The Social Bases of Populist Domination: Market Reforms and Popular Reactions in Latin America and Post-Communist Europe

Abstract

This article explains why only some post-neoliberal populists successfully keep themselves in power, thereby dominating political systems over the long term. Based on cross-regional dual paired comparisons of ‘crucial’ cases in the Andes and Central Europe, it advances a theory emphasizing societal reactions rooted in prior neoliberal critical junctures. I argue that where well-established and programmatic social democratic parties engaged in bait-and-switch reforms, subsequent populists mobilized extensive electoral coalitions with core support from former leftist constituents, based on which they built organizational capacities for the provision of national public goods that reinforced their popularity over the long term. By contrast, where personalistic leaders politicized regionally based divides through identity-priming appeals and then disproportionately hurt core supporters through bait-and-switch reforms, subsequent populists mobilized more segmented electoral coalitions, built less cohesive parties and provided limited public goods, which undermined their popularity as incumbents. By underscoring parallels in two different world regions, the article challenges institutionalist accounts of populist domination and offers a novel societally focused perspective.

The political and economic liberalization that began at the end of the Cold War has transformed societies across the world. A key development has been growing political instability associated with populist or anti-establishment politics. For example, while Latin America witnessed the rise of radical outsiders (Levitsky and Loxton 2013), post-communist Europe experienced ‘the strange death of the liberal consensus’ (Krastev 2007). Although such developments have challenged liberalism differently, they have done so following strikingly parallel trajectories.

This article compares the paths four countries followed towards post-neoliberal populism – Ecuador, Peru, Slovakia and Poland. While all four saw the rise of anti-establishment actors to executive power in the early 21st century, populists dominated in Ecuador and Slovakia for over a decade by winning multiple consecutive national-level elections, whereas they failed to do so in Poland, where they spent more time in opposition, and Peru, where their party collapsed. Since populism in government is seen as a ‘threat to democracy’, especially in under-institutionalized contexts like Latin America and post-communist Europe, the persistence of populist incumbents in power can have concerning consequences for liberal democracies (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2012).

Why do only some electorally successful populists persist in power over the long term? I argue that the bases of populist domination are in the societal coalitions that bring populists to power. These societal coalitions are traceable back to the political agency in charge of key market reforms during neoliberal critical junctures featuring bait-and-switch tactics of deepening neoliberalism after credible campaign promises to the contrary. While in Ecuador and Slovakia key liberalization was enacted under well-organized and programmatic social democratic parties, in Peru and Poland personalist leaders without strong organizations activated previously less salient regionally based cleavages for electoral purposes through identity-priming appeals before overseeing crucial market reforms. As disaffected constituencies then became newly available for mobilization following the bait-and-switch, post-neoliberal populists encountered opportunity structures characterized by variable magnitude of regional polarization. In Ecuador and Slovakia, they successfully mobilized highly extensive coalitions with core support from former social democratic constituents. As a result, they developed institutional cohesion for the delivery of popular public goods when in power and dominated in the long term. In Peru and Poland, by contrast, post-neoliberal populists encountered regional polarization and mobilized more segmented coalitions centred around the constituencies that had been politically activated through identity-based priming during the critical juncture. As a result, they developed less cohesive parties, provided fewer public goods and enjoyed comparably less success as incumbents.

Because pre-existing social coalitions rooted in the politics of prior market reform shaped similar linkages between organizational capacities for popular social spending and populist domination, I contend that the path-dependent legacies of similar neoliberal critical junctures are crucial for understanding parallel developments in two different world regions. By advancing a theory emphasizing societal reactions, I add nuance to previous studies linking political dynamics during earlier market reforms and subsequent institutional outcomes (Roberts 2014). Importantly, my analysis of four ‘crucial’ cases challenges arguments prioritizing natural resources, authoritarian proclivities or other institutional advantages. As I show, the bases of populist domination can be social rather than institutional.

Next, I present a cross-regional perspective of post-neoliberal populist domination and consider alternative explanations. I then develop my theory, make the case for dual paired comparisons and discuss the analytical approach used to study coalition extensiveness. Finally, I trace path dependencies in the case studies, discuss findings and summarize main takeaways.

Post-neoliberal populist domination: a cross-regional perspective

Despite populism's salience across multiple world regions, analysis has been dominated by intra-regional studies. Although such scholarship has illuminated important trends, such as Latin America's ‘left turn’ or ‘exclusionary’ populism in Europe (Levitsky and Roberts 2011; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2013), it has been less preoccupied with cross-regional perspectives highlighting common problems for liberal democracies. With few exceptions (e.g. Acemoglu et al. 2013; Weyland 1999), studies taking such a perspective usually emphasize differences and abstain from unpacking mechanisms of potential cross-regional validity.

Comparing Latin American and post-communist European cases is fruitful for the analysis of populist illiberalism because, despite the obvious structural, cultural, historical and institutional differences, these two regions share similar challenges associated with recent economic and political liberalization. First, both transitioned from state-led forms of development – socialism in the East, import substitution in the South – into neoliberal reformism (Greskovits 1998: 106) emphasizing the ‘Washington Consensus’ policies of social spending cuts, privatization, deregulation and free trade (Ruckert et al. 2017: 1585). Admittedly, the two regions experienced the neoliberal revolution differently. Whereas Latin America's reforms, mostly before the end of the Cold War, were more politicized, fuelled deeper inequality and were often interpreted as favouring international financial institutions, post-communist Europe's reforms produced relatively less politicization and inequality but were often enacted amid state- and nation-building efforts (Greskovits 1998; Pop-Eleches 2009). While these differences foreshadowed subsequent left- and right-wing alternatives in Latin America and Eastern Europe, respectively, neoliberalism produced discontent in both regions. Second, democratization, often elite-driven (Przeworski 1991), engendered unstable party systems with weak links to civil society. If parties were strong, they often relied on clientelism (Grzymala-Busse 2002; Levitsky and Roberts 2011). Third, both regions experienced popular distrust of liberal-democratic institutions and a turn to anti-establishment alternatives (Doyle 2011; Pop-Eleches 2010). As the similar challenges associated with economic and political liberalization suggest possible parallelism, comparing Latin American and post-communist European cases is useful for understanding not only ‘neoliberal populism’ in the 1990s (Weyland 1999), but also post-neoliberal challenges in the 21st century.

