Populists in Power

Around the World

JORDAN KYLE
LIMOR GULTCHIN

NOVEMBER 2018

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3283962

 Populism in Power Around the World1

Jordan Kyle and Limor Gultchin

Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

November 2018

Abstract. Populism is dramatically shifting the global political landscape. In this paper, we
summarize the literature defining populism and identify some of its main features. Relying on the
extensive literature on populism, we introduce a new database on populism in power around the world
(1990-2018). Using this database, we discuss some of the key trends in varieties of populism and
regional trends. By aggregating much of the accumulated knowledge on populism into a single global
database, we hope to facilitate systematic and cross-regional studies on the causes and effects of
populism.

1
We thank Louise Paulsen, Andrew Bennett, George Elliott, Frankie Hill, Maxwell Simon and Selena Zhao for
excellent research assistance. Caitlin Andrews-Lee, Hadas Aron and Yascha Mounk have provided invaluable
feedback.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3283962

Watershed political events in recent years—the election of President Donald Trump in the United
States (US), the Brexit vote, the electoral success of Italy’s Five Star Movement, Brazil’s sudden
lurch to the right with the election of President Jair Bolsonaro, the doubling of support for populist
parties across Europe2—have brought the word “populism” out of the annals of academic journals and
into the headlines. Yet, it is a slippery concept that is too often used pejoratively to describe politics
that those in the mainstream do not like.

This paper is the beginning of a series on populists in power that seeks to build a systematic
understanding of the long-term effects of populism on politics, economics and international affairs.
Understanding populism—and its effects—is central to combating its appeal. To build this
understanding across a wide range of social, economic and political contexts, a global accounting is
needed of when and where populists have been in power. To do so, we have built a global database of
populists in power.

This series begins from the understanding that populism often arises from serious and legitimate
concerns about the quality of institutions and political representation in countries. Thus, a global
accounting of populists in power is by no means an accounting of bad leaders. By contrast,
populism’s appeal is often based on real concerns about the failure of mainstream parties to address
issues that citizens are worried about and the failure of institutions to deliver policy outcomes that
matter to citizens. Populism can also arise in contexts of profound economic failures, where economic
systems do require disruptive transformation to deliver broad-based growth.

It is often lamented that populism threatens to destroy independent and objective institutions that are
essential to well-functioning democracies.3 Yet all too often, by the time populism arises, these
institutions—like the media, the judiciary and independent governmental agencies—have long not
been working as promised. Populists break onto the scene by pointing to these flaws in the established
political system—flaws that mainstream parties may have been sweeping under the carpet for years—
and promising far-reaching solutions. Raising political questions that have been too long depoliticised
and promising institutional reforms are necessary and important initiatives that political leaders
should undertake. The problem with populists is that they raise these issues as a means of riling their
base and dividing societies. The solutions they promise, however, are fantasies, characterised by
vague ideas and unfulfillable promises.

Moving towards a systematic understanding of populism requires laying aside questions of whether
populism itself is good or bad, and instead examining where it exists and what range of political,
social and economic outcomes have been associated with it across different contexts. A cursory
glance at populists around the world reveals that these outcomes are highly varied. Some populists
rise to power in countries with long histories of social exclusion and use their popular appeal—and a
strongman governing style—to point the way to more inclusive societies. Others rise to power and
dismantle democratic checks and balances and ruthlessly subjugate any opposition from the get-go.

2
Martin Eiermann, Yascha Mounk and Limor Gultchin, European Populism: Trends, Threats, and Future
Prospects, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, 29 December 2017, https://institute.global/insight/renewing-
centre/european-populism-trends-threats-and-future-prospects.
3
Sheri Berman, “Populism Is a Problem: Elite Technocrats Aren’t the Solution”, Foreign Policy, 20 December
2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/20/populism-is-a-problem-elitist-technocrats-arent-the-solution/.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3283962

Others still thwart independent institutions and democratic processes but deliver economic growth.
These outcomes—and how and why countries get there—are the subjects of subsequent publications
in this series.

This first paper has a more modest goal: to define populism from a global perspective, relying on the
extensive literature on populism, and to identify some of its key trends since 1990. Only with a clear
and systematic understanding of the phenomenon can political leaders begin to offer meaningful and
credible alternatives to populism.

Reaching this clear and systematic understanding, however, is easier said than done. Even among the
community of populism experts, there are disagreements about how to define populism and which
actors qualify as populists. This paper puts forward a simple definition of populism and relies on a
wealth of academic and expert knowledge to identify cases of populism around the world, seeking to
cover those cases on which there is the most consensus. Yet, any effort that did not acknowledge
significant difficulty and uncertainty in such an endeavour would be insincere.

Populists are united by two fundamental claims: the ‘true people’ are locked into a conflict with
outsiders; and nothing should constrain the will of the true people of a country. Rather than seeing
politics as a battleground between different policy positions, populists attribute a singular common
good to the people: a policy goal that cannot be debated based on evidence but that derives from the
common sense of the people. This common good, populists argue, should be the aim of politics. The
nation’s establishment elites are part of a corrupt and self-serving cartel that does not represent the
interests of the true people and is indifferent to this common good. Anti-establishment politics is thus
a core characteristic of populism. Therefore, populism emphasises a direct connection with its
supporters, unmediated by political parties, civil-society groups or the media.

Beyond these two unifying claims, populists vary substantially in how they define the essential social
conflict. In recent debates, populism is often equated with nativism, an ideology “which holds that
states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (‘the nation’) and that non-
native elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the nation-state.”4 It is easy to
see why populism and nativism are so often confounded: in Europe, most populist parties (74 out of
102) are nativist as well as populist.5

Yet seen globally, populism does not always rely on cultural appeals. Populism can also be based on
socio-economic arguments, which seek to divide citizens according to economic classes rather than
culture, or on standard anti-establishment appeals, which emphasise purging bureaucracies of anti-
regime elements. These widely diverse political leaders are part of a worldwide revolt against status
quo arrangements and institutions.

Relying on the extensive scientific literature on populism, this paper identifies 46 populist leaders or
political parties that have held executive office across 33 countries between 1990 and today. The rise
in global populism over this period is remarkable. Between 1990 and 2018, the number of populists in

4
Cas Mudde, “The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy”, West European Politics 33, no. 6 (2010):
1173.
5
Eiermann, Mounk and Gultchin, European Populism.

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power around the world has increased fivefold, from four to 20. This includes countries not only in
Latin America and in Eastern and Central Europe—where populism has traditionally been most
prevalent—but also in Asia and in Western Europe.

