Thread by @PetraGuasti

A very telling interview with Czech PM Andrej Babis textbook illustration for (technocratic) populism.
hir.harvard.edu/shock-to-the-h…

A shorts thread on technocratic populism using AB quotes to illustrate some relevant aspects of TP. 1/12

Three elements are crucial on TP:
1) combines populist and technocratic appeal;
2) transcends LR politics (but not centrist);
3) strategically combines populist and technocratic discourse (communication) and substance (policies) 2/12.

technocratic governance: "The Czech administration historically lacked rational decision-making and long-term planning; our government, for example, was the first to plan all necessary investments for the next 30 years." 3/12

populists correctly diagnose the core issues:
"I started the ANO movement with one simple goal in mind: to break down the political-economic matrix of corruption, endless mismanagement, and abuse of power that I witnessed during the 1990s and 2000s." 4/12

and propose a cure - unmediated politics
"I offered the Czech citizenry an alternative to traditional political parties (especially the Civic Democratic and Social Democratic Parties) and a different style of management without behind-the-scenes-deals and clientelism." 5/12

for those 'left behind':
"That cannot be done only through marketing or efficient PR. You must be in touch with people, especially with those who were left out by traditional parties." 6/12

AB mixes up 'populist' and 'popular' but makes a good point about perils of populism rising vs. populism in power - overpromising (during campaign) and underdelivering (in power) : 7/12

"Populist politicians are hotshots, they skyrocket in popularity using catchy promises, but the reality of day-to-day decision-making in office makes them highly unpopular and they then fall into oblivion." 8/12

AB has a rather peculiar view of his success, conflicts of interests and is mixing populist and popular.
for more on AB:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.117…
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… by @LBustikova & PRG; @HavlikVlastimil; @DrSeanHanley & #MiladaVachudova 9/12

for more on TP
tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.108…
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
by @cjbickerton 10/12

More on varieties of populism
cambridge.org/core/journals/…
by @Zulianello_M

and if in need of a crash course on populism
oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/…

11/12

If you want to know more about TP around the world stay tuned
cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgov… 12/12
@CogitatioPaG #openaccess