Date: 2020
Type: Article
Democratic backsliding, populism, and public administration
Perspectives on public management and governance, 2020, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 19-31
BAUER, Michael W., BECKER, Stefan, Democratic backsliding, populism, and public administration, Perspectives on public management and governance, 2020, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 19-31
- https://hdl.handle.net/1814/69472
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
What happens to public administration when populists are elected into government? This article argues that populists seek to realize an anti-pluralist reform agenda, thereby fuelling trends of democratic backsliding. Against this background, the article discusses potential goals and strategies of populist public administration policy and introduces examples of how populists sought to capture (Orbán in Hungary), dismantle (Fujimori in Peru), sabotage (Trump in the United States), and reform (Blocher in Switzerland) the state bureaucracy. In doing so, populists in government aim at structures, resources, personnel, norms, and accountability relationships. The examples suggest that populist public administration policies can have profound impact on policymaking and democracy, underlining the need for a broader research agenda on this issue area.
Additional information:
First published online : 09 January 2020
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/69472
Full-text via DOI: 10.1093/ppmgov/gvz026
ISSN: 2398-4910; 2398-4929
Publisher: Oxford University Press