Most striking is the rise of populism in large and systemically important countries. Where populism in
power was once the purview of newly emerging democracies, populism is now in power in strong
democracies like the US, Italy and India. Considering the dramatic uptick in the populist vote share, it
should perhaps be no surprise that populist candidates are beginning to gain power as well.6

The Trouble With Defining Populism

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s long-serving president, has expanded the rights of indigenous farmers to grow
coca. Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ outspoken president, has unleashed a brutal war on drugs,
ordering police to kill suspected drug dealers. Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s three-time prime minister and
resurgent political kingmaker, reshaped the Italian media law to increase the share of the national
media market that an individual can hold, enabling him to retain control of Italy’s national television
media market.7 Thaksin Shinawatra, the first elected leader in Thailand’s history to complete a full
four-year term in office, rolled out the 30-baht scheme, which provided subsidised healthcare to all
Thai citizens at a cost of only 30 baht (less than $1) per visit.8 Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, has outlawed the use of the term “Polish death camps” and
claimed that refugees carry “parasites”.9

These wide-ranging leaders are often grouped together under the term “populism”. What makes these
highly varied leaders populists? If one term can describe such a broad set of leaders, does it mean
anything at all? This paper sets forth to define populism, relying on a deep body of scholarship on the
topic that, like populism itself, has been rapidly expanding over the past 20 years.10

The term “populism” was first used to describe specific 19th-century political movements. The first
was the agrarian movement in the US in the 1890s that eventually became the People’s Party. The
movement was formed to oppose the demonetisation of silver and championed scepticism of railways,
banks and political elites. They adopted the moniker “Populists” from the Latin populus (the people),

6
Ibid.
7
“Berlusconi tightens media grip”, CNN, 2 December 2003,
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/12/02/italy.media.law.reut/.
8
Joel Sawat Selway, “Electoral Reform and Public Policy Outcomes in Thailand: The Politics of the 30-Baht
Health Scheme”, World Politics 63, no. 1 (2011): 165–202.
9
“Polish death camps”, Washington Post, 31 January 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-
opinions/polish-death-camps/2018/01/31/13c4dcd6-05e4-11e8-8777-
2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.811bb0759303.
10
For an excellent review on the many ways that populism has been defined in the scientific literature, see
Noam Gidron and Bart Bonikowski, “Varieties of Populism: Literature Review and Research Agenda”,
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Working Paper no. 13-0004, Harvard University, 2013.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3283962

and their message was to “get rid of ‘the plutocrats, the aristocrats, and all the other rats’, install the
people in power, and all would be well”.11

The second movement attached early on to the term populism was the Russian Narodnichestvo of the
1860s and 1870s, a movement of revolutionary students and intellectuals who idealised rural peasants
and believed that they should form the basis of a revolution to overturn tsarist rule.12 These
movements were parallel—despite vast differences in context—in their belief that power belonged
with agrarian workers rather than with the urban elite.

It was not until the 1950s that populism came into broader use. It became attached to phenomena as
varied as political movements supporting charismatic leaders in Latin America (for example, Juan
Perón in Argentina or Getúlio Vargas in Brazil), military coups in Africa championing social
revolution (such as Jerry Rawlings in Ghana) and McCarthyism in the US.13 A prominent theme in
this early literature was to see populism as a reaction to modernisation. Seymour Martin Lipset, a
leading modernisation theorist, explained populism as a political expression of the anxieties and anger
of those wishing to return to a simpler, premodern life.14

One reason that the concept is so difficult to pin down is that the adherents of other isms—like
liberalism, communism or socialism—usually proclaim themselves as liberals, communists or
socialists. Populists, by contrast, beyond the People’s Party mentioned above, rarely call themselves
populists.15 Thus, it is almost always journalists, scholars and other actors outside the movements
themselves who label phenomena as populist. Too often, the label is hurled at political opponents
rather than used to carefully compare and understand political movements.

Despite these difficulties, recent scholarship on populism has made considerable progress in clearly
identifying features of populism that can be compared across a wide variety of countries and contexts.
In 2004, Mudde set out a definition of populism that laid the groundwork for careful, broad analysis
on the topic.16 He argued that populism is a “thin ideology” with two components: the idea of a pure

11
Quotations in original. Margaret Canovan, “Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy”,
Political Studies 47, no. 1 (March 1999): 12.
12
On the history of populism, see, for example: John Allcock, “Populism: A Brief Biography”, Sociology 5, no.
3 (1971): 371–387; Margaret Canovan, “Trust the People!”; Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism:
Performance, Political Style, and Representation (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2016), chapter 2;
Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo and Pierre Ostiguy, “Populism: An Overview
of the Concept and the State of the Art”, in The Oxford Handbook of Populism, ed. Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser,
Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo and Pierre Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Paul Taggart,
Populism (Birmingham: Open University Press, 2000).
See Danielle Resnick, “Populism in Africa”, in The Oxford Handbook of Populism, ed. Cristóbal Rovira
13

Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo and Pierre Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
14
Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1963).
15
Margaret Canovan, Populism (Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1981).
16
Cas Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist”, Government and Opposition 39, no. 4 (2004): 542–563.

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people pitted against a corrupt elite; and the belief that politics should be an expression of the will of
the people.

Whereas “thick ideologies” like communism have a vision for how politics, the economy and society
should be organised, populism does not. For example, populism advocates overturning the political
establishment but lacks a ready answer for what should replace it. Mudde contrasted populism with
pluralism, which accepts the legitimacy of many different groups in society. Because populism lacks a
specific view on how politics, the economy and society should be organised, it can be combined with
a variety of different policies and ideologies, including both right- and left-wing variants. Indeed, part
of populism’s continued relevance over time and across countries is its changeability across
contexts.17

Yet, most modern-day campaigns claim to be running against existing elites, and all democratically
elected politicians would claim, to some extent, to represent the will of the people. Are all those who
criticise the status quo populists? The next section puts the definition of populism into practice.

Two Essential Features of Populism

While populism has no economic or social doctrine, it does have a “set of distinct claims and . . . an
inner logic”.18 Populism has two essential features. First, it holds that the people are locked into
conflict with outsiders. Second, it claims that nothing should constrain the will of the true people.

Insiders vs. Outsiders

Populism draws an unbridgeable divide between the people and outsiders. The people are depicted as
“morally decent . . . economically struggling, hard-working, family-oriented, plain-spoken, and
endowed with common sense.”19 The people are defined in opposition to outsiders, who allegedly do
not belong to the moral and hard-working true people. While many studies of populism define the
essential social conflict as between the people and the elite, this paper uses the more general term
“outsiders”, because populists as often stoke divisions between marginalised communities as between
marginalised communities and elite.

From there, populists attribute a singular common good to the people: a policy goal that cannot be
debated based on evidence but that derives from the common sense of the people.20 This general will
of the people, populists argue, is not represented by the cartel of self-serving establishment elites who
guard status quo politics.

Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, “Exclusionary vs Inclusionary Populism: Comparing
17

Contemporary Europe and Latin America”, Government and Opposition 48, no. 2 (2013): 147–174.
18
Jan-Werner Müller, What is Populism? (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 10.
19
Roger Brubaker, “Why Populism?”, Theory and Society 46, no. 5 (2017): 357–385.
20
For further discussion, see Müller, What is Populism?, 25–32.

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There are three main strategies that populists use to stoke this insider-outsider division:
1. a political style in which populists identify with insiders;
2. an effort to define and delegitimise outsiders; and
3. a rhetoric of crisis that elevates the conflict between insiders and outsiders to a matter of
national urgency.

Identifying With the True People Through Political Style

Populists build themselves up as an embodiment of the true people. Former Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez, for example, used ¡Chávez es Pueblo! (Chávez is the people!) as a slogan.21 Alberto
Fujimori, Peru’s populist president from 1990 to 2000, campaigned using the slogan Fujimori,
presidente como usted (Fujimori, a president like you).22 As the embodiments of the true people,
populists claim to have the full support of the people. Even though they do not win 100 per cent of the
votes, they claim 100 per cent of the votes of the true, moral people—the only members of the
political community that they characterise as legitimate.

Part of claiming to embody the true people involves a particular political style.23 Often, this means
decrying political correctness (which populists associate with elites), eschewing expert knowledge
and idealising the wisdom of common citizens.24 Bad-manners politics—swearing, political
incorrectness and, in general, rejecting the typical rigid language of technocratic politics—is also
common.25 More generally, populist movements try to connect with the culture of ordinariness.26

Defining and Delegitimising Outsiders

The people and their general will are defined in relation to outsiders. Outsider status is targeted
primarily at elites. The elites can include not only mainstream politicians and business leaders but also
a cultural elite—cosmopolitans whose sense of identity is seen as unconstrained by borders and
condescending towards the ways of life of the true people. The elite class is painted as part of a self-
serving cartel that controls the apparatus of the state, including mainstream political parties and the
bureaucracy.

