When Populist Leaders Govern: Conceptualising Populism in Policy Making

Abstract

The rise of populist governance throughout the world offers a novel opportunity to study the way in which populist leaders and parties rule. This article conceptualises populist policy making by theoretically addressing the substantive and discursive components of populist policies and the decision-making processes of populist governments. It first reconstructs the implicit ideal type of policy making in liberal democracies based on the mainstream governance and policy making scholarship. Then, taking stock of the recent populism literature, the article elaborates an ideal type of populist policy making along the dimensions of content, procedures and discourses. As an empirical illustration we apply a qualitative congruence analysis to assess the conformity of a genuine case of populist governance, social policy in post-2010 Hungary with the populist policy making ideal type. Concerning the policy content, the article argues that policy heterodoxy, strong willingness to adopt paradigmatic reforms and an excessive responsiveness to majoritarian preferences are distinguishing features of any type of populist policies. Regarding the procedural features populist leaders tend to downplay the role of technocratic expertise, sideline veto-players and implement fast and unpredictable policy changes. Discursively, populist leaders tend to extensively use crisis frames and discursive governance instruments in a Manichean language and a saliently emotional manner that reinforces polarisation in policy positions. Finally, the article suggests that policy making patterns in Hungarian social policy between 2010 and 2018 have been largely congruent with the ideal type of populist policy making.

How does a populist government interpret and face a health crisis? Evidence from the Mexican populist response to COVID-19

“…Among all these reactions, we are interested in studying how populist governments faced this health crisis. Studying populism is important, not only because it has resurged as an influential political ideology worldwide (Finchelstein, 2017;Inglehart & Norris, 2016;Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017), but also because it may have implications over the form and functions of bureaucracies (Bartha, Boda & Szikra, 2020;Peters & Pierre, 2019;Rockman, 2019). Amid all varieties of populism, we studied downsizing populism, a manifestation of populism where public servants are characterized negatively-being put in the bucket of the corrupt-and, consequently, tends to downsize the workforce, infrastructure or institutional capacities of public organizations (Arellano-Gault, 2020; Lewis, 2018).…”

Ultra‐orthodoxy and selective voluntarism: How did the Orbán regime react to the first wave of the pandemic?

“…Importantly, policy processes and discourses in populist policymaking are also discussed by Bartha et al (2020). Policy processes by populists, they argue, undermine democratic institutions and veto players, while pushing-back against technocratic policymaking elites, opposition parties, and NGOs.…”

“…Authoritarian populists, instead, pursue ideological mobilization of the public, using direct communication platforms and by utilizing the crisis as a window of opportunity for disseminating extraordinary amounts of political propaganda. The result, claimed by Bartha et al (2020), is the extensive use of discursive governance, a highly emotional communication style, recurrent crisis framing, and Manichean discourses. This is, in fact, a close fit to Orbán's practice, but it does not make his policies ideologically less cohesive.…”

“…In a recent paper on contrasting ideal types of liberal democratic and populist policymaking, Bartha et al. (2020, p. 75) argue that the ideal type of populist policymaking is characterized by “ ideologically multifaceted and diverse policy contents that contain heterodox policy elements with frequent policy innovations challenging mainstream policy paradigms .” The authors’ illustrative empirical example is social policymaking under successive Orbán governments in Hungary between 2010 and 2018 that is claimed to fulfil these criteria, with particular references made to pensions, taxation, unemployment, and family policies.…”

“…The result, claimed by Bartha et al. (2020), is the extensive use of discursive governance, a highly emotional communication style, recurrent crisis framing, and Manichean discourses.…”