Thread by @Yascha_Mounk

THE debate of the past years has been: Do populists damage democracy? Or are they a healthy corrective?

Until now, nobody has answered these questions on the basis of a comprehensive global dataset.

@jkyleindc and I set out to change that.

[THREAD.]

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

We assembled a first-of-its-kind dataset of populist leaders, looking at 46 heads of government across 33 countries who were in power between 1990 and today.

And instead of speculating about what populists did to democracy, we actually looked at the historical record.

So what impact did populist governments have on democracy in the past?

Not good. At all:
* Populist leaders stay in office twice as long
* They are four times as likely to cause democratic backsliding
* Only 34% leave office after free and fair elections or due to term limits

Populist leaders also erode checks and balances and attack individual rights:

* 50% amend the constitution to expand their power

* 40% are indicted on corruption charges

* Populist governments do tend to damage freedom of the press, civil liberties, and political rights

Let’s look in a bit more detail. Those who don’t think populists are a threat make three main arguments:

1) Populists leave office quickly and peacefully

2) They don’t damage democracy and maintain individual rights

3) Left populists aren’t that dangerous

Is any of this true?

1)

Democratic governments stay in office about three years. Populist governments, by contrast, stay in office much longer: over six years, on average. As a result, populists are *way* more likely to perpetuate themselves in power for a long period of time.

Five years after getting elected, populist governments are twice as likely as non-populist governments to still be in office.

Ten years after getting elected, they are five (!) times more likely to still be in office.

This might not be so worrying if populists eventually left office because they lost regular elections or respected term limits. But is that the usual end of populist governments?

I'm afraid not.

In reality, populists usually leave office under very dramatic circumstances:

Some lose elections. Some respect term limits. But a larger number is impeached, resigns amid scandal, or is convicted while in office.

What happens to the biggest number of all? ~30% are still in office.

This is partly due to populism’s recent rise. But over half of the populists who are still in office have been in power over nine years. In most cases, this means they have perilously expanded their power.

2)

Democracies are sticky. The best predictor of what a country’s political system looks like next year is to look at what it looks like this year.

The good news is that this also holds for populist governments: much of the time, democracies survive them.

The bad news is that populist governments are FOUR TIMES more likely than non-populist ones to damage democratic institutions.

On average, non-populist governments damage democracy 6% of the time. Populist governments cause democratic backsliding in 24% of cases.

(Note that this damage often occurs—or is recognized—late in the game: A decade into the rule of Chavez in Venezuela and Erdogan in Turkey, Polity still scored these countries as full democracies. Since then, these countries have rapidly turned into dictatorships.)

These system changes also affect the everyday life of citizens:

Populist rule is associated with a 7% decline in freedom of the press, an 8% decline in civil liberties, and a 13% decline in political rights.

Populists often claim that they want to “drain the swamp.” In reality, they tend to make corruption much worse:
* 4 in 10 populist rulers are indicted on corruption charges
* Countries ruled by populists tumble down corruption rankings like that by Transparency International

3)

According to our dataset, left-wing populists are nearly as likely to damage democracy as right-wing populists:

* 5 out of 13 right-wing populists initiated democratic backsliding
* 5 out of 15 left-wing populists did, too
* So did 5 out of 17 ideologically ambiguous ones

NB: Only movements that claim an exclusive right to speak for the people, casting opponents as illegitimate, count as populists on our definition.

→ Wanting robust redistribution is not, in itself, dangerous to democracy. But using populist tactics to achieve that goal is.

Where does that leave us?

The most important takeaway is that the big theoretical debate of the past years has a clear empirical answer:

The record strongly suggests that populism, in all its forms, really is a serious danger to democracy.

But: Most countries that have been ruled by populists so far are low- or middle-income, and have a relatively recent history of authoritarianism.

It’s as yet unclear how capable populists will prove to inflict similar damage in old, rich democracies like the United States.

Most importantly, none of this is a reason to be fatalistic:

Populists often damage democracy. But even more often, the opposition manages to hold its own.

This study is a reason for partisans of liberal democracy to rise to the fight, not to hang their heads.

Please share this thread widely! Please read the full report below (especially if you’re a political scientist)! And please keep doing what so many of you, in so many different countries, do to preserve democratic institutions!

institute.global/insight/renewi…

You should all follow @jkyleindc who led the creation of this database. Please join me in thanking the whole wonderful team who made it possible.

This was my last report with @InstituteGC. To see what I'm up to next, read this thread:

[The End.]

https://twitter.com/Yascha_Mounk/status/1075871467924045824