The new rise of populism isn’t about economics

ECONOMIC theories of populism are dead, we Americans just don’t know it yet. Over the past week, two countries have brought populists to power, but in both cases those places have been enjoying decent economic growth.

Andrej Babis’s party dominated the Czech national election Saturday, and he is almost certain to become the next prime minister. Babis has been described as “the anti-establishment businessman pledging to fight political corruption while facing fraud charges himself” — sound familiar? Yet in 2015, the Czech Republic had the European Union’s fastest growth rate at more than 4%; earlier this year, it was growing at 2.9%, with potential seen on the upside.

Last week’s negotiations in New Zealand brought Labor Party leader Jacinda Ardern to power, with populist firebrand Winston Peters in the coalition government. Ardern wants to cut immigration, possibly in half, and place much tighter restrictions on foreign investment.

Although New Zealand’s economic growth has been slowing, it’s mostly been above 2% since the end of the financial crisis.

Among emerging economies, the Philippines moved from being an Asian growth laggard into some years of 8% growth. Voters responded by electing as president Rodrigo Duterte, one of the most aggressive and authoritarian populists around. In eastern Europe, Poland has been seeing average 4% growth for more than 25 years, yet the country has moved in a strongly nationalist direction, flirting with sanctions from the EU for limiting judicial independence. Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and now the Czech Republic all are much wealthier than 20 years ago and mostly have been