Toward an economic theory of populism: Uncertainty, Information, and Public Interest in Downs’s Political Economy

Alexandre Chirat () and Cyril Hédoin ()
Additional contact information
Alexandre Chirat: EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: In this paper, we claim that Downs's theory of democracy provides a framework to build an economic and positive theory of populism. Our purpose in this paper is threefold. First, we highlight systematically overlooked aspects of Downs's work. In particular, we demonstrate that Downs is a thinker of political polarization and that his focus on uncertainty is relevant to build an economic theory of populism. Second, we take the issue of populism as an opportunity to test the explanatory power of Downs's political economy. Third, our reconstruction of Downs's political economy enables a comparative analysis with the theoretical political science literature on populism to achieve a wide reflexive equilibrium on the understanding of both the nature and the causes of populism. In accordance with such a method, we conclude that populism is, in essence, a political force in a democracy, always present in a latent state, and rationally promoted by political platforms when the minimum consensus required for democratic stability is in crisis. That is why populism is likely to regenerate as much as to sound the death knell of a democratic political system.

Keywords: Democracy; -; Populism; -; Rationality; -; Public; interest; -; Information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04159827
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-04159827/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04159827

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().