Following Steven Levitsky and Kenneth Roberts (2011: 6), I adopt a ‘political’ definition of populism as ‘the top-down political mobilization of mass constituencies by personalistic leaders who challenge established … elites on behalf of “the people”’. In turn, I treat post-neoliberal populism as a version of populism which is especially associated with personalistic new or maverick parties (Barr 2009) that became politically prominent by criticizing previously adopted neoliberal policies. Overall, then, I understand post-neoliberal populism in political-organizational terms. When compared to ‘ideational’ perspectives on populism, this approach emphasizes concrete processes of organizational development without, however, disagreeing on the selection of cases understood as ‘populist’ in the analysis below (see de la Torre and Arnson 2013; Rooduijn et al. 2019).

While the post-neoliberal populist challenge has been more clearly associated with Latin America's ‘left-wing’ populists (Ruckert et al. 2017), some Eastern European ‘right-wing’ populists have also mobilized constituencies by criticizing neoliberalism, and even enacted ‘unorthodox’ policies (Toplišek 2020). Particularly susceptible to post-neoliberal populism have been the Andes and Central Europe, where top-down, personalistic, anti-establishment parties gained executive power after opposing neoliberal reforms. Following Daron Acemoglu and co-authors (2013: 772), who identify such opposition with ‘left of the median’ economic positions, using two expert surveys to identify positions (Baker and Greene 2011; Polk et al. 2017), and relying on previous categorizations of populists based on ‘political’ definitions (Levitsky and Roberts 2011; Pop-Eleches 2010; Weyland 2020), Table 1 identifies four prominent post-neoliberal populist cases, the comparative study of which is particularly advantageous, as explained below.¹ The table also categorizes all national-level elections between 2000 and 2020 – roughly the period after the most intensive neoliberal reforms in each country (see Online Appendix A) – based on whether post-neoliberal populists gained the plurality of votes or not. The last two columns show electoral success rates calculated as the share of all national-level elections in which post-liberal populists were the top vote-getters – as challengers and as incumbents.²

Table 1. Comparing Post-Neoliberal Populists' Electoral Domination in Ecuador, Peru, Slovakia and Poland, 2000–20

Notes: leg., legislative elections; pres., 1st r., first-round presidential elections; pres., 2nd r., second-round presidential elections. Elections during which post-neoliberal populists were incumbents are indicated in bold.

The differences between the last two columns are noteworthy because they show that these actors were not equally successful at translating incumbency into electoral success. Whereas Ecuadorian and Slovak post-neoliberal populists had a superior electoral performance – that is, came out on top in a substantially greater share of elections – as incumbents than as challengers, their Peruvian and Polish counterparts did relatively worse as incumbents. These differences translated into varying abilities to dominate executive power over the long term. In Ecuador, Rafael Correa and his Proud and Sovereign Fatherland (PAIS) Alliance dominated by winning every national-level election for a decade after 2006. By contrast, Ollanta Humala's Peruvian Nationalist Party (PNP) may have won elections as a challenger but never as an incumbent, and eventually collapsed.³ Although less dramatically, Central European cases diverged too. Slovakia's Direction (SMER) governed longer than a decade after 2006⁴ while enjoying a 71.4% electoral success rate as an incumbent. In contrast, Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) governed briefly for two years after winning in 2005, then spent eight years in opposition. While it returned to power in 2015, its electoral record as an incumbent (50%) remains less impressive than as a challenger (62.5%). Whereas post-neoliberal populists controlled executive power over a decade in Ecuador and Slovakia, they were less capable of translating incumbency advantage into long-term political domination in Poland and Peru.

Explaining populist domination

Why do some successful post-neoliberal populists tend to capitalize electorally as incumbents while others fail? The literature suggests four explanations highlighting institutional advantages.

The first prioritizes control over resources. Particularly important in Latin America have been natural resource rents that radical populist incumbents used for targeted spending during ‘boom cycles’, which bought them long-term political support (Weyland 2009). While this explanation is generally convincing for the Andes, it faces problems. For example, although Ecuador's oil rents increased considerably (by nearly 50%) between 2003 and 2004, President Lucio Gutiérrez, having been elected as a leftist, refused to increase social spending substantially and was removed amid anti-neoliberal protests in 2005.⁵ Additionally, populist incumbents can keep themselves in power when commodity prices are low (Levitsky and Loxton 2013: 109) or where no such resources are available, as in Slovakia. And while it is possible that European Union financial support strengthens the position of spendthrift incumbents, in Poland – the largest post-communist beneficiary of EU funds – populist incumbents were less successful than in Slovakia. Although social spending is an important factor behind popular support for populists, it is not necessarily the product of resource rents or external funding.

A second explanation centres on populist incumbents' proclivity to abuse the institutional playing field in their own favour. The argument that populism leads to competitive authoritarianism, which facilitates long-term domination, is especially applicable to the Andes (Levitsky and Loxton 2013), but it also faces difficulties. First, not all populist challengers attempt to rule as authoritarians, as seen in Peru, where President Humala, elected as ‘unambiguously left-populist’, did not try to alter the institutions (Cameron 2011: 396n6; Madrid 2012). Second, even when they try, populists do not always become (successful) authoritarians, as evidenced by the ousting of Poland's PiS in 2007. Because populism in power does not necessarily produce authoritarianism, this explanation is not fully convincing.

