Populist discourses in policy making
Paper prepared for the 23rd World Congress of Political Science
July 19-24, Montreal 2014
Zsolt BODA
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Political Science
Centre for Social Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
While the rise of populism has caught considerable academic attention, researchers have mainly
focused on analyzing the activity of populist parties and politicians or explaining their growing
success. That is, researches on populism have basically remained at the level of politics, and – with
some exceptions – largely neglected the policy implications of populist politics. This paper intends to
grasp the possible effect of populism on policy making. Is there such thing as populist policy? Or is it
rather a style? Can we talk about populist policy making? The paper argues that populism is better to
be conceptualized as a specific discourse in policy making. Populist policies are defined as measures
which are not necessarily feasible, sustainable, or effective, but which meet broad public support and
therefore raise the popularity of the government/governing parties on the short run. Populist
discourses in policy agenda setting refer to arguments, narratives and metaphors that aim at
constructing, supporting and legitimizing populist ideas and measures. By definition, those
arguments portray a Manichean worldview contrasting the interests, concerns of “the people” to
those of the elite or “the system”. Populist discourses usually do not exhibit the features of expert
knowledge and can hardly be regarded as evidence-based policy proposals. Rather, they draw on
emotions, fear (see the discourse of penal populism), refer to the well-being of the people that needs
to be improved (like in populist economic policies), or point to alien groups (e.g. immigrants) or
organizations (e.g. the EU) as culprits. The paper seeks to conceptualize the idea of populist policy
discourse and tests the usefulness of the framework of analysis on the case of penal populism. The
paper draws also on a previous research on the spread of the penal populist discourse in Hungarian
politics where we demonstrated that not the media or the public agenda, but political discourse has
been at the origin of punitive measures and policies.
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Populism is on the rise. This is reflected in the constantly improving electoral results of the so-called
populist, typically radical right-wing parties in Europe – a phenomenon starting sometimes in the
1990s and leading to a kind of breakthrough in the 2014 European elections when right-wing parties
received the relative majority of votes both in France and the UK (Le Front National and the UK
Independent Party, respectively) while increasing their share in other countries as well. But the
spread of populist politics is not limited to Europe: in the US the Tea Party represents a new,
conservative populism (Rae 2011); in Australia politics have been characterized by a ‘permanent
populism’ in the past two decades (Wear 2008); populism has been, of course, constantly present in
Latin America (Pappas 2012); and it has been detected in some Asian countries as well, like Taiwan
(Hsu 2011) or South Korea (Kang 2006). According to Cas Mudde our times are characterized by a
populist ‘Zeitgeist’ (Mudde 2004), in which political ideas are influenced by general populist
sentiments, and this is by no means limited to the activity of populist parties or movements –
mainstream parties also take over the propositions and discourses of populist politics (see Ivaldi
2011, Liang 2007, Wear 2008).
While the rise of populism has caught considerable academic attention, researchers have mainly
focused on analyzing the activity of populist parties and politicians or explaining their growing
success. That is, researches on populism have basically remained at the level of politics, and – with
some exceptions – largely neglected the policy implications of populist politics. However, if populism
is indeed a ‘Zeitgeist’ one would suspect that it has an effect on the policy agenda itself or at least on
the way issues are put on the policy agenda. This paper intends to grasp the possible effect of
populism on policy making. Is there such thing as populist policy? In other words, can we define
populism in the content of policies? Or is it rather a style? Can we talk about populist policy making?
The paper argues that populism seem to lean towards certain approaches and answers in terms of
public policies, therefore it is not utterly hopeless to define populism in terms of the content of
policies. However, populism is better to be conceptualized as a specific discourse in policy making.
In the following I will first offer a definition of populism relying on the relevant literature and
overview what we can know on the policy proposals of populist parties. Second, a framework of
analysis is provided on the specificity of populist policy discourses. Third, the framework is applied to
the example of penal populism. A case study on Hungary is also referred to on the spread of penal
populist discourse and the social actors behind the discourse.
Populism – ideology, style or discourse?
Defining populism is not an easy task. It is usually interpreted as an ideology, however, using the
traditional political division or categories populism tends to be ideologically vague. Nowadays we
tend to identify populism with radical right-wing parties, like Le Front National, the UK Independent
Party, or the Austrian Freedom Party. However, moderate right-wing parties, like Silvio Berlusconi’s
Forza Italia or Pim Fortyn’s LPF, have also been labeled as populist. Moreover, populism may also
emerge on the left of the political spectrum. The Populist Party in late nineteen century USA was
close to the Democrats. Movements of the New Left in the 1970s used also populist arguments, and
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the same is true for some rather peripheral leftist parties, like the Scottish Socialist Party or the
Dutch Socialist Party (Mudde 2004).
