Abstract

We examine how and under which conditions populist leaders erode the liberal script. Existing research on the consequences of populism has relied primarily on case studies or aggregate indicators of institutional quality, such as V-Dem, which are based on subjective expert assessments. This project shifts the focus to the concrete actions through which populists dismantle democratic institutions. Building on our prior work on populists in power, we construct a new index of populist illiberal actions by systematically coding measures in 60 countries between 1945 and 2025.

The index captures actions targeting the core pillars of the liberal script, including independent media, judicial independence, electoral institutions, a professional civil service, NGOs, and constitutional constraints. Its central innovation lies in coding policy actions rather than relying on rhetoric or perception-based scores.

Using this data, we aim to produce four research papers. The first introduces the database and reveals patterns of contestation of the liberal script by showing when and how populist leaders implement illiberal actions. The second examines the institutional, societal and economic constraints that make democracies resilient. The third and fourth papers focus specifically on authoritarian populists by developing a new typology of authoritarian populism and then studying the scope conditions of resilience against authoritarian actions.