A third argument highlights ‘internal-supply’ resources such as party institutionalization, charismatic leadership and convincing anti-establishment or anti-immigrant discourses. Specifically, organizational resources may include support from indigenous organizations (in the Andes) or labour unions, which are more likely to be decimated after particularly intensive economic crises (Roberts 1998). While this argument convincingly explains key Latin American cases, such as Peru, it has limitations. Ecuador's indigenous organizations had an inconsistent, and eventually adversarial, relationship with populist President Correa, while labour unions are uniformly weak in the Andes and post-communist Europe. Additionally, plausible party institutionalization arguments underscoring the importance of centralization, professionalism and membership (Grzymała-Busse 2002; Tavits 2013) are insufficiently precise. First, both electorally successful and less successful modern populist parties tend to feature uniformly high levels of centralization (Mudde 2007). Second, party institutionalization does not explain divergent patterns of domination for populist incumbents that are either similarly under-institutionalized, as in Latin America (Levitsky and Roberts 2011; Madrid 2012), or similarly well organized, as in Central Europe (Rybář and Deegan-Krause 2008; Tavits 2013).

Relatedly, leadership charisma and discourses are not sufficient for long-term populist domination. For instance, highly charismatic Peruvian and Polish populist parties PNP and PiS were less electorally successful as incumbents than their equally charismatic Ecuadorian and Slovak counterparts PAIS and SMER (see Kitschelt 2013). Moreover, populists in Slovakia were more dominant than in Poland despite less consistent anti-establishment discourse (Engler et al. 2019). And while rhetoric responsive to anti-immigrant attitudes may explain populist empowerment in Eastern Europe after the 2015 refugee crisis (Vachudova 2020), it does not explain the decade-long populist domination in Slovakia and Ecuador after 2006. Overall, if party organization or leadership matter, we need to unpack specific mechanisms through which they make a difference.

The final explanation emphasizes dominant populist presidents' electoral coattails facilitating command of highly nationalized constituencies and subsequent legislative majorities (Polga-Hecimovich 2014). While this argument seems plausible with reference to presidential elections, especially in Latin America, it is incomplete. If some populist presidents are highly popular and attract broad coalitions, as was the case in Ecuador but not in Peru, such a variation must be rooted in prior conditions or policies. Furthermore, populist incumbents were more electorally successful in Slovakia, where the presidency is weaker, than in Poland, where it is relatively stronger. As explained next, highly nationalized coalitions can be the source, rather than the product, of populists' ability to dominate.

Electoral coalitions as societal reactions to neoliberal reform

Although electoral coalitions, social spending and political organization are underspecified as individual explanations, they are theoretically linked. In fact, the extensiveness of coalitions – reflecting ability to attract comparable levels of support across space – is relevant to ‘fundamental questions about politics and representation, such as state building, the integration of a country's regions, and distribution of government resources’ (Morgenstern 2017: 16–19). This territorial aspect of politics, or ‘party nationalization’, can matter for populist incumbents' prospects for long-term domination, for several reasons. First, territorially comprehensive parties are likely to be more cohesive and disciplined in terms of organizational and resource management (Amorim Neto and Santos 2001). Second, parties' abilities to attract voters from across the country facilitate ‘responsible’ government via policies benefiting national, rather than local, constituencies (Alemán and Kellam 2008). Third, broad electorates facilitate governability because they enhance party unity around national questions, enabling legislative coalitions behind policies of national scope (Alemán and Kellam 2008: 193–194; Jones and Mainwaring 2003; Morgenstern 2017: 20).

Populist incumbents have much to gain from the cohesiveness, increased spending on national public goods and electoral advantages associated with high nationalization (Castañeda-Angarita 2013; Jones and Mainwaring 2003: 160). High nationalization can facilitate organizational cohesion needed for the provision of national public goods. In turn, such goods solidify electoral bonds between populist incumbents providing them and constituencies receiving them. Precisely because populist parties rely primarily on electoral linkages, according to which citizens connect with parties in the form of turnout but party leaders still control the agenda from the top down (Barr 2009: 35), national public goods matter greatly for the electoral prospects of populist incumbents.

Critically, while public policies sustain bonds between populist incumbents and electoral coalitions, the bases of this symbiotic relationship are historical and societal. Highly nationalized coalitions can congeal prior to political actors' ascent to power, and while some populists win initial elections with relatively uniform cross-regional support (e.g. in Ecuador and Slovakia), others rise with more geographically segmented coalitions (e.g. in Peru and Poland). Because they reflect popular reactions to earlier market reforms, such catalysing coalitions are particularly important for understanding post-neoliberal populists critical of the neoliberal establishment.

Although the political consequences of economic liberalization played out differently in Latin America and post-communist Europe, neoliberal reforms created social ‘losers’ bound for backlash in both regions (Przeworski 1991). Particularly provocative were political agents who had campaigned by credibly promising relief from economic liberalization, only to accelerate structural adjustment while in office. In Latin America, such bait-and-switch dynamics during neoliberal junctures diluted party brands, destabilized party systems and created electoral mobilization opportunities for subsequent populists (Lupu 2016; Roberts 2014). In post-communist Europe, left-wing parties also diluted their brands by deepening neoliberalism, thus provoking the rise of populism (Bagashka et al. 2022).

While persuasive, the critical juncture argument can be further specified regarding how political agency matters for populist outcomes. For instance, while Roberts (2014) traces processes in countries where institutionalized reformers – that is, either social democratic or labour-based populist parties – engaged in bait-and-switching, the Peruvian case – where a personalist reformer, Alberto Fujimori, did the same – is a possible outlier. As the critical juncture approach emphasizes the role of agency, such nuanced differences in terms of who carries the political responsibility for crucial reforms can be theoretically important because they can lead to subsequently dissimilar coalition patterns and processes. While well-institutionalized social democratic parties can primarily rely on standard programmatic appeals, personalist leaders without strong organizations are prone to ‘compensating’ by also emphasizing identity-priming appeals which, in turn, can politicize previously less salient regionally based cleavages. As ‘betrayed’ electorates become newly available for mobilization following the bait-and-switch, post-neoliberal populists can encounter opportunity structures characterized by variable degrees of regional polarization. After personalistic bait-and-switching, they will encounter more regional polarization, which is associated with more segmented coalitions predominantly centred around constituencies that had been politically activated through identity-based priming during the critical juncture. After social democratic bait-and-switching, by contrast, post-neoliberal populists will attract more highly nationalized coalitions with core support from former social democratic voters.