Mudde argues that populism is a political ideology, although a special one, with no clear attachment
to the right-left dimension of politics. He defines populism “as an ideology that considers society to
be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus
‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale
(general will) of the people” (Mudde 2004: 543). Populism, so defined, has two opposites: elitism and
pluralism. Elitism is the mirror-image of populism that also accepts the dichotomy between the
people and the elite, but, contrary to populism, would prefer that the elite rules instead of the
masses. Pluralism, by allowing or even expecting different interests and ideologies to be present in
society and politics, is a view that is hardly compatible with populism.
Mudde’s definition is close to that of Stanley (2008) who breaks populism into four specific elements:
(1) The existence of two homogeneous units of analysis: ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’; and (2) the
antagonistic relationship between them; (3) the idea of popular sovereignty; and (4) the positive
valorization of ‘the people’ and denigration of ‘the elite’ (the distinction between friend and enemy).
According to these definitions populist politics typically accuses the political elite of being corrupt,
making decisions that benefits its members or the businesses that support mainstream parties and
disregarding the ‘silent majority’ whose problems are simply neglected. Populists claim that politics
as usual does not promote the real interests of the country or the common good but is led by the
particular interests of the political elite and ‘big business’, sometimes understood as foreign capital,
multinational companies. Another version of populism points to the alleged fallacy of technocratic
policy making. Here anti-elitism is linked to a criticism of experts and intellectuals who claim to know
the right recipes for tackling societal or economic problems, like delinquency, economic growth and
so on, but in fact these policies are unable to solve the problems, and sometime they even aggravate
them. Certainly, the global economic crisis of 2008 fuels the arguments of anti-technocracy (ThirkellWhite 2009), but similar populist discourses have been advanced in terms of penal policies as well
(Pratt 2007). In terms of both penal policy and immigration policy anti-technocracy is coupled also
with anti-liberalism. The elite are accused of cherishing abstract liberal values while disregarding real,
down-to-earth problems of the people. Liberal politicians argue for a free movement of people and
do not care about the social tensions and cultural conflicts caused by mass immigration; they protect
the rights of criminals and spend on improving prison conditions while disregarding the rights of
victims and the concerns of the law-abiding majority. Arguments against liberalism can be seen as an
attack against political correctness and liberal ‘censorship’ and reveal the essentially moralizing and
potentially subversive character of populism: popular beliefs have a higher moral stance than the
values promulgated by elite discourses. Anti-liberalism, anti-technocracy and the arguments about
corrupt elites may also be linked to each other, as we can observe in case of some radical right-wing
parties. In those discourses falling close to conspiracy theories liberal and technocratic arguments are
interpreted as being only a masquerade, hiding the fact that the elite is acting on behalf of other
interests, for instance that of big business that benefits from liberal trade and the cheap labor of
immigrants.
Populism has a paradoxical nature. On one hand, it can be interpreted as a result of the inherent
tension between the democratic and non-democratic components of the modern political systems.
Populism is a democratic phenomenon, because it takes the common people as its political base and
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expresses a dissatisfaction with the ruling elites, institutions and politics, a dissatisfaction that may
become a frustration or even resentment (see Betz 1993). On the other hand, populism is typically
represented by a leader who claims to be on the side of people against the elite. Populist leaders are
rarely ‘common people’ themselves – they are rather a kind of counter-elite who “challenge the
entrenched values, rules and institutions of democratic orthodoxy” (Meny and Surel 2002: 3) in the
name of the people. This tension between democracy and leadership makes populism essentially
unstable, manifesting itself in consecutive waves: once a populist movement succeeds in making
changes in politics and policy and /or its leader becomes part of the elite, it typically loses its strength
and dynamics.
Kang (2006) argues that populism is a political style rather than an ideology. “The populist style
implies a close bondage between political elites and masses. Populism means a strong bond
particularly when political leaders succeed in mobilizing the people in times of unsettlement and
dealignment. (…) Populist campaign succeeds when there exists a large and growing reservoir of
dissatisfaction, protest and frustration” (Kang 2006: 5). As a style, populism is often associated to
demagoguery as a convenient tool to mobilize masses. For instance, Bergsdorf (2000) argue that a
highly emotional approach, combined with simplistic solutions and irresponsible promises
(unsustainable if implemented) are characteristic of populist politics. However, Mudde (2004) is
strongly opposed to associate populism with emotions, opportunism, demagoguery or shorttermism. First, because of conceptual issues: these notions are highly subjective, difficult to define
and measure. Second, because these features may characterize different kind of politics and policies,
not only the populist ones, and should be called what they are: emotional approach, opportunism
and demagoguery. He also rejects to identify populism with a specific type of political organization,
charismatic leadership. „While charismatic leadership and direct communication between the leader
and ‘the people’ are common among populists, these features facilitate rather than define populism”
(Mudde 2004: 545). He may be right on that latter point. However, we cannot exclude that populism
as a distinct approach to politics and policy may make use of emotions and simplistic solutions more
often than other ideologies. True, it is not necessarily easy to define and measure these categories,
but it is not impossible either.
