Foxes in the Chicken Coop? Three Strategies of Populists in Government

The paper draws of the variety of recent experiences of populism across the world to develop a typology of populist strategies for dealing with being successfully elected to government. The paper argues that anti-establishment element of populism does provide a particular challenge for populists in office regarding how they maintain their populist credentials while becoming part of the establishment that they have opposed. Looking at the range of cases we can identify three patterns of behaviour in office. The first consists of those populists who once in office effectively moderate or abandon their populism. The second strategy is where populists in office attempt to fundamentally reshape the institutions of government into a form that minimises opposition and maximises the legitimacy of their claims to bring about change. The final strategy is where populists in office behave as if they are in opposition and effectively continue to govern in a campaigning mode and eschew the aspiration to bring about policy change. The paper attempts to outline these strategies and to illustrate them with recent cases of populists in power.