Finally, party cohesion is not an automatic result of highly nationalized coalitions. Instead, it is fostered by strategic populist leaders whose personalistic control can be transformative (Roberts 1995), thereby shaping their parties' organizational strategies and structures. Yet not all such leaders succeed at building cohesive organizations (Mudde 2007: 263–264). While, as discussed above, organizational cohesion is valuable for the provision of national public goods, which in turn solidify popular support for populism, post-neoliberal populist leaders are better able to cultivate it when their pre-existing coalitions are broad, and can thus be used as a resource, rather than narrower and constraining.

Figure 1 below links the elements of the theory posited above. Overall, the agency associated with bait-and-switching during critical junctures of market reform can engender variable electoral coalitions, which embody ensuing social reactions to neoliberalism. As populists rise to power with the support of these newly available coalitions, which differ in extensiveness, they have variable opportunities for subsequent cohesion, national public goods provision and long-term domination.

Figure 1. From Neoliberal Critical Junctures to Post-Neoliberal Populist Domination

Dual paired comparisons of ‘crucial’ cases

To shed empirical light on these theoretical propositions, I analyse developments in Ecuador, Peru, Slovakia and Poland as countries especially afflicted by post-neoliberal populism. I employ 2 × 2 paired comparisons for dual process tracing, a strategy that accounts for ‘differences and similarities in outcomes’ and ‘relates variables to one another over time’ (Tarrow 2010). The similarities and differences between ‘crucial’ cases within each regional pair and the cross-regional parallels make this approach ideal for understanding why some electorally successful post-neoliberal populists capitalize on incumbency more than others.

The countries in each regional pair represent ‘most similar’ systems, allowing us to control for various factors. They are neighbours with comparable economic development, (predominantly Catholic) culture, institutions and international status. While Poland and Slovakia share histories of foreign control, national-accommodative communism and EU membership, Peru and Ecuador share comparably sized indigenous populations, histories of economic inequality and political instability, and relatively late market reforms (Madrid 2012; Van Cott 2005; Yashar 2005).

Additionally, each regional pair saw post-neoliberal populists initially gain substantial electoral support (at least 20%) in the middle of the 21st century's first decade – Rafael Correa and Ollanta Humala in the Andes, and PiS and SMER in Central Europe.⁶ Indeed, these actors were political outsiders (in the Andes) or mavericks (in Central Europe) that built brand-new personalistic organizations, adopted nationalist rhetoric and attacked both the political and economic establishment. Ecuador's and Peru's populists are particularly comparable because neither began as a social movement (unlike in Bolivia) nor engaged in full-blown authoritarianism (unlike in Venezuela). In turn, while much post-communism scholarship has focused on the Hungarian populist case of Fidesz, comparing Slovakia and Poland can be highly instructive for understanding populism in ‘consolidated democracies', which, unlike Hungary, both of these countries remained between 2000 and 2020. Indeed, SMER's electoral success rate as an incumbent (71.4%) is not only more impressive than Fidesz's (66.7%) but it was also achieved under democratic conditions.

Overall, the cross-regional comparisons are theoretically valuable not because they expose alternative explanations as irrelevant but rather because they facilitate more convincing explanations by expanding scope conditions and illuminating parallel mechanisms. Thus, while natural resources were important in Ecuador, organizational resources mattered in Slovakia. Yet, combining for comparison ‘crucial’ cases in ‘most-similar’ and ‘most-different’ systems can not only illuminate the limits of prior theories (Tarrow 2010) but also how populist incumbents' varying abilities to dominate are rooted in prior neoliberal junctures.

In addition to qualitative process tracing, I rely on Daniel Bochsler's weighted Party Nationalization Scores (PNSw) as a quantitative measure of coalition extensiveness, which varies over time. Because it measures the territorial distribution of votes by accounting for variable electoral unit size, PNSw is ideal for assessing coalition extensiveness both over time and relative to other parties within the same country (Bochsler 2010: 158). I assess party nationalization by using subnational election data for all competitors in all relevant 71 legislative and presidential elections after the fall of dictatorships in the four analysed countries.⁷ Online Appendix B documents the method and sources used to calculate PNSw, Online Appendix C assesses specifically post-neoliberal populist party nationalization relative to electoral performance, and Online Appendix D displays the general relationships between party nationalization and vote shares for all parties in each country.

In line with the research on party nationalization discussed above, a party with the most consistently extensive coalition is likely to be highly cohesive and legislatively capable when compared to rival parties within the same party system.⁸ To be clear, party nationalization is not a measure of overall electoral support (Bochsler 2010: 158), as documented in Online Appendices C and D, but rather of the territorial homogeneity of electoral support. As my analysis substantiates, post-neoliberal populists in the four countries rose to power with initially similar electoral support but only some of them were consistently most nationalized within their party systems, beginning even before they were incumbents – a variation with serious implications for their ability to subsequently dominate as incumbents. Next, I trace how the evolution of electoral coalitions after two types of bait-and-switch critical junctures conditioned post-neoliberal populists' varying ability to capitalize as incumbents in the Andes and Central Europe.

Evidence

Ecuador

Ecuador experienced prolonged economic liberalization, but the most decisive reforms were under a leftist government (Roberts 2014: 157). Although Rodrigo Borja, leader of the Democratic Left, had campaigned as a social democratic presidential candidate in 1988, as president he initiated austerity due to falling oil prices and high deficits (Silva 2009: 155). After Borja presided over the most dramatic fall of real wages in modern Ecuador (see Online Appendix A), in the following decade the social democrats experienced more significant electoral declines as compared both to their performance in the previous decade and to other ‘traditional’ parties.⁹

Before declining, the Democratic Left had been Ecuador's leading and best-organized leftist party, with uniquely strong support in indigenous areas (Madrid 2012; Van Cott 2005: 83) due to its sensitivity to indigenous demands revolving around economic and class issues (Becker 2011: 30; Silva 2009: 156–158; Yashar 2005: 145). As Borja's reforms created a sense of betrayal among labour and indigenous movements, the social democrats faced their greatest losses in indigenous-rich provinces (Van Cott 2005: 110–111).