Deegan-Krause and Haughton (2009) follow Stanley’s (2008) approach but argue that populism
should be understood as characteristic rather than as an identity and analysis should rather focus on
political discourses. That is, the real question is not who is populist and who is not, but to what
degree is populism present in this or that political discourse. They argue that “shifting our
understanding of populism from a question of core identity to a description of party appeals rather
than parties themselves also allows us to neutralize the term’s negative connotations by allowing
that all parties may use populist appeals to some extent” (ibid., 822). Indeed, a basic problem with
populism as an academic term that it is value-laden with a strong negative connotation, and the
‘populists’ themselves do not accept it as a political label.
In sum, populism may be called an ideology – but it is a special, ‘thin’ one, resisting to the
categorization on the left-right axis. I would argue to look at populism as a specific discourse that
builds on a Manichean dichotomization between the elite and the people. Whether it involves a
specific political style as well is still to be seen.
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Populist policies
What populism means in terms of public policies? Is it possible to define a set of populist policies?
One way to answer these questions involves the analysis of the policy proposals of parties that are
regarded populist. It has been demonstrated that European populist parties take a critical stance
towards the European Union and advocate the primacy of nation states in foreign policy issues (Liang
2013). Populist parties generaly argue for measures to restrict immigration (Ivaldi 2011, Bale 2013).
Indeed, immigration is one of the most salient political issues for populist parties in Europe, as
“migration has been constructed as an international and domestic security issue linked to urban
unsafety, international organised crime, terrorism, illegality, environmental issues and public health”
(Martiniello and Rath 2010: 8). Another policy field is that of justice: populist parties embrace lawand-order discourses and argue for punitive measures (Fekete and Weber 2010). Some populist
parties, like for instance the Hungarian Jobbik, owe their popularity mainly to having problematized
the allegedly growing crime and the inability of the authorities to take the necessary measures
(Karácsony and Róna 2011). Ivaldi (2011: 5) argues that we should place immigration policies in the
more general context of legislation change on issues of law-and-order and cultural liberalism. Indeed,
apart from taking stance against ‘liberal immigration policies’, and arguing for punitive measures
populist politics usually share a repulsive approach towards unpopular minorities, like Gipsies
(Karácsony and Róna 2011) or gay and lesbian movements (Pappas et al 2009). Populism is typically
associated with a rejection of multiculturalism and liberal globalization (Liang 2013, Spargue-Jones
2011).
However, no clear populist recipes can be identified in terms of economic policies. Lilie and Maddox
(1981) studied and mapped the mass belief system of Americans through surveying their attitudes
towards a set of policy proposals. They found that it is useful to conceptualize mass belief systems
in terms of two dimensions – government intervention in economic affairs, and expansion of
individual liberties – rather than in terms of the traditional liberal-conservative continuum. Using
these two dimensions, they defined four ideological categories, which they labeled liberal,
conservative, populist, and libertarian. They called populist the one which shares the moralism
of the conservative in regard to individual liberties, and at the same time feels that an
unregulated economy often means an unfair concentration of wealth at the expense of the poor.
Thus the populist, while opposed to the expansion of individual liberties, does support
government economic intervention. However, populist parties and politicians have sometimes
adopted rather neoliberal policies (Filc 2011, Kang 2006). This phenomenon can only partly be
explained by that populist politics involving a specific rhetoric may imply a policy making that is even
contrary to the populist promises in terms of its content, as populism has indeed advocated different
economic policy approaches. European populist parties cannot be said to share an interventionist
policy style, as some of them are rather liberal in economic terms (like for instance the Austrian
Freedom Party).
Mudde (2004) argues that populist parties have put in place a wide array policy measures therefore it
is impossible to define the content of populist policies. Even if some commonalities seem to exist
among European populist parties in terms of immigration, law-and-order policies or cultural
liberalism, these features cannot necessarily be generalized to all liberal policies across space and
time. That is, if we define populist policies as those implemented or proposed by a party labelled as
populist we can hardly find a common feature in terms of their content. However, there might be
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some problems with this line of reasoning. First, policy choices may not necessarily reflect precisely
the ideological positions of governments and parties. Well known examples include socialists parties
privatizing state property (like Mitterand’s government in France in the 1980s or the Hungarian
government in the 1990s), or right-wing politicians introducing generous welfare reforms (like Otto
Bismarck, German Chancellor in the 19th century or President Nixon in the US). Outlier cases indeed
exist in a great number, especially if we do not consider the totality of the policies by a given
government or politician, but we only “cherry-pick” some of them in order to demonstrate how
messy the picture is. It may be the case that policy proposals from the so-called populist parties show
a greater deviation from each other than policy proposals from parties of a classical ideological
position. If this is so, than Mudde may be right, and we cannot arrive to a meaningful
conceptualization of populist policies starting from the political practice of the populist parties.
