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How is government affected by including populists in a governing coalition? We investigate if populist political parties behave "normally" when they attain power, or if they govern differently from mainstream political parties. Empirically, we use survey data from 282 ministerial advisers from three cabinets in Norway. Our conclusion is that populi...
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... 2 and 3 in Table 2 show no significant differences between populist and non-populist MAs when it comes to seeing collegial or bilateral decision making in the cabinet as important. Table 4, which gives a more detailed picture, also show that populist MAs generally view decision making processes in the same way as non-populists do. What stands out is rather that the prime ministers' different ways of organizing decision-making processes in the cabinet are reflected in the answers. ...Citations
... While 'inclusion-moderation' theories (Tepe 2019) suggest a moderating effect, other empirical findings present a more nuanced picture (Akkerman et al. 2016;Caiani and Graziano 2022;Zulianello 2019). They demonstrate that de-radicalization is not an automatic process but depends on multiple factors, such as the party's political tradition and strategies (Albertazzi and McDonnell 2010;Bartha et al. 2020), internal organization and leadership (Bernhard 2020;Zaslove 2012) and the power balance between radical and mainstream forces in coalitions (Askim et al. 2022;Capaul and Ewert 2021). ...
The government actions of populist radical right (PRR) parties have predominantly been scrutinized at the national level, leaving a critical aspect – their territorial foothold – largely unexplored. Through a comparative ethnographic study of two medium-sized French towns governed by the Rassemblement National since 2014, this article delves into how seizing municipal power has influenced the party's efforts towards mainstreaming. We examine the party's strategy, aimed at institutionalization, which relies on a blend of rhetoric emphasizing proximity, pragmatism, and non-partisan administration while preserving fundamental ideological elements of the radical right. This amalgamation of mainstreaming and radicalism, adaptive to different contexts and audiences, is termed ‘adaptable ideology’. Our study makes significant contributions to two pivotal aspects of the literature: understanding the mainstreaming trajectory of PRR parties and exploring the recent, localist turn in the study of this political realm.
... Democracies worldwide are confronted with the rise of populist movements (Mansbridge & Macedo, 2019;Moffitt, 2016;Urbinati, 2019). While populists in opposition might be a force of democratic rejuvenation as they bring into the political arena concerns that have been ignored or suppressed (Kazin, 2017;Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017;Müller, 2016;Urbinati, 2014), there is little doubt that where populists conquer executive power, they pose a danger to the survival of the liberal character of democratic systems (Askim et al., 2022;Bartha et al., 2020). ...
... Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the evidence for further populist mobilization remains substantial, as the examples of the electoral victory of extreme-right populists under Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Marine Le Pen's conquest of the Assemblée nationale in France, the populist-extreme right victory in Israel, or the wave of popular support after Donald Trump's announcement to run again for the presidency of the United States indicate. If one adds to this picture the rise of ethnic nationalists with illiberal populist leanings in other parts of the world -India, Malaysia -as well as the participation of populists in coalition governments, in particular in Western Europe (Askim et al., 2022), the persisting seriousness of the backsliding challenge liberal democracies do face becomes evident. That challenge is not one to come by employing comparative methods and suitable research designs. ...
What happens to democratic administration when populists come to power? This article depicts the contours of the debate within the discipline of Public Administration (PA) about populist attempts to transform the state bureaucracy. It presents the results and limitations of recent empirical research about populist public administration policies and discusses the options for generating more systematic insights. The argument is that populist public administration research needs to improve on three fronts. First, more comparative research is needed in order to identify and explain similarities and differences across affected administrative systems. Second, the threat of democratic backsliding requires scholars to revisit questions about the ethical basis of public administration. Third, as populist backsliding endangers the survival of liberal democracy, PA needs to provide pragmatic and concrete answers as to how administrative systems can be made resilient against threats of illiberal state transformation.
... 109 In other cases, populist leaders resort to their communication skills to maintain a populist narrative regardless of their specific performance in government. 110 In this context, our study of Podemos enriches the literature with a rare case in the European environment: a left-wing populist party that performs as a junior partner in a coalition government. The analysis of Podemos' discourse throughout the period 2014-2021 -covering its appearance, institutionalization and latter participation in the Spanish government -shows how this party has adapted its populist rhetoric to deal with the contradiction of being a privileged actor within a system that it once wanted to eradicate. ...
Podemos has been the object of extensive attention since its foundation in 2014. However, most of the academic works focus on its initial rise, which prevents a broader analysis of the evolution of its populist discourse after they reached the Spanish government in 2020. Covering this gap, this paper argues that Podemos’ populism operates as a discursive logic aimed at constructing the political by spreading antagonisms. Following the post-Marxist theories of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Podemos’ leaders understand politics as a cultural exercise whose essential component is a permanent redefinition of the people and anti-people categories according to context. Based on this framework, the paper develops a qualitative analysis of Podemos’ discourse in the period 2014–2021. By focusing on the discursive manifestations of its main leaders, the paper shows the rhetorical turns that try to reconcile the contradictions between an initial street-level populism and a subsequent populism in power. Thus, the original people/caste antagonism is replaced by the classical left/right divide, which shows the difficult coexistence of two different approaches to populism within Podemos. Once in government, the reframing of the left/right dichotomy as democracy/fascism will lend continuity to a populist understanding of politics.
