The DOI matches its Crossref record; 61 of the 61 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
“The Enemy of the People”: Populists and Press Freedom
Abstract
To what extent is populist rule associated with a decline in press freedom and freedom of expression? Populist rule refers to government headed by charismatic leaders who seek to gain and retain power by mobilizing mass constituencies that are typically free of other political attachments. Populism in this sense matters for two reasons: (1) controlling the media is a core objective of populists compared with other types of political leaders, who can rely on other organizational links to supporters; and (2) the interests of populist parties are virtually equivalent to the interests of party leaders, which means that populists face different time horizons and constraints on their behavior than the leaders of more deeply institutionalized parties. Using cross-national data on up to ninety-one countries from 1980 to 2014, this paper tests whether populist rule is associated with the erosion of press freedom and freedom of expression relative to other types of government and whether any effect is conditional on the ideology of the populist government in question. It finds that populist rule is associated with a decline in most measures of media freedom relative to programmatic party rule. However, this effect is lessened for right-leaning populist governments.
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“Although a growing body of research shows that populists draw on their mass support to weaken judicial autonomy, override legislative restraints, erode press freedom, and broadly inhibit opposition mobilisation”
From Post-Populism: Transitions from Populist to Personalist Authoritarian Rule (2023) · cites this paper as Paul D Kenny, 2020
In the citing paper
“unlike the leaders of more conventional programmatic parties, who are constrained by party rules, or the leaders of patronage-based parties who depend on the support of factional leaders, populists face much fewer informal party-based constraints on their authority”
From Post-Populism: Transitions from Populist to Personalist Authoritarian Rule (2023) · cites this paper as Paul D Kenny, 2020
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Metadata
- Authors
- Kenny, P. D.
- Affiliations
- Australian National University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Kenny, Paul D.
- ORCID
- Kenny, Paul D.
- Venue
- Political Research Quarterly
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2019-01-25
- Volume
- 73
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 261-275
- ISSN
- 1065-9129 (ISSN-L)
- 1938-274X
- OpenAlex
- W2914675577
- Cited by
- 98
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 19.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Political Research Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Research Bank (Australian Catholic University) (submittedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Australian National University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Populism, Right-Wing Movements
- Social Sciences › Law › Law, Rights, and Freedoms
- Keywords
- populism, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, populist governments, right-wing populism, left-wing populism, government ideology, media control
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