However, I do not know of a systemic analysis that would have addressed this question and would
have made a thorough assessment of the policy programs of populist parties. Until such an analysis is
done Mudde’s argument remains a hypothesis or an expert opinion at best.
Second, the meaning of conservatism or liberalism is also changing from one political context to
another. We may even argue that the programs of political parties belonging to the same ideological
position display only what Wittgenstein called family-resemblance: each program has some common
elements with some other(s), but no element is present in each of the programs. Again, it may be the
case that the level of resemblance among programs of populist parties is lower than in other
ideological families, but this needs to be proven. For the time being we do not have convincing data
on this issue either. Ideological labels are problematic in any case, especially used across time and
space and populism is certainly not an exception to this rule. True, populism is a more contested
concept than traditional ideologies and to a large extent this is due to the fact that it has a clear
negative connotation therefore parties and politicians typically do not identify themselves with it.
However, if it is a meaningful political concept for describing an ideological position than it should be
applicable to policy proposals as well. Research on populism is still in a burgeoning phase only – and
research on populist policies is especially sparse.
Indeed, it seems that a number of policies that bear the populist label – in terms of penal policy
or immigration policy – and which are usually propagated by parties that experts call populist are
against cultural liberalism, like the protection of minority rights, or the support for affirmative
action (Ivaldi 2011). It also seems that the populist rhetoric often calls for a strong state that is
able to protect the interests of the people against possible offenders (immigrants, criminals,
foreign states, multinational companies, the IMF etc.). All this is in line with the ideas of Lilie and
Maddox (1981) on populist policy attitudes. Future research may show whether it is possible to
delineate a set of policies that are commonly shared by populist parties and therefore can be
labelled as typical populist policies in term of their content.
Another approach would start from the definition of populism and seek for structural similarities in
terms of the policies. That is, we may follow the approach that Deegan-Krause and Haughton (2009)
applied to parties, and use it for understanding policies: shift our attention from the hypothesized
identity of the policy maker to the characteristics of the policies themselves, allowing the possibility
that non-populist parties/governments may also formulate populist policies. Following Stanley’s
(2008) definition of populism as presented above, we may assume that populist policy making tends
to follow what the general opinion prefers; especially in those areas where there is a marked gap
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between popular beliefs and elite/technocratic discourses. What people prefer may not be the same
in different countries, but we may take this as a distinctive structural feature of populist policies.
Indeed, Pappas et al. (2009) measure the populism of policies in terms of the influence citizens have
over their policymakers. They label populist those features that increase control over public policy
and policymakers. “Some of these features increase the policymakers’ incentives to advance
majoritarian preferences while others give direct policy-making authority to the majority. As such,
they increase the likelihood that the majority preferences will prevail” (Pappas et al. 2009: 151). The
authors actually assume that the prevalence of populist features increases the likelihood that a state
has policies that harm minority – in this case gay and lesbian – interests.
The popularity of a given policy may indeed be an important variable affecting policy change. For
instance, Hetherington (2005) argues that the adoption of liberal policies in the US is not only closely
associated to, but indeed dependent on the level of trust in government. At the same time Győrffy
(2007) argues that reforms involving some austerity measures or cuts on the welfare spending were
possible only in those European countries where people had confidence in political institutions. In
both the US and the EU those policies are dependent on public trust which run against popular
believes and attitudes. Conversely, those policies may be used by populist arguments which are in
line with those believes and attitudes. In the US populist arguments have been used to attack the ‘big
government’ or the introduction of general medical care system (Rae 2011). In Europe general
attitudes are more favorable to welfare policies, although this general support may be nuanced by a
‘welfare chauvinism’ seeking to exclude unpleasant minorities (like the Gipsy or the gay) and
immigrants from welfare benefits.
Summing up, populist policies may be defined in two ways. The first looks at the policy proposals
those political actors, parties which are called populist by the public or the analysts. The literature
has indeed identified some policies that seem to prevail in the programs of so-called populist parties,
like law-and-order measures, restrictive immigration policy, hostility towards international
institutions (like the EU). However, the list of those typical populist policies is quite short and for
instance Mudde (2004) argues that populist parties in different countries do embrace a wide array of
policies that are not necessarily compatible with each other. Therefore the second approach of
defining populist policies take into account the definition of populism and looks for examples where
the majority opinion or the popular will prevails. The relative popularity of a policy may certainly be
important from the point of view of policy making. However, can we assume that the popularity of a
given policy is something always undisputably given? Shouldn’t we rather assume that the ‘populist
case’ for a given policy is constructed by social and policy actors? That is, instead of measuring the
popularity of a policy proposal, one may analyze those policy discourses that reflect the structure of
the populist reasoning about people’s concerns as opposed to elite ideas. The question is then how
the populist discourses look like and who are the policy actors behind them? The following section
elaborates the idea of populist discourses in policy making and takes the case of penal populism as a
typical example of populist policies.
