The Supply Side

Abstract This chapter examines what political scientists call the “supply side” of populism. If the demand side focuses on the motivations of voters, the supply side is about something different: the choices those voters are given. Populist movements have historically been rare, not because the demand for them didn’t exist but because the political landscape was dominated by two other powerful forms of organization: programmatic and clientelist parties. Relying on charisma, populist leaders are fundamentally different from the leaders of these more traditional political organizations. From a supply-side perspective, populism is less a question of ideas than of an implicit strategic calculation. Leaders will supply populism when it is cost-effective to do so. To understand why political leaders choose one approach over another, this chapter examines the costs involved in the clientelist, programmatic, and populist strategies, respectively.