21
“¡Chávez es Pueblo! ¡Chávez somos millones, tú también eres Chávez!”, Comando Carabobo, YouTube
video, 9 July 2012, accessed 26 September 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4sdk7Zyaa8.
22
“CAMBIO 90, propagance política”, roemi77, YouTube video, 23 March 2008, accessed 26 September 2018,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=ZWg-x5FIou0.
23
Indeed, political scientist Benjamin Moffitt defines populism itself as a political style. See Benjamin Moffitt,
The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation (Palo Alto: Stanford University
Press, 2016).
Robert Barr, “Populists, Outsiders, and Anti-Establishment Politics”, Party Politics 15, no. 1 (2009): 29–48;
24

Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism, chapter 3.

25
Canovan calls this “tabloid-style” populism; see Canovan, “Trust the People!”.
26
Rafał Pankowski, The Populist Radical Right in Poland: The Patriots (London: Routledge, 2010), 6.

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Outsiders can also include immigrants, refugees, racial or religious minorities and criminals. Populists
often explicitly affiliate these others with the elite. For example, they may argue that elites opened the
borders to immigration, which threatens the well-being of the people. In this sense, populism can
exclude both the elite and marginalised communities in the same breath. Populism is defined not by
who is targeted by the politics of anger and resentment, but by the fact that populists draw the line
between insiders and outsiders in the first place.

Those excluded from populists’ notion of the true and moral people are painted as illegitimate
members of the political community. Former United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader
Nigel Farage’s statement on the June 2016 Brexit vote illustrates this dividing line clearly: by
declaring it a “victory for the real people”, he implicitly said that the 48 per cent of British citizens
who voted to remain in the European Union (EU) are somehow less real members of the people.27
This is what makes populism fundamentally anti-pluralist. By defining the people—and
delegitimising the status of those outside this boundary—populists throw into question one of the
most fundamental prerequisites of democracy itself: agreement on who can legitimately participate in
politics.

The rhetorical division between the people and outsiders is a powerful political tool. It enables
populists to tap into the politics of anger and resentment, and to activate citizens’ fears about losing
status in their own societies. Populists rarely create social cleavages from scratch. Rather, they exploit
and stoke social cleavages that have often been simmering under the surface of politics for many
years. What is more, populists dramatise social divisions as threats to the nation and elevate them to a
matter of national urgency.

Performing a Crisis

Populists dramatise social divisions by using a rhetoric of crisis.28 They first identify a particular
failure. The failures vary: they could be the threat that immigrant communities pose to national unity
and culture, the threat drug users or criminals pose to national safety, or the threat that cheap imported
goods pose to national jobs and production. Populists are adept at linking failures in one policy area to
failures in another, making them appear part of a broad and systematic chain of unfulfilled demands.29
For example, populists may link elites’ failure to address public concerns about immigration with
their failure to address people’s worries about crime, and connect that with concerns about welfare
targeting. By doing so, they make the crisis feel both widespread and urgent.

Common to many of the crises identified by populists is a sense that the political elites across all
mainstream political parties have conspired to depoliticise an important policy question that should be
subject to public scrutiny. In some countries, mainstream political parties have come to a cross-party

27
“Nigel Farage: Arch-eurosceptic and Brexit ‘puppet master’”, CNN, 15 July 2016,
https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/24/europe/eu-referendum-nigel-farage/index.html.
28
See Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism, chapter 7; Benjamin Moffitt, “How to Perform Crisis: A Model for
Understanding the Key Role of Crisis in Contemporary Populism”, Government and Opposition 50, no. 2
(2015): 189–217.
29
Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005).

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consensus, for example, about openness to trade, openness to immigration or EU accession; and
opposition to these significant policies has no vehicle for representation.

The fundamental crisis, then, is one of political representation: by taking important policy issues off
the table, elites fail to represent the people. Elevating these policy questions to crisis involves a
process Brubaker terms antagonistic repoliticisation: “the claim to reassert democratic political
control over domains of life that are seen, plausibly enough, as having been depoliticized and de-
democratized, that is, removed from the realm of democratic decision-making”.30

Populists lay the blame for the crisis at the feet of the political class that failed to protect the people.
They also group in other outsiders who are the targets of their exclusionary politics as beneficiaries of
the crisis. For example, populist anti-immigration parties present national unity as an urgent crisis that
must be addressed. While they blame political elites from mainstream parties for open immigration
policies—and for denying the general will of the true people—they blame immigrant communities for
benefiting too much from living in their countries, such as by allegedly profiting from welfare
policies.

Performing a national crisis helps populists fully divide the people from the others. Even if societal
divisions long preceded the rise of populism, the rhetoric of crisis elevates the task of solving these
divisions to a matter of national urgency. This provides the backdrop for populists to present
themselves as having the answer to the crisis and for the argument that strong leadership is needed to
address it.

Nothing Should Constrain the Will of the People

Once populists have defined the people and outsiders (and how outsiders imperil the nation), they
claim that nothing should constrain the will of the true people. This claim provides a basis for the
arguments that only the strong leadership of a populist leader can extract the nation from crisis and
that nothing should stand between populists and their base.

Strong Leadership

As defining a crisis helps populists rhetorically divide the people from outsiders, so crisis also
provides the pretext for strong and unconstrained leadership, unfettered by inconvenient institutions
like other branches of government. If ‘undemocratic’ political institutions are to blame for the crisis in
the first place, why should populists accept the constraints that those institutions impose to solve it?
This provides important justification for undermining and discrediting mainstream political parties,
civil-society organisations and the media.

It is easy to see, then, how populism can come into conflict with liberal democracy. Independent
institutions, like the judiciary, play an essential role in safeguarding fundamental rights; to do so, they

30
Brubaker, “Why Populism?”. See also Margaret Canovan, “Taking Politics to the People: Populism as the
Ideology of Democracy”, in Democracies and the Populist Challenge, ed. Yves Meny and Yves Surel (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 25–44.

10

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must remain independent from politics. Yet, this independence also means that they can make
decisions that run counter to popular opinion. Populist movements cast these independent institutions
as an assault on the sovereignty of the people. Ultimately, the question of how populism shapes
democracy is an empirical one, but it is hard to deny that populism puts democracy under strain.

The actual policies that populists present to address crisis are typically simplistic and gloss over the
many complexities of policymaking. The solutions are less about having a convincing answer to a real
challenge than about convincing supporters that, unlike the establishment elite, populists see and
acknowledge the crisis and that their strong leadership alone can fix it. Once populists have defined a
national crisis, these intermediary institutions become obstacles that stand in the way of solving the
crisis, things to be bulldozed over in the name of getting things done.31

Given that strong leadership is needed, populists position themselves as the sole saviours of the
people from crisis. To do so, populists often portray themselves as the heroic embodiments of
important historical figures, fulfilling national destinies and carrying the mantles of history. In Latin
America, Chávez styled himself as the contemporary incarnation of the revolutionary Simón Bolívar.
Former Argentine Presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner claim to be the
modern Juan and Eva Perón, carrying out the Peronist legacy and leading the Peronist party. In
Europe, Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski compared himself with Alexander the Great.
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is more forceful, portraying himself as the Jesus
Christ of Italian politics, the one sacrificing himself for the whole.32 By portraying themselves as the
heirs of these important national figures, populists can gain support by benefiting from the emotional
appeal of historical leaders.33

Direct Connection With the People

For populists, actors and institutions that typically mediate the connection between politicians and
voters—such as the media, political parties and civil-society organisations—thwart the will of the
people to serve special interests. Instead, populists emphasise direct and unmediated forms of
communication with their supporters. For example, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has
himself interviewed on the radio every Friday to maintain this direction connection to the people.
Similarly, Chávez hosted Aló Presidente, a television show in which ordinary citizens could call in to
talk to the president about their concerns. Social media has also become a powerful populist tool by
enabling a direct connection between the people and their voice.

Thus, rather than connecting to voters through a policy platform and political parties, populists tend to
reach voters in a much more personalistic way. This is quite different from pluralism, which
emphasises civil-society groups as the key link between citizens and the state. In a nonpopulist
democratic setting, political parties are typically responsible for selecting candidates and debating a
policy platform. There is little scope for them to do so in a populist framework. Populism allows a

31
Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism, 2016.
32
David Willey, “Berlusconi Says ‘I Am Like Jesus’”, BBC News, 13 February 2006,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4707368.stm.
Caitlin Andrews-Lee, “The Revival of Charisma: Experimental Evidence from Argentina and Venezuela”,
33

Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming.

11

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single answer to who should represent the people and, similarly, little room for debate about policy
ideas. Political compromise becomes antithetical to populist politics: not only are political opponents
viewed as less legitimate members of the political community, but compromise is also painted as a
betrayal of the will of the people.

Populists do sometimes create and use political organisations. Whereas some populist leaders have
direct and unmediated linkages with their followers, others build dense party or civil-society
organisations to structure and discipline followers. Some populists, such as Bolivia’s Morales, rise
onto the political scene as the leaders of social movements. More personalistic populism relies on
what political scientist Kenneth Roberts terms “direct, noninstitutionalised, and unmediated
relationships with unorganised followers”, while populists rising from social movements build
organisations in civil society, positioning themselves as the leaders of these organisations.34

Yet, populist movements are not like other, nonpopulist social movements in at least one key respect:
the allegiance of the rank and file to the movement centres on the leader, and the masses have little
means of establishing any political autonomy from him or her.35 Alternatively, populists can organise
their own political parties or co-opt the structures of existing parties to rally their base.

The key is that populists attack and delegitimise any possible opposition to their rule. Thus, populists
are not universally against institutions. According to Müller, they “only oppose those institutions that,
in their view, fail to produce the . . . correct political outcomes”—that is, those outcomes that favour
the populist.36

Putting It All Together

In sum, populism is the combination of two claims: the people are locked into conflict with outsiders;
and nothing should constrain the will of the true people. Populism can be identified according to the
prevalence of these two claims. This minimal definition of populism is appealing because it enables
the phenomenon to be examined across a wide range of countries and contexts. It also does not link
populism with any particular set of social or economic policies or any specific constituency. Populists
may construct different types of ‘us vs. them’ conflicts depending on the political context. The
following section lays out three main types of populism.

Types of Populism

Kenneth Roberts, “Populism, Political Conflict, and Grass-Roots Organization in Latin America”,
34

Comparative Politics 38, no. 2 (January 2006): 127.

35
See Nicos Mouzelis, “On the Concept of Populism: Populist and Clientelist Modes of Incorporation in
Semiperipheral Polities”, Politics & Society 14, no. 3 (1985): 329–348.
36
Müller, What Is Populism?, 61.

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Populism varies according to the portrayal of which actors in society belong to the pure people and
which to the outsiders. Populism manifests itself so differently across contexts that it is hard to think
about its effects on political institutions without taking these variations into account. There are three
broad ways of demarcating the people and the elite, frequently used by populist candidates and
parties: cultural, socio-economic and anti-establishment. These types of populism are distinguished by
how political elites use populist discourse to sow divisions (see table 1).

Table 1: Three Ways That Populists Frame ‘Us vs. Them’ Conflict
Cultural Populism Socio-Economic Populism Anti-Establishment
Populism
The people ‘Native’ members of the Hard-working, honest Hard-working, honest
nation-state members of the working victims of a state run by
class, which may transcend special interests
national boundaries
The others Non-natives, criminals, Big business, capital Political elites who represent
ethnic and religious owners, foreign or the prior regime
minorities, cosmopolitan ‘imperial’ forces that prop
elites up an international
capitalist system
Key themes Emphasis on religious Anti-capitalism, working- Purging the state from
traditionalism, law and class solidarity, foreign corruption, strong leadership
order, national sovereignty, business interests as to promote reforms
migrants as enemies enemies, often joined with
anti-Americanism

So, for example, populists who invoke cultural populism define the main crisis facing the nation as a
cultural one: outsiders and cosmopolitan elites threaten the cultural continuity of the native nation-
state. This does not necessarily mean, however, that the supporters of cultural populism are motivated
wholly by cultural concerns. Concerns about declining economic status can raise the effectiveness of
cultural appeals.37

Similarly, supporters of socio-economic populism may be motivated equally by concerns about

cultural exclusion and by economic anxieties. Nonetheless, cultural and socio-economic populism
differ in how populist leaders frame the key crisis facing the nation and the key divisions between the
people and outsiders. Some populists combine elements of all three forms of populism, weaving
together cultural crises with economic ones and using both to justify purging the establishment.
Likewise, some populist voters are motivated by multiple perceived problems and do not view
populist leaders solely through an economic, cultural or anti-establishment lens.

This analysis attempts to classify populists based on the primary crisis that they emphasise. However,
like classifying populism itself, cleanly dividing between the categories is an imperfect exercise.

37
Noam Gidron and Peter A. Hall, “The Politics of Social Status: Economic and Cultural Roots of the Populist
Right”, British Journal of Sociology 68, no. S1 (2017): S57–S84.

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Cultural Populism

The central element that distinguishes cultural populism from other forms of populism is its emphasis
on race, ethnicity, religion and/or identity. Cultural populists claim that only members of a native
group belong to the true people and that new entrants or cultural outsiders pose a threat to the nation-
state.38 Thus, cultural populist parties often have issue ownership in their countries over immigration
and over debates, ethnic diversity and identity politics.39

Those defined as outsiders can include members of mainstream political parties who, by agreeing
across party lines on the overall openness of the country to immigration (even if they disagree on
levels) or on EU accession, have removed immigration as an important point of policy debate. For
cultural populists, outsiders also include cultural elites tied to cosmopolitanism and to opening
borders and culture to outsiders. Emphasis on culture does not necessarily coincide with traditionally
conservative economic policy. (For this reason, the traditional right and left labels are not used here,
as nativism can be combined with left-wing economic policy and inclusionary populism can be
combined with conservative economic policy.)

This type of populism could include everything from anti-immigrant manifestations in Europe and
North America to Islamic populism in Turkey and Indonesia. Cultural populism also includes law-
and-order populism, in which criminals are cast as the primary enemies of the people who are
threatening the character of the country, such as is being seen with the rise of Bolsonaro in Brazil and
Duterte in the Philippines.

Socio-Economic Populism

Socio-economic populism does not constitute a specific package of economic policies, but rather
paints the central ‘us vs. them’ conflict as between economic classes. Among socio-economic
populists, there is a reverence for the common worker. The pure people belong to a specific social
class, which is not necessarily constrained by national borders. For example, socio-economic
populists may see working classes in neighbouring countries as natural allies.

The corrupt elites can include big businesses, capital owners, state elites, and foreign forces and
international institutions that prop up an international capitalist system. In general, socio-economic
populists strongly resist foreign influence in domestic markets. In some manifestations, socio-
economic populism can have an ethnic dimension. However, the ethnic dimension is inclusionary
rather than exclusionary: in contrast to cultural populism, which is based on the idea that some should
be excluded from the people, socio-economic populism may advocate the inclusion of previously
marginalised ethnic groups as core members of the working class.