Populist discourses in policy making
Analysing arguments (Fischer and Forrester 1993, Majone 1989), narratives (Kaplan 1986, Roe 1994),
interpretive frames or discourses (Hajer 1995) in policy making may help us better understand the
policy process, especially the agenda setting part of it. The common element behind the different
7
‘linguistic’ approaches is that they all assume: policy problems and solutions are not given; policy
makers cannot access them directly. Problems and solutions are mediated by, or constructed
through, a social interpretive process. Even a dead wood is not a problem per se–we should know,
understand the cause behind it, whether it is a disease, drought or industrial pollution (Hajer 1995).
The nature of social problems, the causes behind them and the possible remedies are typically
debated by different social actors using different frames and discourses. More complex the problem
is, higher is the chance of proliferation of different policy approaches. At the same time, complexity
itself is a social construct. Environmental problems are generally complex ones, with a high degree of
uncertainty; however, a seemingly relatively simple and local problem of how to reorganize a
hospital may also exhibit the features of a complex problem (Kaplan 1986). We do not have an
objective, impartial point of view from where the real nature of a problem could be assessed, as
expert opinions and science are themselves just discourses among others, implying a specific
knowledge, that is, a specific understanding, modelling of the problem at hand. The green movement
has already proven that mainstream science can be meaningfully challenged and a counter-narrative
or counter-knowledge can be effectively produced and spread. The example of green issues is
especially strong, given that here we are faced at least partly to natural phenomena over which
natural science was supposed to have an unquestionable authority. However, the green movement
could challenge that authority and produce discourses that have deeply influenced how society sees
nature and its own impact on nature. It is not a bold assumption to state that social issues are even
more debated and the authority of science is weaker here, therefore we may expect a higher degree
of dissent among different policy positions.
However, discourses, arguments and narratives are not ‘just’ about knowledge. They embody
different approaches to policy problems, not void of interests and values. Again, the green discourse
is a good example. While it has developed an ‘alternative knowledge’, an ‘alternative science’ (that
has actually become mainstream in several fields), it has done much more: provided a powerful and
critical understanding of the late modern societies and their development model. It has actually
become a main frame when talking about the common good or the good society (Hajer 1995).
Studies on policy discourses emphasize the role of crucial social actors that construct and spread
them (see for instance Fischer 2003; Sabatier 1998). Those actors can be experts, scientists and other
‘knowledge brokers’ as the concept of ‘epistemic communities’ (Haas 1992) suggest; or NGOs and
social movements that challenge and change the dominant interpretations on a specific social
problem (Hajer, 1995; Sabatier, 1998).
I assume that populism in policy making can be interpreted as a specific discourse. Following the
definition of Mudde (2004) and Stanley (2008) I expect that the populist discourse refers to, or better
to say: constructs, the alleged tension between the position of the elite and the people in a given
policy issue. I expect the populist discourse to use arguments that are supposed to represent what
the people want, feel or fear in terms of a given policy problem and contrast this to the alleged elite
positions. Populist discourses in policy making are expected to express doubt or frustration about
expert knowledge as well as established institutions (‘the system’).
Understanding populism as a discourse in policy making detaches the analysis from the very content
of policy proposals or the identity of the policy actors. More precisely, it remains an empirical
question to be answered whether populist policy discourses are to be found behind some specific
policy proposals or policy fields; and while it is obvious that populist policy discourse so defined may
8
be used by different policy actors, it is also an empirical question to see which actors use it in a given
context.
A further question refers to the feasibility, effectiveness or sustainability of policy proposals
advocated through populist discourses. Mudde (2004) may be right when arguing that demagoguery,
opportunism and short-termism are what they are, and should not necessarily be identified to
populism. However, populism’s hostility towards expert knowledge and evidence-based policy
making, and the supremacy of public will/popularity over technocratic considerations may imply that
populist policy proposals neglect basic legal, economic or social aspects that affect the
implementation of the proposals. Certainly, caution is advisable. Policy innovations may challenge
the mainstream knowledge, as the example of environmental issues illustrates the point. What
mainstream experts call now unfeasible and unsustainable may become the solution of the future.
And solutions, just as problems, are multidimensional and open to interpretive struggles. It may turn
out that populist considerations use a different measure of policy success and focus on social aspects
of a policy solution which are neglected by mainstream policy analysts. Again, further empirical
research should found the claim that policy measures advocated by populist discourse generally
prove to be less feasible, effective or sustainable than other policies.
In the following I will apply this frame of analysis on the case of penal populism.
Penal populism1
Penal populism seems to be an easy case, as already its name indicates a kind of populist approach.
However, my aim here is not to explore and analyse a new policy field, rather to test a conceptual
framework through applying it to a “typical case”. I indeed assume that the term penal populism
refers to a populist style policy discourse and my aim is to prove that assumption, using the above
mentioned criteria and aspects of populist policy discourses.
In the criminology literature penal populism refers to a policy discourse about crime, justice and
punishment which suggests that the justice system privileges criminals and prisoners at the expense
of crime victims and the law-abiding public (see Hough, Jacobson, and Millie 2003; Hough and Sato
2011; Pratt 2007; Roberts et al. 2003). Researchers argue that it appeals to emotions rather than
reason as “penal populism usually feeds on expressions of anger, disenchantment and
disillusionment with the criminal justice establishment” (Pratt 2007: 12). It usually takes the form of
‘feelings and intuitions’ rather than some tangible outcomes: for example, phrases of layman
communication which revolves around public concerns about crime and disorder; anger and anxiety
over the ‘impotent’ justice system which are gladly covered by the popular press in particular (Pratt
2007). When penal populism becomes an influential way of talking about criminal justice, politicians
are eager to ensure that policy in this sphere is more reflective of the public will than the values of
the criminal justice establishment (Pratt 2007: 14, Roberts et al. 2003: 4). By employing a tabloid
style communication that usually brings simplicity in the discourses, penal populism seeks to step
over formal political institutions to become ‘of the people but not of the system’. Consequently,
1
This section of the paper draws on a previous paper: Boda, Z., Szabó, G., Bartha, A., Medve-Bálint, G., Vidra,
Z.: “Politically driven. Mapping political and media discourses of penal populism – the Hungarian case”. In
process of submission to East European Politics, Societies and Culture.
9
populist discourse about punishment spins more around the emotion that such representations
invoke, rather than around rational, objective and professional judgment (Pratt 2007: 17).
The discourse reclaims the justice system for the ‘oppressed’ or ‘silent’ majority as it emphasizes the
rights of common people to safety and security and demands that criminal justice be shifted away
from protecting criminals towards the interest of the law-abiding public. Penal populism generally
supports severe punishment. This explains most of the slogans associated with its initiatives: ‘three
strikes’, ‘truth in sentencing’, ‘life means life’, ‘zero tolerance’ etc. (Tyler and Boeckmann 1997).
According to the scholarly definitions cited here, penal populism indeed exhibits the basic features of
populism. First, it contrasts the interests/concerns of people to that of the justice system, and gives a
clear priority to the former. Second, it offers a critical approach towards the “mainstream” liberal
interpretations of crime and justice allegedly embodied by both politically correct public discourse
and the very logic of the existing justice practices. Third, it expresses an anti-technocratic stance and
mistrust in criminological expert knowledge. Fourth, it seeks popularity, as penal populism is “a
punishment policy developed primarily for its anticipated popularity” (Roberts et al. 2003: 65). That
is, penal populism is indeed seems to be a primer example of populist policy discourse.
An additional question concerns the feasibility/effectiveness of the punitive measures proposed by
penal populism. It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a throughout analysis on this issue.
However, it is worth mentioning that some arguments indeed point to problems concerning the
effectiveness and legal feasibility of punitive justice policies. The alternative or anti-populist
approach to crime advocated typically by criminal experts, human rights NGOs and liberal, left-wing
parties stresses that punitive penal policy is both ineffective and costly (Hough and Sato 2011). It is
ineffective because the severity of punishment has negligible influence on criminal behavior (Darley
2005; Doob and Webster 2003) and it is costly because it incurs growing expenses on the justice
system, for instance by increasing the number of prisoners (Hough, Jacobson, and Millie 2003).
Punitive measures, like the ‘three strikes’ principle are also unfair as they command strict
punishment without giving due attention to the circumstances of a crime act. As such, some punitive
measures may become problematic from a legal or human right perspective.2 The anti-populist view
argues that crime prevention is best achieved by reducing social inequalities and improving upward
social mobility (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009). At the same time, it proposes measures such as
increasing the procedural fairness of the justice system, which would reinforce citizens’ normative
compliance with it (Tyler 2003). In addition it also urges innovative solutions of restorative justice in
order to promote processes of repair, reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships instead of
satisfying abstract legal principles and punishing the offenders (Braithwaite 2001).
