Making ‘the people’ behave: the economic policies of the Israeli anti-populist ‘change’ coalition

Abstract

ABSTRACT Populism’s recent ascent to power in many countries has fueled the discussion of anti-populist responses. This paper investigates anti-populism’s implications for economic policy and policymaking. Anti-populism has been shown to manifest alongside and through both neoliberalism and technocracy; this paper investigates how anti-populism shapes the manifestation of neoliberalism and technocracy, and how they can be in turn employed to strengthen anti-populist logic. I consider the case of Israel’s anti-populist coalition (2021–2022), which replaced the populist former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After reviewing the existing literature on anti-populism, I discuss behaviour modification taxation’s role in and importance for anti-populist policy agendas. I analyse the discourse surrounding the implementation of behaviour modification taxation and its implications in Israel, showing that anti-populists can use such policies to not only hurt populist voters but also replace ‘the people’ in the political imagination with rational, incentive-driven individuals.