Populism has risen across democracies in recent years, but what happens to democratic institutions once populists actually gain power? My first paper, awarded 88%, investigated this question by examining whether populist governments can weaken institutional quality such as electoral fairness and the rule of law.

I compared evidence across countries and found that institutional decline is rarely immediate. Instead, the research suggests it can occur gradually, and that the extent of deterioration depends heavily on the strength of a country's institutions before a populist government takes office.

Building on this, my second paper, awarded 76%, tested the relationship empirically. Using country-level data from 1996–2020, I ran a fixed-effects regression to examine whether the rule of law changed when populist leaders were in power. The results found no statistically significant short-run effect, suggesting that institutional erosion may be more gradual and dependent on a country’s existing institutional strength.

Research methods: literature review, panel data analysis, fixed-effects regression