Finally, let us look at the actors behind the discourse. Where does the discourse of penal populism
originate from? The omnipresence, wide reach and persuasiveness of the mass media render the
media a ‘usual suspect’ in discussions about the factors that shape public opinion on crime, justice or
the police (Garland 2001; Manning 2003). Hohl stresses that by portraying a distorted picture of
criminal activity, the media create widespread incredulity about crime trends and are responsible for
the declining levels of confidence in the justice systems (Hohl 2011: 28). Falling trust is also linked to
2
For instance, recently the European Court of Human Rights ruled that imprisonment for life without eligibility
for parole amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment. (Case Laszlo Magyar vs. Hungary, see at
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-144109#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-144109%22]})
10
‘irrationally inflated’ fear of crime which is believed to be fuelled by the media (Singer and Cooper
2008).
However, studies about policy discourses usually point to crucial social actors that construct and
spread them around – without them the media alone may not be sufficient to create and promote a
specific policy discourse. A great deal of those discursive analyses in policy making focus on
environmental issues, because this is a field where struggles over the ‘good knowledge’ are especially
interesting and where ‘old’ and ‘new’ experts, lobbies, and value-driven social movements fight to
define complex political concepts, like sustainability. Justice policy has been much less researched in
this respect. One reason may be that justice policy as such has not really been in the foci of the public
agenda and, more importantly, it has not been characterized by discursive innovations. However,
with the advent of penal populism issues of criminal justice are becoming extensively covered by the
media, and a new language is spreading – see the already mentioned concepts of ‘three strikes’,
‘truth in sentencing’, or ‘zero tolerance’. This may raise interest for discursive analysis in criminology
studies.
Comparing the field of justice policy to that of environmental issues, a clear difference is that the role
of alternative knowledge and their conveners is much less important in the former – at least
concerning the issue of penal populism. Penal populism is not an epistemic enterprise, rather a
different moral approach on what is right and wrong in justice. Therefore the typical social actors
constructing the discourse of penal populism are not experts and NGOs, but populist movements and
radical right-wing political parties (Fekete and Webber 2010). This is not to say that these actors and
the media ‘cause’ penal populism. However, right-wing populist parties together with the media may
construct the language of, and arguments for punitive justice policy, which may affect public opinion,
too. Once the penal populist discourse becomes widespread, it may influence justice policy and could
trigger the adoption of more punitive measures. Pakes (2004) indeed argues that a new criminal
justice discourse has been emerging in the Netherlands along the lines that we described above as
penal populism. When explaining the birth of this discourse Pakes points to crucial events (like the
assassination of the Dutch politician Pym Fortuyn), the role of the media and inadequate
governmental responses.
In our analysis we attempted to explore the political and the media discourse about the introduction
of the ‘three strikes’ principle into the Hungarian penal code (Boda et al. 2014). We expected to find
a clear divide between the discourses of the supposedly populist right-wing and the anti-populist
liberal left-wing parties. Following the suggestions of the literature we also assumed that the media,
especially the tabloids would foster rather populist ideas about crime and punishment. However, our
analysis did not fully support these hypotheses. In fact, the results are quite surprising in that they
show a remarkable mismatch between the political and media discourses.
Based on the content and frame analysis of both political communications and media items3 we
found that the Hungarian political parties are almost entirely inclined to penal populism and only
3
We identified 69 items that constituted the main political discourse regarding the ‘three strikes’ principle. The
sources of these records include documents of three parliamentary debates (2 March 2009, 21 May 2010, 5
July 2010) devoted to the ‘three strikes’ laws and related penal measures (27 items), press releases, campaign
materials, the government programme for 2010-2014 and related entries published on the parties’ official
websites and social media profiles (42 items). As for the media analysis, we selected six media sources: the two
most popular daily broadsheets (Magyar Nemzet, right-wing; and Népszabadság, left-wing), the two most
popular daily tabloids (Blikk and Bors) and the two most frequently read on-line news portals (Index and Origo).
11
LMP, the green-liberal party poses an exception to this rule. Penal populism is not restricted to the
radical right but it has been incorporated and, through the promotion of the ‘three strikes’ principle,
actively spread by Fidesz, the centre-right conservative party. The socialists have also expressed
markedly punitive attitudes and in this sense penal populism has become the mainstream political
discourse in Hungary. As the level of punitivity of the Hungarian population is high (especially in a
European comparison), playing on these attitudes may bring electoral success: the steeply rising
popularity of the radical right-wing Jobbik has illustrated this point. However, when it comes to the
interpretation of the causes and origins of crime, the majority of Hungarians do not express populist
beliefs as they tend to share the view that criminal activity is mainly caused by blocked social
opportunities and impoverishment, as the results of some opinion polls proves. Yet, neither the
political nor the media discourses reflect these more nuanced attitudes. While the Hungarian
population expresses a mixture of both punitive and liberal positions, political discourse remains
almost entirely punitive. This suggests that political parties do not only exploit public punitivity but
also play a leading role in shaping and reinforcing those attitudes through the construction and
promotion of the penal populist discourse.
