Lithuanian populist parties in the government and their impact on public policy

Populism is among the most popular subjects that are analysed in a comparative perspective by major cross-cultural surveys (such as ISSP) or EU Framework projects (such as DEMOS, FATIGUE or POPREBEL). This paper is based on a work implemented under the H2020 project DEMOS. As part of DEMOS project, Bartha, Boda and Szikra (2021) developed a theoretical framework suggesting the method of congruence analysis (which originally was used by Blatter and Haverland, 2012) to investigate the empirical relevance of the ideal type of populist policy making through three main aspects: policy content, policy process, and policy discourse. In this paper we present results of the study of populist party performance while being part of the Lithuanian Government in public policy, focussing on three domains – macroeconomic, criminal justice and family policy. The study found that policy making and governance in criminal justice may be described as populist content, process, and discourse free. Economic policy of two of the parties analysed (the Labour Party and the Party Order and Justice) may be described as ideologically multifaceted and diverse, while the National Resurrection Party stayed rather consistent ideologically and supported liberal agenda. Area of the family policy was more prone to become populated with populist elements, at least by the Party Order and Justice. It was full of Manichean content, dismissing the “liberal agenda of elites” and destructive “values of the West”.