Populism in government: a new era since the end of the Cold War

Table 2.2 summarizes the participation of populist parties in (coalition) governments in the four macro-regions mentioned in Figure 2.1. Of the 20

(continued)

TABLE 2.2 (Cont.)

Notes: (1) In the case of Forza Italia, cabinet reshufflings are not considered. (2) In 2018 the parliamentary' group of Podemos joined the Socialist Party (PSOE) and other regionalist and nationalist parties in the no-confidence vote against the conservative government led by Mariano Rajoy.This led to the formation of a minority government led by the PSOE, which lasted until May 2019. (3) The group was dissolved in 2016.The Table does not include the case of the Swiss Peoples Party; as the executive branch in Switzerland - the Federal Council - is a collective body. (4) PiS, Fidesz, and Forward Italy are borderline cases, as the three parties have not been consistently populist throughout the three decades under consideration. (5) According to Popu-list (https://popu-list.org/), Fidesz is considered as populist starting from 2002 onward.

Source: Own elaboration from Doring and Manow (2019) and these countries’ Interior Ministries.

countries in the dataset, twelve have had at least one populist party in government (whether exclusive, inclusive or neo-liberal): Italy, Greece, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Switzerland is a peculiar case due to its tradition of power sharing. Portugal, Germany, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Ireland have never had populist parties in government at the national level so far.

The overwhelming majority of populist parties performing governmental roles during the period considered belong to the radical right family. This is not so surprising since, as highlighted above, they have been much more successful than radical left and neo-liberal populists in electoral terms. In most cases, they have been junior partners in coalition with other mainstream, non-populist parties. The cases where two populist parties coalesced to form a government have been rather infrequent, but nonetheless quite relevant. Two cases, and five governments, can be found in Italy: in all of them the League played the role of junior partner, whereas FI (in the periods 1994-1995, 2001-2006, and 2008-2011), and the M5S (2018- 2019) were the major partners.⁴ One case (and two governments) can be found in Greece, where SYRIZA and ANEL were allied from January to September 2015 and from September 2015 onwards.

Cases of external support are also relatively rare. Populists supported governments without entering the cabinet in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Spain. In another case, Italy’s FI was the main external supporter of a technocratic government from 2011 to 2013, and even formed a grand coalition with the centre-left Partite Democratico (PD - Democratic Party) for a short period after that. Another interesting (and borderline) case is LAOS in Greece, which joined a national unity government at the end of 2011 but then withdrew its support once austerity measures started to be implemented.

Overall, it seems that, since the end of the Cold War until 2000, the inclusion of populists into (coalition) governments was the exception rather than the rule. It concerned primarily exclusionary populists (i.e. PRRPs such as the League and the FPO) and increased proportionally with their electoral success (Figure 2.1). Table 2.3 shows for how many years (as a percentage of the total) populist parties played a governmental role during the three periods previously analysed: 1991- 2000, 2001-2009, and 2010-2018. The focus is on the countries already included in Table 2.2, that is, those contexts in which populists were in government for at least six months in the whole period from 1990 to 2018. A first distinction is made between the years when populists were in government and the years when they were excluded. A further distinction concerns the typology of involvement (major partner; junior partner; major partner plus junior partner; external support). If we consider the whole period (last column, bottom row ofTable 2.3), populists were in government for one fourth of the time. When they did form a government, they were predominantly junior partners of non-populist parties (9.6 per cent) or major partners³ (7.4 per cent). The major plus junior partner’s and external support formulas were the least frequent, with a respective overall frequency of 4.7 per cent and 4.1 per cent.

TABLE 2.3 Populists in Government (1991-2018).Years as a percentage of the total

Note: The Table includes the countries in which at least one populist part)' has participated in government either directly or indirectly from 1991 to 2019.The countries are: Italy, Spain (|une 2018-May 2019), Greece, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia. We excluded the Swiss case.The numbers in bold are the mode for each row.

Source: Our own elaboration from Doring and Manow (2019).

After the Great Recession, electoral growth increasingly led to inclusion in governmental coalitions. Between 2010 and 2018, populist parties were in government almost half of the time (44.5 per cent, see ‘Total’ row). This figure is quite high if compared to the 2001-2010 (29.1 per cent) and 1991-2000 (6.2 per cent) periods. In the last decade, populists have been more likely to play the role of major partners (19.7 per cent) or junior partners (14.5 per cent). These results are consistent with a picture of‘mainstreaming’ of populist parties (Akkerman, De Lange, and Roodujin 2016).The ‘major + junior partner’formula is more frequent in the second (7.7 per cent) than in the third period (6 per cent), mainly due to the (rather peculiar) Italian case. When assessing the external support formula, we observe an even more significant decline between the second and third period, from 7.7 per cent to 4.3 per cent. Again, ‘mainstreaming’ may explain this. As populist parties become a more politically ‘acceptable’ option, their direct inclusion in national executives becomes less problematic, thus reducing the need to rely on looser forms of collaboration. At the same time, populist parties have also become more willing to formally engage with more established parties in processes of government formation.

Increasing governmental participation has given populist parties more opportunities to shape the political agenda and impact on policies and democratic processes. Of course, it would be wrong to assume that being out of government means by default being unable to influence political and policy making dynamics. The case studies included in this book clearly show that this is not the case.Yet, the primary focus of this chapter, and particularly the next section, is discussing whether populism in government had a direct impact on different dimensions of democracy. As we will see, important distinctions should be made between different kinds of populists and different European macro-regions.