IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecosys/v49y2025i1s0939362524000682.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of governance on populist rhetoric

Author

Listed:
  • Reck, Fabian
  • Fidrmuc, Jarko
  • Gruninger, Frédéric

Abstract

The phenomenon of populism is widespread in the 21st century. In this paper, we analyze the correlation between the World Bank’s six worldwide governance indicators and populism, which is proxied by the populist rhetoric of government representatives. The panel data includes 40 developing and developed countries and covers the period from 2000 to 2018. The results suggest that good governance may help to reduce populist rhetoric. However, we show that a certain threshold of governance quality must be met to mitigate populist rhetoric. Refugee immigration and one-party dominance, on the other hand, increase populist rhetoric. Despite frequent claims, we do not find robust evidence that merchandise trade or a high unemployment rate strengthens populism.

Suggested Citation

  • Reck, Fabian & Fidrmuc, Jarko & Gruninger, Frédéric, 2025. "Impact of governance on populist rhetoric," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 49(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:49:y:2025:i:1:s0939362524000682
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2024.101246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0939362524000682
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecosys.2024.101246?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Governance indicators; Populist rhetoric; Refugee immigration; Merchandise trade; Unemployment rate; Fixed telephone subscriptions; One-party dominance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:49:y:2025:i:1:s0939362524000682. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/osteide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.