Article Dans Une Revue Revue d'économie politique Année : 2025

An Economic Theory of Populism: Political Disequilibrium and Democratic Instability

Une théorie économique du populisme : déséquilibre politique et instabilité démocratique

Résumé

This paper deduces conditions under which populism successfully emerges in democratic contexts. Building on Downs's economic theory of democracy, it hinges on three assumptions: uncertainty, rationality, and democratic stability. This theory considers three main types of agents: citizens, political parties, and information providers. We demonstrate that the necessary and sufficient conditions for a populist party to emerge and gain significant electoral support are 1) a political disequilibrium between demand (citizens' preferences) and supply (parties' platforms) combined with 2) democratic instability due to ideological polarization. Such conditions provide the rationale behind populist anti-elitism and its thin nature as an ideology. Since this paper provides a theoretical account of populism that, while sharing Downsian roots, differs from main political economy models of populism, we provide a systematic comparison. In particular, we show that the conditions under which the Median Voter Theorem is relevant are at odds with the conditions required to account for populism.

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hal-05414427 , version 1 (13-12-2025)

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  • HAL Id : hal-05414427 , version 1

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Alexandre Chirat, Cyril Hédoin. An Economic Theory of Populism: Political Disequilibrium and Democratic Instability. Revue d'économie politique, 2025, 135 (5), pp.735-762. ⟨hal-05414427⟩
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