Political economy

Populism, as the emergence of popular discontent with the current political order, seems intuitively connected to the capitalist economy with its tendencies toward inequality, precarity and crisis. This chapter explores the different ways to study the connection between political economy and populism. First, it discusses the ways in which economic processes can help to understand the emergence of popular discontent. This can take the form of structural processes of economic globalization that impact voting behaviour, or it can revolve around contingent political strategies deployed by political actors in situations of economic crisis. Second, the chapter turns to economic populism as the economic policy preferences and strategies adopted by populists. It will become clear that economic populism is ideologically diverse, and as difficult to define a priori as populism itself.