Populism and Economic Nationalism
Bringing the State Back In. Populism and Economic Policy Reversal in Eastern Europe
Abstract: The appeal of populist ideas seems to have skyrocketed in recent years. The possible repercussions of a populist victory have been averted for now in France and the Netherlands, but in the US the extent of a populist victory in changing the political arena are only now coming into view. While many of the scholars, policy-makers and analysts are still pondering the consequences of a possible populist victory on economic policy, there are recent cases of countries where populists have come to power and enacted their policy programs. Thus, we can actually examine what populists do when they reach public office. The paper asks what happens when populists get to power. While anti-immigrant policies have received much of the recent scholarly attention, this project focuses on what populist politicians do once they get elected in terms of their economic agenda. Because the populist agenda of almost all politicians in this camp is very vague, looking at what populists actually have done in power is the only way to really know what to expect as more populist leaders compete in and win elections. Based on the populist world view which rejects foreign influences in a country and extols the role of "the people" to the detriment of "corrupt elites" I hypothesize that a populist victory will be accompanied by policies rejecting perceived foreign involvement in the national economy as well as a return of the state in economic matters, since with the populist win "the people" are now in charge of the state and the state should promote the "will of the people." Thus, I argue that a populist victory will "bring the state back in" a country's economic matters as a reversal of liberalization.
I use originally collected quantitative data on the economies and political changes of the former Communist space as well as qualitative and quantitative data from field work in Hungary. This project finds that governments fueled by populism are more inclined to reverse privatization and liberalization, and they will do so even at the risk of international backlash. The paper traces this logic in the case of Hungary, where the government of Viktor Orban enacted widespread expropriations of foreign investment, nationalizations of privately owned property and a strong return of the state in economic matters. In spite of their EU member status and the threat of international backlash the government continued its policies due to the slow response of these actors. This project contributes to our theoretical understanding of statist retrenchment in the age of populism and presents original quantitative and qualitative data to test these hypotheses.
(Presented at APSA 2017)
I use originally collected quantitative data on the economies and political changes of the former Communist space as well as qualitative and quantitative data from field work in Hungary. This project finds that governments fueled by populism are more inclined to reverse privatization and liberalization, and they will do so even at the risk of international backlash. The paper traces this logic in the case of Hungary, where the government of Viktor Orban enacted widespread expropriations of foreign investment, nationalizations of privately owned property and a strong return of the state in economic matters. In spite of their EU member status and the threat of international backlash the government continued its policies due to the slow response of these actors. This project contributes to our theoretical understanding of statist retrenchment in the age of populism and presents original quantitative and qualitative data to test these hypotheses.
(Presented at APSA 2017)
Place Matters: Economic Geography and Populist Voting in Europe, with Kate McNamara
Recent political upheavals across Europe have called into question core assumptions about voters, parties, and the underpinnings of the post-war liberal order. How are we to understand the sources of the pressures for change, and the new patterns of voting and the political cleavages coming out of them? Scholars have tended to pit the answer as a contest between material or economic desires, on the one hand, and culture, race, or identity issues on the other. We argue that we should instead be examining how the interaction of material and ideational factors shapes political preferences and outcomes. We suggest looking at the broader economic and social milieu voters experience. In line with sociotropic accounts of voting, we argue that peoples’ views are informed by the larger communities they identify with. Unlike the more nationally focused work of most sociotropic studies, we examine a community oriented sense of identity, rooted in the role of everyday lived experiences in shaping how people make sense of their interests. We argue that we are all embedded within larger social interactions that shape our identities and thus give meaning to how we understand our economic interests. Examining the economic geography of lived experience offers an important insight into recent populist victories in Europe. We use subnational data at European level with additional statistical analyses of local case studies to show the link between the lived economic experience and populism.