This post is a follow-up to a previous one on the theory of how to beat populism. Here’s the empirical validation of the theoretical points made with reference to the case of Greece. Like the previous post, this one is an extract from my recent essay “The Pushback Against Populism: The Rise and Fall of Greece’s New Illiberalism,” published in the Journal of Democracy 31:2, April 2020. Another post will follow with the lessons other countries may draw from Greece’s rich experience with populism.
We posited in the previous post that unraveling modern populism would require a chain of developments inverting those that brought populists to power in the first place. Following this logic, the line of developments leading to populism’s downfall should begin with a liberal leader who acts within a populist-ruled political system, but in opposition to it. Events in Greece during the period from January 2016 through July 2019 offer perhaps the best illustration that we have of how such a leader’s rise might play out in practice.
