Study examines the different approaches to COVID-19 crisis

A NEW study which examines the way populist governments and opposition forces have reacted to the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the huge variety of responses to the pandemic.

It includes from threatening to shoot lockdown violators to actively encouraging free movement.

Dr Giorgos Katsambekis, of Loughborough University, has co-edited a report that examines the diverse reactions of populist actors to the COVID-19 pandemic and looks at what influences lay behind the broad spectrum of successful and catastrophic actions they have taken.

In total, 19 academics have looked at 16 countries and political actors from across the world, from Australia to Sweden and from the Philippines to Brazil and the United States, in a report that has been the result of collaboration between Loughborough’s Populism Research Group and the POPULISMUS Observatory at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Greece.

He said: “Populism has been dominating public discussions around the future of democracy and representative institutions for quite a few years now.

“Almost immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic started hitting one country after the other, we witnessed the proliferation of myriads of articles by pundits and media outlets that rushed to speculate on the role and prospects of populism in the new conjuncture.

“Would COVID-19 ‘kill’ populism? Would it make it stronger? Would populists in government be ‘exposed’ for their alleged inadequacy and incompetence? Would liberals finally triumph, boosted by a newfound faith in ‘expert knowledge’ and the heralded failure of their populist opponents?

“Those discussions, as often happens in the public sphere, tended to oversimplify things, missing the variety of responses to the pandemic by both populists and non-populist actors and thus failing to offer an adequately nuanced account of the situation.

“This is exactly what we have tried to do in this report.”

The report, Populism and the Pandemic, highlighted five key findings:

1. COVID-19 is not ‘killing’ populists

2. Not all populists have responded in the same way to the COVID-19 pandemic

3. Ideology is a crucial factor that should not be overlooked

4. Understanding the policies of certain actors through the lens of ‘populism’ can sometimes be inaccurate and misleading

5. ‘Experts’ are not neutral actors that will save liberal democracy from ‘bad populists’.