Best in Covid: Populists in the Time of Pandemic

Buštíková, Lenka; Baboš, Pavol

doi:10.17645/pag.v8i4.3424

Cited by 59 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…This new situation appears clearly if we compare, for instance, the results of the Socialist's candidates in the first round of the presidential elections in 2012 and 2017 (Hollande 28.63% and Hamon 6.36%, respectively). We can make here a parallel with the situation in the Czech Republic, where the technocratic populist A. Babiš won a large part of the left-wing electorate in 2013 and 2017 (Buštíková & Guasti, 2019;Stauber, 2019) or to the rise of Igor Matovič in Slovakia (Buštíková & Babos, 2020).…”

Section: The Social and Political Frame Of Macron's Technocratic Populismmentioning

confidence: 69%

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Technocratic Populism à la Française? The Roots and Mechanisms of Emmanuel Macron’s Success

Perottino

Guasti

2020

PaG

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This article focuses on the roots and mechanisms of Macron’s success, arguing that in 2017 two conditions were essential in Macron’s rise—the implosion of the established system of the French Fifth Republic in which the two main parties were alternating in power; and the rise of anti-establishment populist challengers on the right and on the left (cf. Stockemer, 2017; Zulianello, 2020). It was anti-establishment appeal that put Macron on the map, but the appeal to technocratic competence that won him the presidency. Technocratic populism transcends the left–right cleavage and, as a result, has a broader appeal than its left- and right-wing counterparts. Emmanuel Macron was an insider taking on the (crumbling) system and positioning himself as an outsider—refusing the traditional labels, including centrism, elite recruitment patterns, and mediated politics. Instead, Macron and <em>La Republique en Marche</em> attempted to create new forms of responsiveness by ‘giving voice to the people,’ while relying on technocratic competence as a legitimation mechanism. In power Emmanuel Macron attempts to balance responsiveness and responsibility (cf. Guasti & Buštíková, 2020).

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Section: The Social and Political Frame Of Macron's Technocratic Populismmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…Similarly to the pension reform, the Covid-19 crisis also follows the technocratic populist playbook (cf. Buštíková & Babos, 2020;Guasti, 2020). During the pandemic's initial phase, the President was mostly absent, and the government in charge.…”

Section: Responsibility: the Reforms And The Limits Of Technocratic Populism In Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Technocratic Populism à la Française? The Roots and Mechanisms of Emmanuel Macron’s Success

Perottino

Guasti

2020

PaG

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“…Understanding populism as a "mode of articulation" (Laclau 2005) that creates an antagonistic frontier between "the people" and "the Other," technocratic populists present themselves as representative of the ordinary people, pitted against the elite political establishment as the Other. It emerges as a response to perceived bad governance (Buštíková and Baboš, 2020); technocratic populists often position themselves as anti-corruption fighters, such as Igor Matovič in Slovakia, or leaders from business who can translate their experience into good governance, such as Andrej Babiš in the Czech Republic. Similarly, entrepreneurial populism (Heinisch & Saxonberg 2017) appears when success in business forms the basis of a leader's claim to power.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This allowed technocratic populists in the Czech Republic and Slovakia to follow a similar playbook in their handling of the crisis. In addition to bypassing previously established and institutionalized methods of responding to the crisis and going about policy making in an erratic way, responsive to public demands-both features of general populist crisis responses-technocratic populists additionally politicized and thereby weaponized medical expertise to gain legitimacy (Buštíková and Baboš, 2020). In the Czech Republic, this playbook worked well during the first wave, but then fell apart in the second wave when Babiš' responsiveness to public demands of openness pushed him to delay the government's response to the increasing case numbers in the late summer and early fall.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Authentic Expertise: Andrej Babiš and the Technocratic Populist Performance During the COVID-19 Crisis

Hartikainen

2021

Front. Polit. Sci.

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This article studies how a technocratic populist can visually perform the authenticity and connection to ‘the low’ that is key to a populist performance while also maintaining the performance of expertise that is central to technocratic populist success. It relies on the case study of Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš and uses Facebook data from his profile in March and September–October 2020, the two peak moments of the crisis in the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. After offering a timeline of the Czech COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, it applies a dramaturgical analysis to four representative photos from Babiš’ Facebook page. It finds that Babiš was able to simultaneously articulate both expertise and authenticity, thereby both creating a connection to ‘the people’ while also articulating himself as an expert capable of handling the pandemic. He articulated expertise through a technocratic bodily performance, presenting himself as a cosmopolitan leader with international symbols of power like neutral-colored suits and elegant surroundings. At the same time, he also articulated himself as an authentic politician by showing his Facebook followers backstage imagery like a disorganized table and by showing himself as a busy man and an exceptionally hard worker. By illuminating the visual performance of technocratic populism, it offers insight into how technocratic populists constitute the expertise that their success rests on and that can also pose a threat to democratic societies, especially in a time of crisis.

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“…Technocratic populists do not necessarily pit the elite vs. the 'people,' especially when in power, but instead carve out a category of the 'ordinary people' (Buštíková & Babos, 2020;Buštíková & Guasti, 2019). As an outputoriented governance strategy, technocratic populism supplants the traditional right-left political landscape by appealing to the people with all-purpose expertise garnered outside politics (Guasti, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technocratic Populism in Hybrid Regimes: Georgia on My Mind and in My Pocket

Aprasidze

Siroky

2020

PaG

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Most studies of technocratic populism have focused on democracies under stress (e.g., Italy, Czech Republic). This article builds on and extends these studies by analyzing a hybrid regime—post-Soviet Georgia—and argues that technocratic populism in this context is utilized as a façade to cover authoritarian and oligarchic tendencies, while suspending (or reversing) democratization efforts. The state apparatus is weaponized against current and potential political opponents. Ideology is irrelevant, loyalty is key, and passivity is encouraged. The government aims to chip away at institutional checks and balances, and to demobilize the public by undermining confidence in the country’s representative institutions while increasing dependence on experienced personalities, the ‘can do experts.’ The result is most often a stable partial-reform equilibrium. We illustrate this argument with evidence from Georgia, where Bidzina Ivanishvili, the richest man in the country, came to power in 2012 and, despite not holding any official position in the government since 2013, has run the state as a firm.

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Best in Covid: Populists in the Time of Pandemic

Cited by 59 publications

References 43 publications

Technocratic Populism à la Française? The Roots and Mechanisms of Emmanuel Macron’s Success

Technocratic Populism à la Française? The Roots and Mechanisms of Emmanuel Macron’s Success

Authentic Expertise: Andrej Babiš and the Technocratic Populist Performance During the COVID-19 Crisis

Technocratic Populism in Hybrid Regimes: Georgia on My Mind and in My Pocket

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