Anti-Establishment Populism

38
See Cas Mudde, The Populist Radical Right (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
39
Tarik Abou-Chadi, “Niche Party Success and Mainstream Party Policy Shifts—How Green and Radical Right
Parties Differ in Their Impact”, British Journal of Political Science 46, no. 2 (April 2016): 417–436.

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Although all forms of populism tend to be anti-establishment, this form of populism is different from
both cultural and socio-economic populism in that the conflict is primarily with establishment elites
rather than with any specific ethnic or social group. In cultural populism, establishment elites are
implicated primarily through their role in enabling too much cultural openness; in socio-economic
populism, establishment elites are implicated mainly through their role in empowering economic elite
and foreign interests.

For anti-establishment populists, the pure people are the honest, hard-working citizens who are preyed
on by an elite-run state that serves special interests, and these elites are the primary enemy of the
people. Thus, anti-establishment populism often emphasises ridding the state of corruption and
purging prior regime loyalists. Because anti-establishment populism focuses on political elites as the
enemy, it can in some cases be less socially divisive than either cultural or socio-economic populism,
which, in addition to casting political elites as the enemy, also paint members of society as outsiders.
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is a prime example: when he discussed “normal
Italians”, he meant everybody who was not part of the political elite and was not particularly negative
about immigrants or other marginalised communities.40

This variant of populism has often been wedded to an economic affiliation with market liberalism.
Although it may seem an odd combination at first blush, there is significant history, especially in
Latin America and Eastern Europe, of fusing populism with market liberalism.41

Cases of Populism in Power

This project aims to build a systematic understanding of how populists govern, including how they
reshape state institutions, how they may or may not erode the quality of liberal democracy, and the
economic policies that they implement. To understand these questions across a wide range of social,
economic and political contexts, a global accounting of populism in power is necessary.

To make the project cross-regional, the focus of this project is on both leaders and parties that can be
classified as populist. While parliamentary systems tend to give precedence to political parties,
presidential systems favour individual leaders. This analysis focuses on populist parties and leaders
who attained executive office in at least minimally democratic countries between 1990 and 2016.42

40
Matthijs Rooduijn, “The nucleus of populism: In search of the lowest common denominator”, Government
and Opposition 49, no. 4 (2014): 573–599.
41
See Kurt Weyland, “Neoliberal Populism in Latin America and Eastern Europe”, Comparative Politics 31,
no. 4 (1999): 379–401.
42
Only countries with a score of at least 6—the traditional cutoff for measuring democracy—on the Polity IV
index are included. Venezuela is a bit of an odd case. When Hugo Chávez attained office in 1999, Venezuela
was a democracy. By the time he died in office in 2013, Venezuela had backslid into autocracy. However, we
include the Maduro regime in the database as it is really one long spell of populism in the country. For the
Polity IV database, see http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html.

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This includes only those populists who reached the presidency or prime ministership (or the
equivalent executive office), and not those who governed as minority partners in a coalition
government.43 Specifically, we used the Archigos database of political leaders, which identifies the
effective leader of every country in every year going back to 1875.

Requiring that countries have attained a certain level of democracy to be included leaves off many
instances of populism that have risen in semi-democratic or authoritarian settings. This omits, for
example, many cases of African and Middle Eastern populism. Similarly, requiring that the populist
leader or party has attained the highest executive office ignores many instances where populism has
been highly influential yet has never risen to the level of controlling the executive branch. Yulia
Tymoshenko is such an example. Prime minister of Ukraine in 2005 and again from 2007 to 2010, she
clearly exhibited a populist style, yet the prime minister is not considered the political leader in
Ukraine’s semi-presidential system. In this sense, the database conservatively undercounts the global
incidence and influence of populism.

Classifying particular parties and leaders as populist is a fraught exercise, due to the many
disagreements on the definition of populism and the fact that populism is hardly a binary phenomenon
that is either fully present or fully absent. Some leaders may be readily identifiable as full-blown
populists, yet many sit on the boundary. Moreover, to the extent that populism is a political strategy
that can be adopted in different degrees by different actors over time (rather than a strict political
doctrine that actors either subscribe to or not), the presence or absence of populism is a matter of
degree that can vary over time.

Given the difficulty of this exercise, a reasonable place to start is the extensive scientific literature on
populism and the deep well of subject matter and case-study expertise that can be found there. Even
though the literature famously disagrees on the exact definition of populism, there is, according to
Benjamin Moffitt, “at least some (mild) consensus regarding the actual cases of actors that are usually
called ‘populist’”.44 This can be seen in the fact that scholars of populism tend to reference the same
set of cases over and over.

Using a process described in detail in the appendix, we developed a list of the cases of populism
around the world on which there is the most consensus among regional and populism experts (see
table 2). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first global database on populist leaders in power.45
Because it is the first, it is bound to be imperfect. We plan to continue to interact with experts both to
update the database over time and to come to new understandings about historical cases of populism
worldwide. Despite the difficulty of the exercise, it is worthwhile to move beyond sensationalist

43
H.E. Goemans, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch and Giacomo Chiozza, “Introducing Archigos: A Data Set of
Political Leaders”, Journal of Peace Research 46, no. 2 (2009): 269–283.
44
Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism, 41.
45
Several have developed databases for populists in power focusing on Latin America; see Robert Huber and
Christian Schimpf, “Friend or Foe? Testing the Influence of Populism on Democratic Quality in Latin
America”, Political Studies 64, no. 4 (2016): 872–889; Saskia Pauline Ruth, “Populism and the Erosion of
Horizontal Accountability in Latin America”, Political Studies, forthcoming. Moffitt (2016) has developed a
cross-regional list of populists, although his aim was not to create a comprehensive list of all populists who have
attained executive office around the world.

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claims about populism and towards a systematic and comparative understanding of populism in
power.

Table 2: Populists in Power, 1990–2018

Country Leader or Party Years in Office Type of Populism
Argentina Carlos Menem 1989–1999 Anti-establishment

Argentina Néstor Kirchner 2003–2007 Socio-economic

Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner 2007–2015 Socio-economic

Belarus Alexander Lukashenko 1994– Anti-establishment

Bolivia Evo Morales 2006– Socio-economic

Brazil Fernando Collor de Mello 1990–1992 Anti-establishment

Bulgaria Boyko Borisov 2009–2013, Anti-establishment

2014–2017,
2017–

Czech Republic Miloš Zeman 1998–2002 Anti-establishment

Czech Republic Andrej Babiš 2017– Anti-establishment

Ecuador Abdalá Bucaram 1996–1997 Socio-economic

Ecuador Lucio Gutiérrez 2003–2005 Socio-economic

Ecuador Rafael Correa 2007–2017 Socio-economic

Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili 2004–2007, Anti-establishment

2008–2013

Greece Syriza 2015– Socio-economic

Hungary Viktor Orbán 1998–2002, Cultural

2010–

India Narendra Modi 2014– Cultural

Indonesia Joko Widodo 2014– Anti-establishment

Israel Benjamin Netanyahu 1996–1999, Cultural

2009–

Italy Silvio Berlusconi 1994–1995, Anti-establishment

2001–2006,
2008–2011,
2013

Italy Five Star Movement/League 2018– Anti-establishment

coalition

Japan Junichiro Koizumi 2001–2006 Anti-establishment

Macedonia Nikola Gruevski 2006–2016 Cultural

Nicaragua Daniel Ortega 2007– Socio-economic

Paraguay Fernando Lugo 2008–2012 Socio-economic

Peru Alberto Fujimori 1990–2000 Anti-establishment

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 Philippines Joseph Estrada 1998–2001 Anti-establishment

