. For a discussion of different types of linkages between parties and constituencies, see the work of Kitschelt, “Linkages Between Citizens”, as well as Morgan's path-breaking study on party system collapse, Bankrupt Representation and Party System Collapse.

24. Schedler, “What is Democratic Consolidation?”

25. Van Cott, From Movements to Parties.

26. Vibert, The Rise of the Unelected.

27. Skocpol and Williamson, The Tea Party.

28. Art, The Politics of the Nazi Past; Art, “Reacting to the Radical Right”.

29. Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders.

30. Müller, “Defending Democracy within the EU”.

31. Cooper and Legler, “A Tale of Two Mesas”.

32. Capoccia, “Militant Democracy,” 208.

33. Löwenstein, “Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights”.

34. Müller, “Militant Democracy,” 1254.

35. Rovira Kaltwasser, “The Responses of Populism”.

36. Capoccia, Defending Democracy.

37. Rummens and Abts, “Defending Democracy”.

38. Ibid., 656.

39. Ibid., 657.

40. Downs, Political Extremism in Democracies.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid., 20.

43. A similar approach can be found in Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism in Europe and the Americas, 213–4.

44. Capoccia, “Militant Democracy,” 214.

45. Levitsky and Loxton, “Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism”.

46. Carrión, The Fujimori Legacy.

47. Legler et al., Promoting Democracy in the Americas.

48. O'Donnell, “Transitions, Continuities, and Paradoxes”.

49. Morgan, Bankrupt Representation and Party System Collapse.

50. de la Torre, Populist Seduction in Latin America; de la Torre and Arnson, Latin American Populism; Hawkins, Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism; Levitsky and Roberts, The Resurgence of the Latin American Left; Weyland et al., Leftist Governments in Latin America.

51. Albertazzi and McDonnell, Twenty-First Century Populism; Art, Inside the Radical Right; Berezin, Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times; Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism; Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe; Rydgren, Class Politics and the Radical Right.

52. See Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe.

53. King et al., Designing Social Inquiry.

54. See Weyland, “Neoliberal Populism in Latin America” and Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism in Europe and the Americas, for exceptions to this.

55. Stanley, “Confrontation by Default”.

56. Batory, “Populists in Government”.

57. Hawkins, “Responding to Radical Populism”.

58. de la Torre and Ortíz, “Populist Polarization”.

59. Fallend and Heinisch, “Collaboration as Successful Strategy”.

60. Verbeek and Zaslove, “Italy”.

Additional information

Funding

This special issue originated in the framework of the project “Populism in Europe and the Americas: A Cross-Regional Perspective” funded by the British Academy International Partnership & Mobility Scheme [grant number 166098]. We also would like to acknowledge support from the Chilean National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FONDECYT project 1140101) and the Chilean Millennium Science Initiative (project NS130008).