Populism and Public Administration: Confronting the Administrative State
Abstract
Populism has been perhaps the most popular explanation for the difficulties that have been besetting contemporary governments. But despite the intense interest in populism as a political phenomenon, very little has been written assessing the implications for governance and even less on the implications for public administration. Focusing on the United States, but adding some comparative analysis, this article examines the implications of populist politics for public administration and the role of the bureaucracy in governance.
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Public Administration Under Populist Rule: Standing Up Against Democratic Backsliding
Bauer, M. W. (2024) · International Journal of Public Administration · doi:10.1080/01900692.2023.2243400 · Cited by 104 · see citing works
“…section, the rise of popu-lism has received a lot of attention from political scientists (Mény & Surel, 2001; Norris et al., 2019), research that is, however, usually centered on political parties, organized society, legislatures, and courts, but rarely on the bureaucracy (Peters & Pierre, 2019).”
InfluentialThe Guardian State: Strengthening the public service against democratic backsliding
Yesilkagit, K., Bauer, M., Peters, B. G., & Pierre, J. (2024) · Public Administration Review · doi:10.1111/puar.13808 · Cited by 112 · see citing works
Self-citationBringing political science back into public administration research
Peters, B. G., Pierre, J., Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2022) · Governance · doi:10.1111/gove.12705 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
Self-citationDefining Bureaucratic Autonomy
Bersch, K., & Fukuyama, F. (2023) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-051921-102914 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Bauer, M. W. (2025) · Public Administration Review · doi:10.1111/puar.70028 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“…are restructured, whether administrative autonomy survives, and in what ways administrative organizations are reshaped to serve illiberal ends (Green 2019; Rockman 2019; Peters and Pierre 2019; Bauer and Becker 2020; Peters 2024; Lotta et al. 2024; Alon-Barkat et al. 2025; James 2025).”
- Authors
- Peters, B. G., & Pierre, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- University of Gothenburg (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Peters, B. Guy
- Venue
- Administration & Society
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2019-09-18
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 1521-1545
- ISSN
- 0095-3997 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3039
- OpenAlex
- W2974325920
- Cited by
- 165
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 21.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Administration & Society (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Public Policy and Administration Research
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Governance
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Populism, Right-Wing Movements
- Keywords
- populism, public administration, administrative state, bureaucracy, governance, populist politics, American politics, comparative politics
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