6 October 2024

Populism’s Broken Economic Promises

Manuel Funke, Christoph Trebesch, and Moritz Schularick

Over the last few decades, populists have come to power in a long list of countries. Italy elected Silvio Berlusconi, and Turkey empowered Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Venezuela had Hugo Chávez and now Nicolás Maduro; its neighbor, Brazil, was governed by Jair Bolsonaro until 2023. Argentina’s current president, the anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei, is clearly a populist. And the United States voted Donald Trump into power in 2016. It may do so again.

Dazzling, entertaining, sometimes downright grotesque, populist leaders span the political spectrum. Chavez and Maduro are socialists, whereas Milei and Trump are conservatives. Sometimes, the leaders defy simple left-right

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