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.
Highlights
The policy aspects of populism and their relation to polarising policy practices have largely been neglected in populism studies
Since the seminal article of Mudde (2004) on to the emergence of a populist Zeitgeist in Western Europe, the scholarship of populism research has focused on political actors and discourses of populism and particular attention was devoted to the ambiguous relationship between populism and liberal democ
Populist policy making means a different relation between governing politicians and other policy actors compared to the implicit policy making ideal type of liberal democracies
Summary
The policy aspects of populism and their relation to polarising policy practices have largely been neglected in populism studies. The fact that populist parties and leaders are in power offers a novel opportunity to study the practice of their governance and policy making. In this respect, the case of Central and Eastern Europe seems relevant as “in these countries, populism, if anything, is even more widespread” Our research has the ambition to conceptualise the specific features of populist policy making and to suggest a way in which to study this phenomenon. We apply a congruence analysis to qualitatively assess the conformity of our ideal type of populist policy making with a typical case of populist governance, that of Hungarian social policy between 2010 and 2018 (Section 5). In the concluding part we discuss the implications of populist policy making on the polarisation of societies and the future of liberal democracies
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