Following the social democrats' decline, the indigenous movement turned to populism by backing a series of anti-establishment presidential candidates – Freddy Ehlers in 1996 and 1998, Lucio Gutiérrez in 2002 and Rafael Correa in 2006. All three over-performed in indigenous areas by appealing to anti-neoliberal sentiments (Madrid 2012: 94–99). Despite having the highest support in the indigenous-rich provinces where the Democratic Left had lost most votes, neither Ehlers, whose presidential campaigns failed, nor Gutiérrez had particularly extensive coalitions. Gutiérrez was elected president, but after deepening neoliberalism despite rising oil prices, he quickly lost indigenous and congressional support and was ousted from office.

By contrast, post-neoliberal populist Correa commanded an extensive coalition even before becoming president. As he campaigned with the support of a small group of technocrats from richer coastal areas (Conaghan 2011: 267), Correa was initially viewed with suspicion by the indigenous movement (Madrid 2012: 103), which had long demanded a new constituent assembly and at first declined to support him (Becker 2011: 60, 96; Conaghan 2011: 267). When Correa finally promised a constituent assembly, he did so ‘in an opportunistic fashion that co-opted a key issue’ from the indigenous movement (Becker 2011: 104). As a result, after losing the first round, he won the second round of the 2006 presidential election not only with the backing of most centre-left parties (Madrid 2012: 106) but also with the ‘unconditional support’ of the previously sceptical indigenous movement. Correa then rewrote the constitution, as promised, and won a series of elections (Becker 2011: 106–111).

While Correa and his PAIS Alliance enjoyed the most consistently extensive coalition of any party in modern Ecuador, the high degree of party nationalization preceded Correa's incumbency. It was achieved already in 2006 by incorporating his primary coastal voters (Polga-Hecimovich 2014) and the strategically co-opted indigenous constituencies available for mobilization. With such nationalized electoral support, Correa then incorporated ‘“floating politicians” … and local political bosses’ (Clark and García 2019: 231) by organizing PAIS as the first Ecuadorian party to hold internal primaries in 2008 (Bowen 2015: 103). Even after Correa turned against the indigenous-environmental movement, PAIS retained much of the indigenous vote, remaining a ‘nationally focused elite party’ reliant on local notables (Poertner 2018: 86, 89). With such a focus and network, it achieved high legislative cohesion and discipline (Vera Rojas and Llanos-Escobar 2016), not only unifying ‘nearly the entire political left’ but also maintaining ‘the political stability required to implement its post-neoliberal policy agenda’ (Clark and García 2019: 231, 235).

This agenda focused on implementing a generous cash transfer programme and the doubling of social spending, which dramatically reduced inequality and poverty. Spending was heaviest on social welfare, health services, employment, urban development, housing and education, leading to improved enrolment rates at all levels (Weisbrot et al. 2017). The party's association with such national public goods is the reason why – despite the 2008–9 recession and falling oil prices after 2014 – PAIS still won the 2017 general elections even without its charismatic leader at the helm. Unlike the social democrats earlier, PAIS fulfilled many of the promises to its pre-existing extensive coalition – and remained consistently popular.

Peru

Peru's critical juncture occurred when personalistic President Alberto Fujimori enacted shock therapy (Roberts 2014: 114; see Online Appendix A). These reforms were bait-and-switch since Fujimori had campaigned as an anti-neoliberal opponent of ‘establishment’ candidate Mario Vargas Llosa and won the 1990 presidential election with support from labour federations and leftist parties appreciative of his appeal among the lower classes (Cameron 1994: 138–140; Seawright 2012: 141, 166). In addition to the economic liberalization and authoritarianism it ushered in, this election was critical because it was the first to feature a clear divide between indigenous areas, which Fujimori dominated, and non-indigenous areas. Specifically, Fujimori pioneered the politicization of ethnicity in Peru by using ‘cleavage priming’ and ethno-populist appeals (Madrid 2012: 122–125, 132–134).

The bait-and-switch also meant that, rather than address chronic poverty in indigenous communities, as president, Fujimori eliminated agricultural subsidies and liberalized land markets, leaving his original support base worse off ‘by any measure’ (Yashar 2005: 237–239). Unlike coastal areas, where unemployment and poverty declined, indigenous areas, now open to foreign direct investment in mining projects, were inhabited by reform ‘losers’ (Arce 2014: 47). The electoral effects were palpable even under authoritarian rule. As Fujimori attracted coastal constituents while gradually losing support in indigenous communities throughout the 1990s (Madrid 2012: 124), his coalition became more balanced and extensive.

Fujimori's economic reforms deepened the divide between the ‘official Peru’ of the coast and the ‘deep Peru where indigenous people live’ (Arce 2014: 71). After the end of his authoritarian rule, ‘deep Peru’ favoured Alejandro Toledo, who also used ethno-populist appeals (Madrid 2012: 123) before continuing structural adjustment and mining extraction, with very limited rents transferred to indigenous regions (Arce 2014: 49). As socioeconomic conditions in indigenous areas deteriorated, with poverty above 80% (Silva 2009: 256), four anti-neoliberal protest waves swept southern Peru, where both mining and impoverished indigenous provinces are concentrated (Arce 2008). As Toledo failed to remedy socioeconomic exclusion (Silva 2009: 256), the indigenous base was once again available for mobilization.

Post-neoliberal populist Ollanta Humala, who had proven his anti-establishment credentials in a failed coup attempt in 2000, mobilized this constituency in 2006. Humala won the first round and lost the second in the 2006 presidential election, then won both in 2011 by faring disproportionately better in indigenous areas. Although he moderated his message in 2011, the electoral map remained stable and Humala even improved his showing in indigenous-rich regions based on ethno-populist appeals and promises to redistribute wealth (Madrid 2012: 129–130, 143).

As Humala's coalition was anything but extensive, he failed to invest in party building. Because he did not register his newly founded party in time for the 2006 election, he ran as a candidate of an older party, Union for Peru. That party was a ‘disaster’, experiencing intense internal struggles and chaos as some of its congressional candidates did not even live in the provinces where they ran (Cameron 2009). Even after becoming president in 2011, Humala did not build organizational capacity. Although his next alliance, Peru Wins, gained a plurality in congress, numerous defections frustrated legislative control, resulting in high government instability, cabinets dominated by independent technocrats and exceptionally low popular approval (Muñoz and Dargent 2016: 324, 334).

