Management Summary Research Study „Do Populists Erode Civil Society?“
This study examines whether populist party representation in national legislatures weakens civil society, understood as the sphere of voluntary associations, NGOs, unions, and movements operating independently of the state and the market. The analysis draws on panel data from 79 countries over the period 1970–2019, combining party-level populism and ideology scores with lower-house seat shares and six civil-society indicators from the Varieties of Democracy project. Factor analysis identifies two dimensions of civil society: freedom (the ability of associations to form, operate, and speak without repression) and structure (the breadth and composition of participation). Fixed-effects models show that stronger right-wing populist representation is associated with subsequent declines in both dimensions, with the strongest association in legislatures dominated by right-wing parties. Left-wing populism shows small and mostly insignificant average associations, with one exception: weaker civil-society freedom in strongly left-dominated legislatures. Strong institutional checks, such as independent courts and other veto players, cushion the negative association without eliminating it. The practical implication is that protecting civic autonomy requires robust constitutional and judicial safeguards, transparent rules on registration and funding of associations, and vigilance toward both legal-administrative and rhetorical instruments through which civic space can be narrowed.
Target groups of stakeholders: Policymakers, leaders of NGOs and civic associations, constitutional lawyers, political scientists, economists working on political economy and institutional quality, journalists covering populism and the state of democracy.
Citation: Asutay, E., Berggren, N., & Bjørnskov, C. (2026). Do populists erode civil society? Journal of Institutional Economics, forthcoming.