Enabling Exclusion: the Consequences of Populists in National Government for Their Policy-Making in Local Government

The consequences of populism in power are usually analysed at the national level of government and assumed to be constant across the polity. This paper instead evaluates the local variation in the consequences by testing the influence of populist national government incumbency on local government policy-making. I examine two cases of local governments led by the populist radical right at two time periods: before and after the parties enter national government. These cases are Wels in Austria (for the period of national opposition between October 2015 – November 2017, and then their entry into national government between December 2017 – June 2019), and Cascina in Italy (likewise, for the period of June 2016 – May 2018, and then June 2018 – September 2019). Following Mudde’s conceptualisation of the tripartite ideology of the populist radical right – comprising populism, nativism and authoritarianism – I analyse the extent to which each core ideological component is present over the two periods. First, I identify their policy and discursive outputs via local government policy records and local newspaper coverage. Then, I trace the process that leads from national government entry to local government policy influence, via interviews with local political actors involved in the policy-making process. The paper finds the ideological impact of PRR parties in local government is highly conditional upon their simultaneous presence in national government and occupation of relevant ministries. Most significantly, their nativist aims are only fulfilled through exclusionary policy when national power is also held, before which their policy remains close to comparable cases led by mainstream parties. The paper therefore contributes to the literature by offering another lens through which to measure the policy influence of populism in power, without which the distinct consequences felt by localities under simultaneous local and national populist government would be overlooked.