2018/12/04 by Jonathan Hopkin, Mark Blyth · 83 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Austerity #Cartel #Creditor #Economic system #Economics #Financial crisis #Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism #Keynesian economics #Law #Macroeconomics #Market economy #Opposition (politics) #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Populism #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Social Policy and Reform Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/gov.2018.43
published in Government and Opposition 54(2), 193-225 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2018/12/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
The expanding literature on growth regimes has recently been applied to explain the growth of populist movements across the OECD. Such applications posit a stand-off between debtors and creditors as the core conflict that generates populism. While insightful, the theory has problems explaining why, in some European countries, such movements pre-date both the global financial crisis and the austerity measures that followed, factors that are commonly seen as causing the rise of populism. This article takes a different tack. It derives shifts in both political parties and party systems from the growth regime framework. In doing so it seeks to explain the evolution of the cartel form of party that dominated the political systems of Europe from the late 1990s through to the current period and why that form proved unable to respond meaningfully to both the financial crisis and the political crisis that followed it.