LIST OF PANELS

The fact that populist parties and leaders came into power both at the national and subnational levels even in established democracies offers a novel opportunity to study the practice of their governance and policy making in comparison to the business-as-usual of liberal democracies. Although populism scholars claim that there is no such thing as populist policy, given the malleable and ideologically multifaceted character of populism, it might be possible the reconstruct the ideal type of populist policy making even in terms of its substantive (content-related) components. Indeed, prioritizing some policy fields over others is not necessarily a characteristic feature of populist governance, but frequent policy innovations as well as large policy changes may be. Populism manifests itself even more clearly in terms of the procedures and the discourses of policy making.  The course aims at exploring the main patterns of populist policy making along the dimensions of policy content, policy procedures and policy discourses. This exercise helps also to reflect upon the sometime hidden assumptions concerning the mainstream models of policy making and their limitations explaining governance styles which differ from the policy making of liberal democracies. The course will adopt an ideal-typical approach, but will rely on empirical evidences concerning the governance of populist governments. Participants are welcome to bring in their own work as it bears on any of these themes.

(AFTERNOON COURSE)

ICPP6 preconference Class