The strengths and limits of neoliberal populism: the statism and mass organisation of contemporary rightwing regimes

ABSTRACT ‘Neoliberal populism’, as both concept and mode of government, has peculiar capacities and strengths. But the concept should not be overstretched, and the strength of pure neoliberal populism should not be overestimated. The most resilient of the regimes that have been labelled ‘neoliberal populist’ (Erdoğan’s Turkey and Orbán’s Hungary) could not go beyond ten years without mobilising statist tools much more heavily than others. In comparison to them, earlier Latin American, Eastern European, and Southeast Asian neoliberal populist governments have had relatively short tenures. Moreover, our theoretical approach to populism needs to be thoroughly revised to make analytical sense of the mass organisational bases of some rightwing regimes. The strongest of today’s rightwing populist regimes are differentiated from earlier and contemporary neoliberal populist cases by their statist policy tools and mass organisational underpinnings.