Dealing with Populists-In-Government: A Framework for Analysis

Populism is one of the challenges to contemporary democracy that has captured increasing attention in the last years. However, little has been said about the way in which actors cope with the coming into power of populist forces. By adopting an ideological definition of populism, the study of how to deal with populists-in-government that we are interested in developing will differentiate between strategies that target the demand for and the supply of populism. Furthermore, in line with the literature on democratisation, we will argue that the study of how to deal with populists-in-government should differentiate between the strategies adopted by domestic and external forces. Based on the identification of these two different types of strategies (strategies that target the demand vis-à-vis the supply, and strategies that are adopted by domestic vis-à-vis external forces), we will discuss the role of actors that are involved in enacting the strategies in question.