Under such conditions, Humala failed to deliver the ‘great transformation’ he had promised (Vergara and Watanabe 2019). During his presidency, ‘the social budget remained one of the lowest in Latin America’, primarily targeting extreme poverty relief (Trivelli 2016). Spending on social assistance remained low and the distributional impacts of public services were ‘insufficient to meaningfully reduce the large welfare gaps’ between the impoverished highlands and wealthy coast (Gaentzsch 2018). Since the provision of public services was uneven and limited, intra-regional and income inequality persisted (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2016). As it did not address the polarizing legacies of the neoliberal juncture, Humala's ineffective party not only failed to supply a presidential successor, as PAIS did in Ecuador when Correa stepped down, but was too weak even to compete in the 2016 elections.

Slovakia

Following initial liberalization before the split of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, as an independent political entity, experienced its own critical juncture under a coalition government which delegated the responsibility for neoliberal reforms to former communists. Having participated in the coalition that toppled Vladimir Mečiar's authoritarian government in 1998, the Party of the Democratic Left (SDĽ) ended up as the de facto largest party in reformist Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda's first government (1998–2002). As such, it gained cabinet representation beyond the proportion of its vote share (Grzymała-Busse 2002: 248) and controlled the key ministries of finance and labour and social affairs (Fisher 2002: 135).

Previously, SDĽ had identified itself as a ‘left party’ critical of neoliberalism (Grzymała-Busse 2002: 154–158). It had promised to increase pensions, slow down privatization, regulate financial institutions and secure quality healthcare and free education for all (Fisher 2002: 129, 133). Yet, faced with a deteriorating economy, SDĽ Finance Minister Brigita Schmögnerová ‘was forced to take many unpopular steps’, including a ‘tough fiscal package to reduce the budget deficit’ (Haughton 2004: 185). Although liberalization continued thereafter, the 1998–2002 period of austerity marked independent Slovakia's critical juncture because the depth and speed of market reforms, as well as real wage declines and unemployment growth, were greater than under any other government (see Online Appendix A).

The bait-and-switch caused problems for SDĽ, which experienced splintering, lost much of its membership and collapsed by 2002 (Fisher 2002: 137; Haughton 2001). This created an opening for the new post-neoliberal populist party SMER whose leader, Robert Fico, was ‘quick to exploit the political opportunity’ (Haughton 2004: 187) by emphasizing the need for economic statism (Rybář and Deegan-Krause 2008: 508–509). While Fico's strategy targeting the social democrats' ‘alienated membership’ (Grzymała-Busse 2002: 155) brought the ‘largest single group’ of vote switchers between 1998 and 2002 from SDĽ to SMER (Rybář and Deegan-Krause 2008: 514), it was not enough to win the 2002 election. Only after strategically mixing economically redistributionist and nationalist appeals, thereby attracting former Mečiar supporters with concerns about poverty (Rybář and Deegan-Krause 2008: 513, 515–516), did SMER win its first election in 2006 – the first in an impressive series of victories.

SMER was not only Slovakia's most successful party, but also the party with the most consistently extensive coalition, which was mostly due to attracting former SDĽ voters. Indeed, SMER's nationalization was highest in 2002 – when most of its supporters came from SDĽ, which itself had been Slovakia's most nationalized party in the 1990s. While SMER's coalition extensiveness declined somewhat after attracting voters from Mečiar's comparably less nationalized Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, it still maintained the most extensive coalition for a decade, beginning before its rise to power.

Having taken over leftist voters, SMER then fostered ‘institutional linkages through acquisition of property and members after the dissolution of SDĽ’. Having achieved a dense and hierarchical organization (Rybář and Deegan-Krause 2008) under Fico's strategic leadership, SMER thus became ‘exceptionally stable in terms of party discipline [and] cohesion’, acting ‘in an extremely coherent manner, without open controversy’ and enjoying ‘exceptional unity in parliament’, with no recorded departures of MPs at least through 2016 (Malová 2017).

Such cohesion facilitated SMER's legislative efforts to ‘remedy the ills of the market economy’ (Rybář and Deegan-Krause 2008: 513) by acting as ‘a main caretaker of a strong social state’ (Malová 2017). Although constitutional limits on government spending necessitated budget consolidation, SMER also enacted popular social policies. During its first term in office, it ‘limited private ownership of public utilities, pensions and healthcare’, kept energy prices low, increased resources in state-owned insurance and introduced family benefits. During its second term, SMER introduced redistributive measures encompassing levies for banks and corporations, higher income taxes for high-earning individuals and three social packages including lower taxes for low-income earners, cheaper natural gas for households and free train tickets for students and pensioners (Malová 2017).

Overall, as it strategically exploited the post-critical juncture opportunity structure characterized by a wide centre-left field available for mobilization after the social democrats' bait-and-switch, SMER attracted a highly extensive coalition before assuming power in 2006. As a cohesive incumbent, it then delivered public goods of national scope, which helped it dominate for a decade.

Poland

Poland's critical juncture began in 1990 with shock therapy under Solidarity, the powerful labour union that had opposed austerity before unexpectedly embracing neoliberalism during a dramatic economic crisis (Orenstein 2001: 27–30). While reforms were initially popular (Przeworski 1991: 165), unemployment, real wage declines and social cuts precipitated anti-government protests and a ‘war at the top’ pitting then Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki against personalist union leader Lech Wałęsa, who channelled ‘the frustration of the old Solidarity camp’, in the 1990 presidential election (Orenstein 2001: 36–39). Although during the campaign Wałęsa had sustained credible pro-labour rhetoric and ‘stoked anti-capitalist anger’ by organizing around issues of class, poverty and inequality, as president he settled for neoliberal continuity (Ost 2005: 60–93). The bait-and-switch juncture ended by 1993, with reforms slowing down in terms of depth and speed (see Online Appendix A).