Philippines Rodrigo Duterte 2016– Cultural

Poland Lech Wałęsa 1990–1995 Anti-establishment

Poland Law and Justice party 2005–2010, Cultural

2015–

Romania Traian Băsescu 2004–2014 Anti-establishment

Russia Vladimir Putin 2000– Cultural

Serbia Aleksandar Vučić 2014–2017, Cultural

2017–

Slovakia Vladimír Mečiar 1990–1998 Cultural

Slovakia Robert Fico 2006–2010, Cultural

2012–2018

South Africa Jacob Zuma 2009–2018 Socio-economic

Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa 2005–2015, Cultural

2018–

Taiwan Chen Shui-bian 2000–2008 Anti-establishment

Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra 2001–2006 Socio-economic

Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra 2011–2014 Socio-economic

Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 2003– Cultural

United States Donald Trump 2017– Cultural

Venezuela Rafael Caldera 1994–1999 Anti-establishment

Venezuela Hugo Chávez 1999–2013 Socio-economic

Venezuela Nicolás Maduro 2013– Socio-economic

Zambia Michael Sata 2011–2014 Socio-economic

Populism Trends Around the World

In all, there are 46 populist leaders or political parties that have held executive office across 33
countries between 1990 and today. During this period, populists in power peaked between 2010 and
2014, and again in 2018, when 20 populist leaders held executive office (see figure 1).

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Figure 1: Number of Countries With Populism in Power, 1990–2018

The rise in global populism over this period is remarkable. Between 1990 and 2018, the number of
populists in power around the world has increased fivefold, from four to 20. This includes countries
not only in Latin America and in Eastern and Central Europe, where populism has traditionally been
most prevalent, but also in Asia and in Western Europe.

Most striking is the rise of populism in large and systemically important countries. Whereas populism
in power was once the purview of newly emerging democracies, populism is now in power in strong
democracies like the US, Italy and India. Considering the dramatic uptick in the populist vote share, it
should perhaps be no surprise that populist candidates are beginning to gain power as well.46

Trends in Types of Populism

While there has been a relatively steady number of anti-establishment populists in power over time,
the numbers of both cultural and socio-economic populists have grown dramatically (see figure 2).

46
See Eiermann, Mounk and Gultchin, European Populism.

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Figure 2: Types of Populism in Power, 1990–2018

Cultural Populism

In contrast to socio-economic populism, which peaked in 2011–2012, cultural populism has been
rising steadily since the late 1990s. It is now by far the most prevalent form of populism in power.
Whereas anti-establishment and socio-economic populism tend to punch up—towards the political
establishment, ruling classes and/or economic elites—cultural populism distinguishes itself by
punching both up and down. While railing against the political establishment, cultural populists also
target outside forces in society that they perceive as a threat to the people. This can include
immigrants, refugees, ethnic and religious minorities, and criminals.

At least three distinct types of cultural populism are on the rise. First, nativist populism has been
particularly successful across Europe. A central aspect of this form of cultural populism is welfare
chauvinism: these populists argue that the welfare state cannot simultaneously support natives and
non-natives and thus must focus on natives first. Nativist populists such as Orbán go further, arguing
that Hungary’s goal should be ethnic homogeneity, effectively turning Jews, Roma and other
minorities into second-class citizens.

A second form of cultural populism has been majoritarianism—the idea that a 51 per cent or higher
share of the popular vote entitles the winner to rule without interference from institutions like the
judiciary or a free press. In this case, anyone who is not politically loyal to the leader or party is an
outsider, a less legitimate member of the political community. Taking on an ethnic dimension can
render majoritarianism particularly pernicious, as it provides the justification for ethnic-majority
groups to rule over minority groups without the need to ensure equal rights and protections. The fall
from majoritarianism into autocracy can be swift and complete. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip

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Erdoğan and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin fall into this category. Ethnic majoritarianism has also
been prominent across South Asia and Africa.

Thirdly, cultural populism includes those rising on the basis of law-and-order appeals. In these cases,
outsiders are criminals, drug users or other wrongdoers. Law-and-order populism plays on citizens’
anxieties about safety and desires for punitive politics.47 This form of populism tends to promote
punitive short-term solutions to multifaceted problems, often at the expense of human rights. The
Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte is a prominent example of a populist rising to power through
law-and-order rhetoric.48

Some cultural populists combine elements of nativism, law-and-order rhetoric and majoritarianism.

Socio-Economic Populism

Socio-economic populism crested in 2011–2012, coinciding with the leftist turn in Latin America.
Latin American politics was once dominated by right-leaning politicians such as Peru’s Alberto
Fujimori and Argentina’s Carlos Menem; by 2010 the political scene was populated by left-wing
politicians such as Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, Venezuela’s
Hugo Chávez, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.

Many socio-economic populists have been remarkably resilient in holding power. Chávez ruled for 15
years before dying in office; his hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro, then assumed control and
has held power for the past five years. Correa stayed in office for ten years, and Morales for 12 (and
counting). Although these leaders have restricted political competition to varying extents, making it
more difficult to launch effective opposition, there is evidence that they have remained remarkably
popular, winning election after election throughout the 2000s and 2010s.

A unifying characteristic of socio-economic populism has been bringing previously excluded

segments of society into politics for the first time. Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra is a prime example. He divided Thai society between the grass-roots, nonprivileged rural
population—who had never before been incorporated into Thai politics—and the elite aristocracy,
royalists and urban middle classes. Morales is another example: he organised and activated Bolivia’s
indigenous, rural farming population. However, it is important not to overlook the authoritarianism
that can underlie socio-economic populism. Despite progressive rhetoric about political inclusions,
socio-economic populists often severely restrict political competition, undermine political parties, and
dismantle checks and balances.

It is surprising that socio-economic populism has not been more successful in the wake of the 2007–
2008 global financial crisis. (Greece’s Syriza party is an exception.) Instead, socio-economic
populism has tapered off in recent years. Nor has socio-economic populism been particularly
successful in the countries hardest hit by the crisis. Rather, the rise of socio-economic populism

47
John Pratt, Penal Populism (London: Routledge, 2007).
48
Nicole Curato, “Politics of Anxiety, Politics of Hope: Penal Populism and Duterte’s Rise to Power”, Journal
of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 35, no. 3 (2016): 91–109.

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preceded the financial crisis and was concentrated primarily in countries doing relatively well
economically, especially in Latin America. Economic good times may create the fiscal space for
statist and redistributive political projects, opening up opportunities for socio-economic populism.49

Although socio-economic populists have not been as successful in gaining control over governments
in recent years as might be expected, left-wing populist parties are nonetheless shaping elections.
Politicians like France’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who ran (and lost) in the first round of that country’s
2017 presidential election, and parties like Germany’s The Left have been particularly effective at
winning over younger voters.50 Given that political commentators often argue that the only way to
effectively combat the rise of right-wing populism is with left-wing populism, in the future political
systems may careen between right- and left-wing variants of populism.51

Anti-Establishment Populism

Although the prevalence of anti-establishment populism has remained fairly constant over time, its
nature has changed quite a bit since the 1990s. Then, anti-establishment populists belonged largely to
what political scientist Kurt Weyland called “neoliberal populism”.52 In this variant, which included
leaders such as Menem, Fujimori and Poland’s Lech Wałęsa, politicians combined political populism
with economic liberalism. These seemingly disparate phenomena can actually go well together, as
both populism and structural adjustment emphasise concentrated executive power and share an
adversarial relationship with organised civil-society groups, as well as with bureaucrats, whom both
accuse of serving special interests. For this style of populism, anti-establishment politics was directed
against proponents of state intervention; populists promise to save their countries through market
reforms. The charisma of populist leaders helped generate public support for tough economic reforms.

