Welfare Benefactor, Security Paladin or Technocratic Manager? The Effect of Populist Mayor on Public Policy and Investment in Czech Cities.

Despite the recent success of populists and anti-establishment parties and movements, there is only limited knowledge about how different populist leaders engage with public policy and administration. This gap is especially evident at the subnational level, even though many populist and anti-establishment parties govern at first and even only at this level and play a decisive role in shaping local politics, public services and administrative reform. This paper aims at filling the ‘sub-national gap’ and exploring the effect of populist mayors on public policies, and local spending in Czech cities. This paper seeks to understand to what extent the type of mayor’s political party (populist party, local lists or traditional mass-party) and the composition of the local council influence the city economic performance (deficit), social benefits spending and investment in local security. The Czech Republic is an excellent case as it has experienced a recent electoral success of populist parties and anti-establishment movements at the expenses of traditional mass parties. This variety of local political subjects makes from Czech local government an excellent case to explore. This paper analyses quantitatively data from 600 Czech large and middle-sized cities between 2010 and 2018.