The 1990 election was also critical because it activated, politically and economically, some key divides that would dominate subsequent politics. Politically, Wałęsa was the first post-communist leader to mobilize a ‘nationalist’ versus ‘liberal’ Poland. By using nationalist, religious and even anti-Semitic rhetoric (Ost 2005: 65–68), he found disproportionately high support among rural communities and unskilled workers (Bell 2001: 91) predominantly located in eastern and southern Poland (previously of the Russian and Austrian empires) while underperforming in the more liberal west (previously part of Prussia).¹⁰ Economically, the societal costs of reforms were heaviest in Poland's rural eastern areas dominated by small private farms (Bell 2001: 122). It was here that productivity was significantly lower than the national average and income losses were greatest (Rae 2008: 73).

Although Poland's divides are multidimensional, they have been generally interpreted as a single regionally based cleavage between ‘Poland A’ of the liberal north-west, urban centres and transition ‘winners’, and ‘Poland B’ of the nationalist-conservative south-east, rural areas and transition ‘losers’ (Stanley 2015). Wałęsa's role is crucial because, following the reduction of inequality under communism, he first politicized divides by appealing to constituents in ‘Poland B’ and then facilitated further liberalization that aggravated divides.

The polarization between ‘Poland A and B’ intensified thereafter. In the 1990s, ‘Poland B’ voted disproportionately for agrarian-based and ‘populist-leaning’ parties that deepened neoliberalism (Frye 2010: 217–220). In the 21st century, ‘Poland B's’ recurrent availability for electoral mobilization benefited the post-neoliberal populist PiS.¹¹ While PiS gained limited support in 2001, a strategic shift to ‘populist-socialist’ themes enabled it to promise redistribution, attract ‘leftist voters’ and win the 2005 elections (Markowski 2006). In subsequent elections, PiS continued performing disproportionately better in ‘Poland B’, thus never achieving a consistently extensive coalition.

As a result, PiS was one of Poland's weakest parties in terms of membership and branches, which was not helped by the politically amateurish attitude of personalist leaders Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński, who ‘considered a large organization a liability’ early in the party's history (Tavits 2013: 46, 237). While the premature end of the PiS-led government in 2007 was spelled by problems surrounding its junior coalition partner, PiS's weak cohesiveness exacerbated difficulties to legislate. For example, in 2007 the PiS speaker of the Sejm, Ludwik Dorn, refused to cooperate with his own party, precipitating a breakdown of relations with the PiS finance minister, failure to put forward counterproposals to opposition-sponsored legislation and Dorn's suspension from PiS (Nalepa 2016: 361). Internal conflicts continued thereafter as accusations of extremism and disloyalty led to more expulsions and splinters.

Although PiS had announced ambitious plans to legislate ‘for a more socially sensitive economy’, it failed to undertake such reforms during the 2005–7 term, provoking public protests (Stanley 2016: 267–270). Likewise, PiS initiated ‘no special proactive initiatives for women … or socially disadvantaged people’ (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2010: 13). Having not only attempted undemocratic measures but also having reduced overall social spending in 2005–7 (see below), the party spent the following eight years in opposition.

PiS returned to power in 2015 after learning to appreciate organizational coherence (Tavits 2013: 237). This time, it not only increased social spending (Toplišek 2020), thus empowering ‘social groups that felt excluded from the post-1989 reforms’, but also engaged in ‘executive aggrandizement’ and nativism following the 2015 refugee crisis (Bill and Stanley 2020). As the quality of Polish democracy declined after 2015, it remains unclear whether public goods or democratic backsliding contributed more towards PiS's victories in the 2019–20 election cycle. What is clear, however, is that the party's ability to win elections as an incumbent remains less impressive compared to both its record as a challenger and SMER's record as an incumbent in Slovakia.

Discussion

These comparisons suggest important intra-regional divergences and cross-regional parallels. In the Andes, Peru's Humala, with over 30% initial electoral support, was at first more popular than Ecuador's Correa (with 22.8% support in the first round of the 2006 presidential election), yet he failed to dominate like Correa. In Central Europe, SMER (with 29.1% in 2006) and PiS (with 27% in 2005) initially came to power with comparable support and then both governed by heading coalitions with smaller and more extreme parties, but only SMER dominated for a decade.

Andean and Central European contexts may be different, but trajectories have been remarkably parallel after neoliberal junctures, as sketched in Figure 2. In Ecuador and Slovakia, the decline of social democratic parties after bait-and-switching created conditions not only for populism's electoral rise but also for long-term domination. By successfully incorporating as core constituencies the social democrats' former voters, which were newly available as resources for mobilization, populists attracted extensive coalitions even before becoming incumbents. Based on this, populist leaders built cohesive organizations early, facilitating legislative discipline and the successful provision of national public goods, for which they were rewarded over multiple consecutive elections.

Figure 2. Path-Dependent Legacies of Neoliberal Critical Junctures

By contrast, crucial bait-and-switch reforms in Peru and Poland took place under personalistic leaders Fujimori and Wałęsa, both of whom were first elected with disproportionate support from less developed regions – ‘deep’ Peru and ‘Poland B’ – based on identity-priming appeals. Having activated regional polarization for electoral purposes, they implemented (Fujimori) or defended (Wałęsa) reforms, which disproportionately hurt their geographically segmented core electorates, thus deepening regionally based divides. While subsequent populists here also rose to power by using disgruntled constituencies as a resource, they also faced important constraints associated with regional polarization. Based on their more segmented social coalitions, populist leaders neglected to develop early organizational cohesion and unity, and were less capable of providing national public goods. As a result, they were less successful in terms of exploiting incumbency advantage for long-term domination.

The link between pre-existing coalitions and populists' ability to dominate is seen in Table 2 (and Online Appendix C). In Ecuador and Slovakia, dominant populists won multiple consecutive elections after attracting the most extensive coalitions among the effective number of parties early and before becoming incumbents. As discussed above, they did so because permissive opportunity structures allowed them to successfully incorporate many of the traditional left parties' former supporters as a core electorate. While Ecuador's Correa won the second round of the 2006 election that initially brought him to power with the highest nationalization score of any presidential candidate since 1978 after strategically appealing to the indigenous movement's demands, SMER achieved the highest nationalization score of any party in modern Slovakia before rising to power by strategically appealing to SDĽ's disaffected voters.

