This article adds to the discussion of the effects of populism in public office. More specifically, we investigate the connection between populist presidents and citizens’ participation in the political process in Latin American democracies. On the one hand, we analyse the amount of citizen participation in existing democratic institutions before and after the rise of populist presidents – addressing the hypothesis that populist presidents increase the inclusion of citizens into the political system. On the other hand, we investigate the introduction and use of direct democratic instruments by populist presidents – addressing the hypotheses that populist presidents may both introduce new instruments and/ or increase the use of existing institutions of direct democracy. By means of a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) we test causal combinations of theoretically derived conditions expected to explain the presence or absence of increased participation, the introduction and/or the increased usage of direct democratic instruments.
