Dividing the People: Polarization Under Populist Rule
Successful populist parties need to accumulate electoral majorities that allow them to overpower the political establishment and circumvent their control over political institutions. The degree to which populist parties polarize societies is reflected in their electoral support coalition. Why do some populist parties amass cross-cleavage coalitions whereas others reinforce them? I label these types as Catch-All Populism and Polarizing Populism respectively. My book project uses cases from the contemporary Andean region to explain these differences and draws implications for experiences outside Latin America.
Using the cases of Chavismo in Venezuela, MAS in Bolivia, and PAIS in Ecuador I develop a two-step theory to explain coalitional differences in successful populist parties. First, I claim that populist parties that emerge in a context of party system collapse have more room and incentives to build catch-all coalitions that cut across social cleavages. Second, I contend that these broad coalitions can only be upheld when populists exhibit high performance in their mandates to punish political elites and save their countries from profound crises. When they cannot, and their electoral support coalition risks shrinking, they turn to build more socially divisive coalitions and foster societal polarization in order to boost supporters’ identification and loyalty to the incumbent.