Table 2. Post-Neoliberal Populist Coalition Extensiveness and Election Results

By contrast, populist coalitions in Poland and Peru were not consistently extensive during formative election experiences and over time. Poland's PiS began with an extremely low nationalization score in 2001, and although the opportunistic adoption of socialist themes helped improve nationalization somewhat, over the long term its coalition remained predominantly concentrated in ‘Poland B’. Peru's Humala strategically moderated over time, but his coalition remained disproportionately centred on the ‘deep’ Peru of the highlands. As regionally based divides deepened after Fujimori and Wałęsa initially activated them, the polarizing legacies of the critical juncture solidified in both countries.¹² Whereas post-neoliberal populists in Ecuador and Slovakia mobilized extensive coalitions before entering office and subsequently dominated, they never did in Peru and Poland.

Table 2 also shows that coalition extensiveness mattered for election victories more than incumbency advantage, particularly in Ecuador and Slovakia, where populist coalitions had been highly extensive from the very beginning. In the two countries where post-neoliberal populists lacked consistently extensive coalitions from the beginning, incumbency either was as likely to result in election losses (Poland) or led to populist collapse (Peru). Overall, where post-neoliberal populists managed to turn incumbency into an advantage, it was because they had extensive electoral coalitions beginning early in their development.

In particular, the high extensiveness of pre-existing coalitions mattered for the early development of organizational cohesion and unity, which – when post-neoliberal populists were in power – were necessary for legislating national and popular public goods. During post-neoliberal populists' tenure in executive power, annual social spending as a share of GDP increased substantially more in Ecuador than in Peru (by 8.0% and 1.2%, on average), leading to a significantly greater reduction in inequality (by 15.3% vs 4.2%) – Latin America's major social problem. Likewise, during post-neoliberal populists' first terms in office, average annual social spending substantially improved in Slovakia (by 2.9%) while it declined in Poland (by 2.8%), leading to differential progress in the Human Development Index (by 5.1% and 1.8%, respectively).¹³ Post-neoliberal populists rose to power with initially similar electoral support in the four countries, but only those with extensive social coalitions were in a position to build organizational cohesion early on and then deliver national public goods that reinforced their popularity and dominance over the long term.

Finally, although similar critical junctures drove parallel developments across regions, coalition extensiveness and domination are not frozen. As demonstrated by the two post-communist cases (and as reflected in Table 2), post-neoliberal populist parties can evolve after formative experiences. Slovakia's SMER, following its period of domination, neglected welfare spending (Malová 2017: 8), became less nationalized and experienced decline after 2016. Although Poland's PiS became more organizationally coherent, returned to power in 2015 and was ultimately re-elected in 2019 after increasing social spending, its coalition remains less extensive than those of its major political rivals (see Online Appendix C) – a potential reason why the party reverted to authoritarian tactics as a means of keeping itself in power. As such recent developments keep shaping the links between social coalitions, spending and governability, it remains to be seen whether they represent a continued legacy or the potential end of neoliberal junctures.

Conclusion

The four ‘crucial’ cases analysed here demonstrate that there is more to post-neoliberal populists' ability to dominate in the long term than institutional advantages or authoritarian proclivities. Populists may initially rise to power with comparable electoral support, yet only some are in a position to use their electoral coalitions as resources for domination. While populists are adaptive, opportunity structure can be permissive, as in Ecuador and Slovakia, or constraining, as in regionally polarized Peru and Poland. In turn, the extensiveness of post-neoliberal populist coalitions is a product less of incumbency per se and more of dynamics rooted in prior neoliberal junctures.

The cross-regional perspective adopted here makes several contributions. Importantly, it adds nuance to arguments identifying the political agency during neoliberal junctures as key for understanding subsequent outcomes (Roberts 2014). While prior bait-and-switch tactics eventually led to populist backlash in all four countries, it was particularly after well-institutionalized social democratic parties turned on their broad constituencies in Ecuador and Slovakia that post-neoliberal populists became especially able to strategically mobilize extensive social coalitions, provide national public goods through cohesiveness and dominate for over a decade. Curiously, while neoliberal ‘shock therapy’ was particularly intensive in Peru and Poland, the critical juncture politically activated and then accelerated regionally based polarization between economic reform ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, thereby somewhat limiting opportunities for post-neoliberal populist adaptation. Overall, if popular reactions were central in the mechanism linking neoliberal junctures and post-neoliberal populism, it was the agency responsible for the critical deepening of market reforms that conditioned path-dependent societal configurations, which, although contextually specific, activated strikingly parallel paths in the Andes and Central Europe.

Additionally, this article has related arguments linking electoral coalitions and improved governability through redistributive public goods to debates on populism. While populist incumbents may or may not turn authoritarian or use natural resource rents to buy electoral support, the real sources of their power lie less in institutional advantages and more in the pre-existing social coalitions that carry them into office. If highly nationalized electorates improve prospects for governability (Jones and Mainwaring 2003), it is no surprise that some populists capitalize in the long term based on their ability to govern by providing public goods. In this way, populist politics is not unusual.

Finally, neoliberal junctures condition probabilistic, rather than deterministic, legacies. Whereas populists in Slovakia and Ecuador eventually neglected prior social commitments and experienced losses in popularity, Polish populists remained in power after 2019 by increasing social spending. Critical junctures shape behaviour but do not inhibit strategic flexibility. As newly salient issues (e.g. immigration, the Coronavirus) have transformed contexts in both regions, novel political adaptations and the horizons of neoliberal juncture legacies should be subject to further research. Yet from a cross-regional perspective focused on post-neoliberal populist domination in the first two decades of the 21st century as a probabilistic outcome of neoliberal junctures, this article furthers debates about popular and institutional responses to market reform. By expanding the scope and proposing a nuanced mechanism emphasizing societal reactions, it has pointed to strikingly parallel developments after intensive market reforms in two very different world regions.