The alliance between populism and economic liberalism can only be short lived, however. Market
participants and economic technocrats do not like the vagaries of populist politics. Populists, in turn,
resist budget austerity and the discipline required to attract international investment.

Today’s anti-establishment populism, by contrast, is much more likely to be against market liberalism
and government austerity. This reflects the fact that status quo policies have changed dramatically
over the past 30 years. In the early 1990s, many countries were embarking on market liberalisation for

Karen Remmer, “The Rise of Leftist-Populist Governance in Latin America: The Roots of Electoral Change”,
49

Comparative Political Studies 45, no. 8 (2012): 947–972.

50
“A French Campaign Waged Online Adds a Wild Card to the Election”, New York Times, 22 April 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/22/world/europe/france-election-jean-luc-melenchon-web.html; Slawomir
Sierakowski, “The End of Germany’s Two-Party System”, Project Syndicate, 23 October 2018,
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/end-of-german-two-party-rule-by-slawomir-sierakowski-2018-
10.
51
Dan Kaufman, “Progressive Populism Can Save Us From Trump”, New York Times, 7 July 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/07/opinion/sunday/progressive-populism-wisconsin-trump.html; Chantal
Mouffe, “Populists Are on the Rise but This Can Be a Moment for Progressives Too”, Guardian, 10 September
2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/10/populists-rise-progressives-radical-right.
52
See Weyland, “Neoliberal Populism in Latin America and Eastern Europe”.

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the first time; today countries are more likely to be dealing with the effects of years of openness and
austerity. Anti-establishment politics, then, are directed at the political establishment complicit in an
economy that does not deliver for the people.

Contemporary anti-establishment populism also adopts anti-corruption campaigns. Reforming

bureaucracy and increasing transparency in government are often central pillars. Italy’s Five Star
Movement is an archetypal example of contemporary anti-establishment populism.

Regional Trends

Western, Southern and Northern Europe: Not in Power, Yet

To date, populist parties in Western, Southern and Northern Europe have been less numerous and less
powerful than in other parts of the world.53 For now, populist parties hold governmental responsibility
in Italy, with the formation of the Government of Change coalition composed of the Five Star
Movement and the League, and in Greece, with the victory of the Syriza party in the 2015 legislative
election and the subsequent governing alliance between Syriza and the right-wing populist party the
Independent Greeks (ANEL).

One reason that populists have not yet assumed power over the government across much of Europe is
that it can be more difficult for outsider candidates to gain outright control in parliamentary systems
than in presidential ones. The direct elections in presidential systems allow easier entry for
charismatic outsider candidates who can forge direct connections with the people. Donald Trump, for
example, was able to reach the US presidency in his first run for public office, in 2016, a feat that
took him less than 17 months to accomplish. By contrast, in parliamentary systems, populist parties
typically have to compete in many elections over many years to rise to the position of appointing a
prime minister. Even if populist parties can win the largest share of seats, they often have to form a
coalition government, which requires finding other parties willing to ally with them.

Despite the fact that parliamentary systems may be more resilient to the rise of populist parties to
executive office than presidential systems are, the increasing popularity of populist parties across
Europe means that they will factor more and more into coalition politics. Already, the presence of
populist parties on the political scene is making it harder for coalitions to gain a governing majority
on either the centre-left or the centre-right. If moderate parties across the centre-right and centre-left
join together to form cordons sanitaires to keep populists out of power, this looks to the supporters of
populist parties like an establishment conspiracy to keep them out of power at all costs, potentially
fanning the flames of populist appeal.

Even though populists have not yet attained power across much of Europe, they can still wield
significant influence. One need only look at the role of UKIP in forcing the June 2016 referendum on
British membership in the EU to see that populist parties can exert tremendous influence over policy
while commanding only a 13 per cent vote share.54

53
Eiermann, Mounk and Gultchin, European Populism.
54
“Election 2015”, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2015/results.

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Eastern and Central Europe and Post-Soviet Eurasia: Strong and Steady Populism

Eastern and Central Europe and post-Soviet Eurasia have long been a stronghold for populist politics
(see figure 3). In 2018, populists have held power in eight countries: Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Slovakia. For the most part, populism in this region
manifests itself as cultural populism, with parties like Fidesz in Hungary and Law and Justice in
Poland peddling an exclusionary form of nationalism. However, this region was not always
dominated by cultural populism. Throughout the 1990s, anti-establishment populism was the norm.
Leaders like Poland’s Wałęsa rose by railing against the Communist Party and forming the region’s
first ever non-Communist government.

Figure 3: Populists in Power in Eastern and Central Europe and Post-Soviet Eurasia, 1990–2018

Political scientist Ben Stanley has argued that these two forms of populism have prevailed across
Eastern and Central Europe and post-Soviet Eurasia.55 Part of the appeal of populism in the region, he
contends, stems from the fact that transitions to democracy in the region were elite-led projects. On
the one hand, the collapse of one-party systems and communist state structures allows for the revival
of historic ethnic rivalries, which cultural populists could exploit to rally support. On the other hand,
the long history of repression and one-party rule fosters political cynicism and anti-party attitudes,
which anti-establishment populists could use to further an ‘insider vs. outsider’ narrative against
establishment elites who participated in communist regimes. Each of these forms of populism has
held sway across the region, although cultural populism has been gaining ground in recent years.

55
For a thorough treatment of populism in Central and Eastern Europe, see Ben Stanley, “Populism in Central
and Eastern Europe”, in The Oxford Handbook of Populism, ed. Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart,
Paulina Ochoa Espejo and Pierre Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

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The risks of populism in power are readily apparent across Eastern and Central Europe and post-
Soviet Eurasia. Hungary’s Orbán is a prime example, who has weakened the judiciary and formed
new governing bodies, filling them with Fidesz loyalists.

The Americas: Populism Falling Out of Favour?

Populism has been an important political force in Latin America since at least the 1930s, with figures
such as Argentina’s Juan and Eva Perón and Brazil’s Getúlio Vargas dominating the political
landscape. By the 1990s, populism had evolved significantly from its earliest manifestations that
emphasised redistributive social policies, implementing domestic industry protections and eschewing
foreign-aligned elites. In the 1990s, populists such as Peru’s Fujimori and Argentina’s Menem were
elected after failures of import-substitution industrialisation policies and catastrophically high
inflation.

These anti-establishment populists vilified establishment political parties for having abandoned the
needs and interests of the common people, who were suffering under high inflation and poor
economic prospects. As the establishment of the era had pursued nationalistic economic policies, anti-
establishment populists moved against these policies, which, they argued, served special interests and
elites. Instead, they privatised previously state-owned industries, opened their economies to trade and
implemented austerity policies. At first, these policies received widespread popular support, reaching
72–77 per cent approval in Argentina and 50–60 per cent approval in Peru, as inflation in Argentina
fell from 3,079 per cent in 1989 to 8 per cent in 1994 and in Peru from 7,650 per cent in 1990 to
under 40 per cent in 1993.56

By the mid-2000s, populism was taking a new form across the continent and growing in prevalence
(see figure 4). With neoliberal economic policies out of favour and a commodity boom filling
government coffers with new-found resources, a new populist agenda emphasised the working class
against foreign economic interests, including against foreign investors and international financial
institutions. Rather than rising off of the back of economic crisis, like the earlier wave of anti-
establishment populism, this wave of socio-economic populism rose from economic good times. The
commodity boom enabled fiscal largesse that funded big patronage projects and buttressed populists’
political popularity. The number and fiscal resources of socio-economic populists across Latin
America reinforced their staying power: Chávez in particular played an active role in supporting other
populists across the region, both rhetorically and economically.

