Populism as Democratization’s Nemesis: The Politics of Regime Hybridization

Abstract

The global ascendancy that populism has gained in recent years resulted in two major developments: (a) the geographical spread of populism to an increasing number of countries, to the extent that in regions such as the Americas and Europe populism appears as the main contender of mainstream politics; (b) populism shifting from the margins to the center stage of politics, a development that resulted in the passage of populism as a movement to populism as government. A central hypothesis guiding this article is that populism in government is likely to promote a specific path to regime change: one consisting of the gradual hybridization of the structure of liberal democracy through the selective removal of some of the latter’s defining features. The contemporary proliferation of populist administrations in Europe and the Americas should consequently not be taken lightly: they might be announcing political processes that can ultimately result in a drastic redefinition of the landscape of current democratic politics in an illiberal direction.