Regarding the role of the media, we did not find sufficient evidence for the hypothesis that tabloids
are the main drivers of penal populism in Hungary. The media seemed to be more balanced and also
rather neutral in discussing crime and especially the issue of ‘three strikes’ principle than the political
parties. The only exception in this respect is the right-wing broadsheet, which has consistently
supported the ‘three strikes’ initiative and has become the main promoter of penal populism in the
media. In spite of this, punitivity does not characterize the media discourse as much as it is a typical
feature of the political discourse.
Although the media were reserved concerning the penal populist discourse, we have to emphasize
that the anti-populist interpretations of crime were almost entirely missing from the analyzed media
sources. Interpretive frames of crime that may appeal to punitive attitudes frequently appear in the
media in a descriptive, non-argumentative way. So the apparent neutrality does not rule out that
Hungarian media actually serve punitive public sentiments and indirectly reinforce them especially
through the general trend of tabloidization in the media coverage of crime.
Our findings suggest that there is a more complex interplay between public attitudes to crime and
the media and political discourses than is usually assumed in the literature. While the media are
often found to be the main drivers of penal populism, the Hungarian case shows that a strongly and
almost uniformly punitive political discourse may also become the key element in reinforcing
punitive attitudes of the public. Our analysis demonstrated that this may happen even if the media
remain rather reluctant towards the punitive political discourse.
We coded all the material according to three main aspects. First, the researchers identified basic information
about the item’s author/publisher, genre, and date of publication. The second aspect consisted of an
evaluation of whether the content of the item supported the ‘three strikes’ principle or in general promoted
harsher penal measures. We also assessed whether the main message of the text was populist or not. For this
we used an operationalized definition of penal populism based on the scholarly approaches presented above. A
discourse is labelled as penal populist if it (a) stresses the rights and interests of crime victims in particular and
the law-abiding public in general as contrasted to those of criminals and prisoners; (b) uses expressions of
anger, disenchantment and disillusionment with the criminal justice establishment; (c) takes the form of
‘feelings and intuitions’ or expressions of everyday talk between citizens rather than some more quantifiable
indicators; (d) employs a tabloid style of communication that bears simplicity and directness. Finally, in the
frame analysis we coded the interpretive frame(s) that the text provided on crime and justice.
12
Conclusion
Populism is on the rise in European politics and also in other parts of the world. Researches about
populism have so far focused on the political and social causes of the growing popularity of the socalled populist parties, and much less attention has been devoted on the policy consequences of
populism. The paper sought to define and conceptualize populist policy-making. While populism can
certainly be understood as a ‘thin’ ideology, it is perhaps best conceptualized as a specific discourse
in policy-making.
Populist policy discourses are less about introducing a new knowledge, a new expertise on a given
policy field and more about using moralizing argument to support a specific policy position. Those
arguments construct the separation of the interests, concerns of the elite and those of the people,
and give a clear priority, higher moral stance to the latter. Populist discourses are characterized also
by a critical approach towards ‘mainstream’ expertise, policy knowledge and technocracy. Criticism
may be an expression of frustration or even resentment towards the ‘system’.
The possible effect of populism on policy making may be manifold. First, it may shift policy debates
away from ‘evidence-based’ policy-making, as it undervalues and delegitimizes expert knowledge.
Second, it may give priority to policy proposals that are, or are supposed to be, popular. This may
have a direct effect on agenda setting. Third, as popularity considerations may prevail in policy
making and expertise is devaluated, implemented measures may turn out to be ineffective for
tackling the given problem, inefficient or even unsustainable on the longer run, and utterly
unfeasible. Further research should explore whether this is indeed the case.
Understanding populism as a policy discourse does not rule out the relevance of inquiring about the
identity of social actors that construct and spread populist policy arguments. True, a possible benefit
of the discursive approach is that it oversteps institutional, organizational or identity barriers, as it
focuses on the arguments and discursive positions, and it may reveal that social actors that are
markedly different from each other in a number of ways still share a common approach in terms of
their policy discourses. However, studies about policy discourses usually have demonstrated that
some typical actors are behind specific policy discourses, therefore it is a potentially interesting
question to study and identify those actors in specific cases and circumstances. Our analysis on the
spread of penal populism in Hungary demonstrated both aspects. First, that the penal populist
discourse is not limited to radical right-wing parties, but it is actually spread all over the political
spectrum. Second, that there are still differences among social and political actors in their use of the
penal populist discourse. For instance, it turned out that the tabloid media did not spread directly
penal populist arguments. Similar researches may be useful to better understand populist policy
discourses their effect on the policy making process and the social actors that construct and
popularize those arguments.
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