Trump goes, but global populism may still grow

DONALD Trump's departure from office on Wednesday will be welcomed by many across the world who decry the rise of global populism. Yet Mr Trump is a symptom, not a cause, of populism whose rise may only grow into the 2020s fuelled by the novel coronavirus crisis which has triggered a deeper, broader global recession than even that of the international financial crisis a decade ago.

As of late 2020, some two billion of the world's population was governed by populist leaders, including the more than 300 million US populace, according to academic research from the Global Populism Database - a comprehensive tracker of populist discourse. What the research found is that leaders from across different continents from global populism's cheerleader-in-chief Trump to Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, and Poland's Mateusz Morawiecki, won power through common campaign tactics.

These include attacks on multinational organisations, so-called 'fake media', and immigrants. Moreover, this electoral success is itself a microcosm of a wider upending of the tectonic plates of the global political landscape with major implications for global business.

The research found that, some 20 years ago, only a handful of states with populations over 20 million - including Italy, Argentina and Venezuela - had leaders classified as populists through their speeches. This was an era that saw, for instance, the controversial billionaire businessman Silvio Berlusconi as a right-of-centre maverick prime minister from 2001-2006 in Rome, presaging the rise of Mr Trump. And also Hugo Chavez was Venezuelan president from 1999-2013 aligning himself with the governments of Fidel and then Raul Castro in Cuba.

POPULIST CLUB

According to the Global Populism Database, this-then relatively small 'populist club' expanded significantly after the onset of the 2007-08 international financial crisis that heralded what has been called the great recession. But it was not until the last half decade that there has been the biggest rise in populism with the elections across the world including of Mr Bolsonaro and Mr Trump.

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To be sure, there are still some limits on the rise of populism with a significant number of countries including Canada, France, and Germany never having a governmental leader in the post-war era that has used populist rhetoric. However, even in these states, the share of the vote going to populist political parties has tripled since 1998.

The research highlights that this latest two-decade wave of populism is just one of several over the last several hundred years. In the past, for instance, populism has been a recurrent phenomenon in some countries, including the United States.

Take the example of Andrew Jackson who served as US president from 1829 to 1837. Mr Jackson's populism earned him the moniker "King Mob" and some have drawn comparisons between him and Mr Trump.

What the academic research reveals, however, is that this latest wave of populism has cast a bigger footprint than perhaps ever before. According to the Global Populism Database, some 2 billion people are therefore today governed by a "somewhat/moderately populist", "populist" or "very populist" leader, an increase from 120 million at the turn of the millennium, with the research calling out leaders like Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and India's Narendra Modi as belonging in the populist camp.

SHADES OF POPULISM

Another key finding is how shades of populism differ across the world. The study found that South American populism leans towards socialism (albeit with conservative Bolsonaro as a key outlier), whereas current populists in Europe tend to be right-of-centre.

The latter growth of populism in Europe is one of the most striking developments in the period under review. The role of economic downturn and austerity in the wake of the great recession has been key to the rise of populism in Europe, especially in those states most impacted by the eurozone crisis like Greece and Spain. Unrest, however, has also tapped into pre-existing disquiet with established European political parties and systems, and also a broader range of economic, political, social and technological factors that have also driven unrest across much of the rest of the world too.

Globally, the diverse nature of the rise of this political populism from the Americas to Europe and the Middle East, has reportedly been described as a "revolutionary wave" by Nigel Inkster, former director of operations for the UK Secret Intelligence Service. Looking to the future and potential further growth of populism, one key question is whether this phenomenon will tail off in coming years, or grow further.

While it is possible it will tail off, there is a plausible case that the growth of populism will even grow. It should be remembered here that, while Mr Trump lost in November, he won more votes than in 2016, and was most likely to be re-elected before the pandemic struck.

There are two sets of reasons why the scale of political populism will remain at a historically high level for the foreseeable future.

Firstly, the pandemic has triggered a deeper and broader global downturn than after the international financial crisis of just over a decade ago. While the world is still in the midst of the crisis, it is already clear it will be the deepest recession since World War II, with the largest fraction of economies experiencing declines in per capita output since at least 1870 according to the World Bank.

Yet, it is not just the absolute decline in economic output, but also rising economic inequality that is key. While some affluent cohorts have seen their wealth increase since the pandemic began, including through booming stock markets in many countries, poorer people have often seen their incomes stagnate or worse.

There is also an inter-generational impact too with young people disproportionately likely to lose their jobs. This puts them at risk of long-term damage to earnings potential and job prospects, fuelling discontent.

Secondly, there are some factors completely unrelated to the current economic slump that may also drive greater populism. This includes the disruptive, mobilising role of social media.

SOCIAL MEDIA'S ENABLING ROLE

There remains debate about how instrumental social media has been in fomenting political populism in recent years. However, whether one sees this new technology as an essential component that translated discontent into concrete support for populism, or accentuated what was already inevitable, indisputably it has played an enabling role that may only grow.

Taken together, Mr Trump's toppling was a setback for global populism, but this political phenomenon may not yet have peaked. The economic aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis has increased the prospect of further international instability that will be mobilised by discontented groups, in part, by social media.

• The writer is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics