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How Populists Governed the COVID-19 Pandemic:Populist Governance and Social Policies in Brazil, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Russia and Turkey
Title / Series / Name
Government and Opposition
Publication Volume
60
Publication Issue
4
Pages
Editors
Keywords
COVID-19
crisis
populism
populist governance
welfare
Sociology and Political Science
Public Administration
crisis
populism
populist governance
welfare
Sociology and Political Science
Public Administration
Files
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/28739
Abstract
How did populist governments handle the COVID-19 pandemic? Did they act as erratic, irrational and unsound – in short: ‘populist’ – as observers expected them to do? Through which social policies did they respond to the hardships caused by the pandemic? And, what does populist governance explain about these governments’ social policies? This article explores these questions through a comparative analysis of a diverse set of six populist governments. We first conceptualize, operationalize and measure populist governance by constructing a novel Populist Governance Index. Second, we describe and measure governments’ welfare policies through a novel Social Policy Response Index. Third, we relate social policy responses to variations in populist governance across countries. Our mixed-method study suggests that populism explains the politics rather than the policies of populist governments. We conclude that this is the case because populism fundamentally defines a mode of governance rather than policy content.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2025-11-14
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1017/gov.2025.10023