The 2010s were the decade of populism. From 2018-2020, the world's three largest democracies (India, the United States, and Brazil) were each governed by a populist leader, and of approximately 90 democracies around the world, as many as 20 in 2012 and 2013 were led by populists.
Right-wing populist parties and right-wing projects such as Brexit exploded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis. For a time, populism seemed permanently ascendent.
But in a new report for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) I find that the number of populist leaders in power around the world is down to 11, the lowest since 2003 and down from 19 as recently as 2018. Why has the number of populist leaders in power dropped so quickly?
One reason is that when populist leaders have been in power for a long time or a country has experienced several of them, voters become tired of their heated rhetoric and poor policymaking. This has been the experience in Latin America, where several countries experienced a decades-long alternation between left and right-wing populists and authoritarians. Voters have soured on left-wing populism in the wake of the economic disaster in Venezuela. But they have embraced more moderate leftists, who currently hold the presidency in all but three South American countries.
A similar thing happened in the U.S. midterms. Voters, especially in swing states, rejected candidates closely associated with former President Donald Trump's claims of election fraud, though many still voted for mainstream Republicans.
A second reason why the number of populist leaders in power has dropped is that mainstream opposition parties have learned how to contest elections against them. While populist leaders are divisive and viewed negatively by much of the electorate, they still tend to be the single most popular politician in their country. To defeat them, opposition parties must build a broad coalition, involving parties of sometimes very different ideological dispositions.
Parties in several countries have succeeded in doing this by running campaigns that downplay differences between the various opposition groups and focus on the harm that the populist leader has done to the country. Successes include Slovenia in 2022, and Bulgaria, Israel, and the Czech Republic in 2021.
Israel is an example of failure as well, with its election in 2022 bringing back to power the populist Benjamin Netanyahu. Other places where right-wing populist challengers led winning electoral campaigns in 2022 include Italy and Sweden. The reasons for their electoral success differ, but the populists in Italy and Sweden benefitted from their incumbent mainstream opponents running a negative campaign, which accused the populists of threatening democracy.
Voters, feeling the accusations were less about the populists and more about a failure of mainstream parties to fix their countries' problems, were unswayed. To succeed, mainstream parties should campaign primarily on substantive agendas, which must be clear and focused on major issues. The recently elected moderate-left presidents of Latin America have been exemplary in this regard, focusing on pragmatic measures to address inequality and promote progressive social issues.
On the other hand, mainstream challengers to incumbent populists can run negative campaigns and succeed. That's for two reasons: One, this type of campaign can create unity among disparate mainstream groups; and two, the populist has a track record that that more moderate parties can exploit.
While populism is at a low ebb now, the question becomes should we expect only a temporary reprieve, or have we returned to the less populist era of the 1990s? That depends on how well post-populist mainstream governments can carry out their mandates. I've argued that to succeed, these often-diverse coalitions must focus on policies that won't divide them, such as institutional reforms that guard against future populist challenges.
But the post-populist coalition governments that took power in Bulgaria and Israel in 2021 struggled to do this and collapsed in 2022. Israel's new government is the most right-wing in that country's history. And several of the moderate-left governments in Latin America have been fragile, as demonstrated by the ouster of President Pedro Castillo of Peru, and the failure of a liberal constitutional referendum backed by President Gabriel Boric of Chile.
The number of populists in power may be at a low point, but the populists can always strike back, especially if mainstream parties fail to cooperate and govern effectively.
Brett Meyer is a research fellow at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