... Comparisons of ministerial advisers from the Progress Party and those from other parties reveal that the opinions, behaviours and experiences of politicians from populist parties generally resemble those of the politicians from non-populist parties (Askim et al., 2021). While populist ministerial advisers are somewhat more concerned than other ministerial advisers about how their political party is portrayed in the media, Askim et al. (2021, p. 22) conclude that 'normality is a more accurate description than exceptionalism to describe what occurred when a populist party entered government for the rst time'. ...
The chapter draws on 50 élite interviews with ministers, chiefs of staff, permanent secretaries and heads of communication, as well as three rounds of surveys to state secretaries and political advisers. It paints a picture of the Norwegian core executive in which ministers and departments are strong, and the prime minister and his/her office is comparatively weak. The full cabinet remains an important coordination organ, although the operation of inner circles is also apparent. In Norway, the most powerful inner court consists of the prime minister and their staffers, and also the party leaders and political strategists of coalition partners. We show the cementation of baronial courts, where cabinet ministers surrounded by a growing entourage of ministerial advisers and communication professionals preside as ‘barons’ over their own policy territories. We relate this to the mediatisation of politics and the public sector. The chapter also shows how the inclusion of populists in the government has had little impact on the Norwegian core executive, which we explain as a consequence of the Progress Party behaving much as other parties in the coalition do, as well as of the strategy of Prime Minister Solberg in allowing the Populist Party to maintain some of its outsider identity.
Parties usually argue in favour or against a government coalition based on party considerations in terms of projected policy implementation, power in office and vote maximization – that is, the ‘policy, office, votes’ triad. So far, however, it remains unclear which claims mainstream parties invoke to motivate their choice to rule or not rule with populist parties. Adopting the ‘policy, voter, office’ triad, this article examines mainstream parties' Twitter claims on ruling with populist parties in Austria, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands (2006–2021, N = 1,919). Mainstream parties mainly reject ruling with (mostly radical right) populist parties. To justify unwillingness, policy-based motives referring to the populist parties' extremist nature trump motives on office-seeking and vote maximization. To justify willingness, predominantly office-seeking motivations are invoked. Party characteristics (ideology, incumbency status, size) and context, however, shape these claims. This study sheds light on mainstream parties' patterns of political communication on coalition formation with populist parties.
In 2018, a fully populist government, without any mainstream parties, was formed in Italy. Some authors expected to see a considerable degree of policy change, while others predicted a limited–and mainly symbolic–transformation. However, few studies have investigated the impact of the new government on migration and on defence policy. To what extent did the ‘Yellow-Green’ government foster policy change with respect to traditional approaches in these policy domains? This article aims to gauge the extent of policy change in the fields of migration and defence under Giuseppe Conte’s (first) cabinet (June 2018-August 2019). Relying upon secondary and primary sources (semi-structured interviews with ministers, MPs, diplomats, experts, etc.), we contribute to the literature on the impact of populist parties on migration and defence policies once in office, advancing the hypothesis of a ‘salience-constraints’ balance.
This chapter presents the concept of the core executive as originally formulated and subsequently revised, drawing attention to the central questions ‘Who does what?’ and ‘With what resources?’. It then elaborates on the three main aspects of the definition: organisations and processes, coordination and conflict. Yet today’s societies are different to those that existed when the concept was unveiled, and so by way of providing a context for the rest of the book we also describe different societal trends that may have had a bearing on the shape and operation of contemporary core executives, including developments in the media, the recentring of the government apparatus, coalition dynamics and the rise of populism, as well as large-scale crises such as the global COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the chapter sets out the thematic framework that guides the eight country cases: the particular configuration of core executive actors and institutions; the resources at their disposal; the ways in which governing activities are coordinated and conflict is arbitrated; and the degree to which societal developments have changed the composition and functioning of the core executive.
In this article, we explore the consequences of the increasing presence of both left- and right-wing populist parties in government, critically reflecting on the recent scholarship on the topic, underlining promising venues for future research and outlining a conceptual framework which constitutes the background of this special issue entitled ‘Populism in Power and its Consequences’. Our main contribution is empirical, since – by reflecting on the various articles hosted in the special issue – we assess the impact of populist parties in government on politics, polities and various policy domains. We also provide an account of potential moderating factors of the influence of populists in government, focus on different ideological underpinnings of types of populisms (left-wing and right-wing) and discuss their relevance. We conclude by identifying four possible scenarios for European populist parties in governments: radicalization, compromise and moderation, splintering, or loss.