56
Weyland, “Neoliberal Populism in Latin America and Eastern Europe”, 396; Carlos de la Torre, “Populism in
Latin America”, in The Oxford Handbook of Populism, ed. Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina
Ochoa Espejo and Pierre Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

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Figure 4: Populists in Power in the Americas, 1990–2018

Socio-economic populism across Latin America, however, has faced some recent defeats. After ten
years in power in Ecuador, the populist party led by Rafael Correa, PAIS Alliance, won in 2017, yet
his successor, Lenín Moreno, broke with Correa, empowered institutions of accountability to pursue
corruption charges under the Correa regime, and held and won a referendum to prevent Correa from
running for re-election.57 In Argentina, centrist Mauricio Macri defeated Cristina Kirchner’s hand-
picked successor in 2015. Thus, the number of populists in power has begun to tick downward in
recent years, giving the impression that the populist agenda is running out of steam after more than a
decade in ascendancy.

However, 2018 and 2019 promise to be decisive years for the region. Venezuela, ruled under the iron
fist of Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, is in economic and social freefall. It is hard to imagine a
democratically elected centrist regime rising to replace a regime that has long since abandoned
democratic principles. Yet, the populist agenda of stoking anger with no policy solutions may begin to
lose any remaining popular appeal as citizens continue to suffer a lack of basic needs under the
Maduro regime. After 20 years in power, authoritarian populism may eventually fall in Venezuela.

At the same time, populists are on the rise in two of the region’s most significant countries. Mexico’s
President-Elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a long-time socio-economic populist, will, when
inaugurated in 2019, provide a contemporary example of what socio-economic populism can deliver
without the unlimited largesse of commodity booms to back it up. He is already taking steps to curb
corruption in government and laying out an agenda that promises to make Mexico’s budget reach the
poor. In Brazil, meanwhile, cultural rather than socio-economic populism is on the rise. Far-right

57
Carlos de la Torre, “The Perils of Populist Succession in Ecuador”, Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars, 26 February 2018, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/the-perils-populist-succession-ecuador.

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presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro swept the October 2018 election. Bolsonaro is providing a
frightening model of how cultural populism may play out (and win) in the region.

Asia: 40 Per Cent of Asia’s Population Governed by Populists

Populism has manifested itself quite differently in Asia from in other regions. Reflecting the fact that
almost all studies of populism have focused on Europe and Latin America, even the definition of
populism does not easily suit the Asian context, and it is difficult to neatly classify the cases into the
types of populism identified in other parts of the world. A study that specifically examines and
compares cases of populism across Asia would be an important contribution.

Despite these difficulties, some key trends in populism across Asia can be drawn out. Historically,
inclusionary populism has been more prevalent in the region than exclusionary forms. Primarily, this
has meant anti-establishment populism in which leaders have defined the ‘us vs. them’ conflict in
terms of the hard-working, common people against establishment elites. For example, Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi blamed bureaucrats and pork-barrel politicians for undercutting the
economic well-being of the people. What distinguishes this from anti-establishment populism in other
regions is that this is a more specific case against a fairly well-defined group, as compared with
populists in other regions who may include a bigger and more amorphous group of outsiders.58

However, as in other regions, cultural populism is on the rise in Asia as well. In India, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has relied on nationalist and religious appeals to whip up popularity, while in the
Philippines Rodrigo Duterte uses law-and-order rhetoric. Of course, to say that both Modi and Duterte
are employing a strategy of cultural populism does not imply that they govern similarly. While Modi
has been active in pushing through long-needed economic reforms, Duterte is endorsing extrajudicial
killings.

What is most notable when considering populism across Asia is the number of countries of systemic
importance that are now governed by populists. Between India, Indonesia and the Philippines, 40 per
cent of Asia’s population is now governed by populist leaders. Moreover, populist strategies promise
to weigh heavily in 2019 with upcoming elections in India and Indonesia.

Conclusion

Populism is on the rise globally, with cultural populism gaining the most steam. How will this trend
shape the politics, economics and societies of the future? On the one hand, many populists are using
positions of power to weaken democratic norms and institutions that are needed to safeguard liberal
democracies over the long term. On the other hand, some populists seem to be delivering economic
boosts; at the very least, markets are not yet reacting strongly to the populist age.

Olli Hellmann, “Populism in East Asia”, in The Oxford Handbook of Populism, ed. Cristóbal Rovira
58

Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo and Pierre Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

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Moreover, populism rarely rises within healthy political systems. Populist movements around the
world are revolting against a status quo system that they view as fundamentally flawed and having
failed to benefit the people. Developing a credible political response in the age of populism will mean
taking the concerns that gave rise to populism seriously. The next publications in this series will
tackle these questions directly.

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Appendix: Methodology

This appendix details how we developed the “Populists in Power: 1990–2018” database. To identify
leaders associated with populism, we developed a three-step process. First, we identified the
following 66 leading academic journals in political science, sociology and area studies that commonly
publish articles on populism, as well as the new Oxford Handbook of Populism:

Administrative Science Quarterly

African Affairs
African Journal of Political Science
American Journal of Political Science
American Journal of Sociology
American Political Science Review
American Politics Research
American Sociological Review
Annual Review of Political Science
Annual Review of Sociology
Asian Survey
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
British Journal of Political Science
China Quarterly
Comparative Political Studies
Comparative Politics
Conflict Management and Peace Science
Electoral Studies
European Journal of International Relations
European Journal of Political Research
European Sociological Review
European Union Politics
Gender and Society
Governance
Government and Opposition
International Interactions
International Journal of Middle East Studies
International Organization
International Political Science Review
International Security
International Studies Quarterly
Journal of Asian Studies
Journal of Conflict Resolution
Journal of Contemporary Asia
Journal of Democracy
Journal of European Integration
Journal of European Public Policy
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization
Journal of Modern African Studies

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Journal of Peace Research
Journal of Politics
Journal of Public Administration Research
Journal of Theoretical Politics
Latin American Politics and Society
Latin American Research Review
Legislative Studies Quarterly
Middle Eastern Studies
Party Politics
Political Analysis
Political Behavior
Political Geography
Political Research Quarterly
Political Science Quarterly
Politics and Society
Post Soviet Affairs
Public Administration
Public Opinion Quarterly
Quarterly Journal of Political Science
Review of African Political Economy
Security Studies
Socio-Economic Review
Studies in Comparative International Development
The Oxford Handbook of Populism
Western European Politics
World Development
World Politics

From these sources, we queried all articles containing the keyword “populist” or “populism” in their
title or abstract and scanned the texts using natural language processing technology that can identify
names. These names emerged as the potential list of populist leaders.

Second, from this potential list, we carefully read each source to ensure that we included only those
with substantive discussion of why the leader in question qualified as populist. Using the definition of
populism outlined above, we reviewed the sources for each case to verify that the leader in question
met both of the elements of the definition of populism set out in this paper.

Third, we sent the list of potential populist leaders that emerged from this exercise to several
populism experts, to verify both whether the leaders from their region of expertise met their
understanding of populism and whether there were any additional leaders whom we may have missed.
To investigate these additional leaders, we often reached beyond the initial list of leading academic
journals and books to other peer-reviewed specialist journals and case-specific academic books. In
short, for every potential case of populism that emerged either from our initial text searches or from
our consultations with experts, we consulted as many credible sources as possible to ascertain whether
the case in question met our definition of populism.

Below, we include the final list of references that we used to verify consensus on whether the leader
or party in question employs populism as a political strategy. For cases of populism before 2014, we

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tried to obtain a minimum of three peer-reviewed sources for each case. Because of the long lead
times in the peer-review process, we did not apply as stringent a criterion for leaders who entered
office after 2014. We plan to update the database as we continue to consult with experts and as our
understandings of populism evolve over time.

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