Friendly foes or enemies within? Assessing the (in)stability of coalition governments with populists in Europe

Abstract Do populist parties in government impact government stability? From a theoretical perspective, the anti-pluralist and anti-elitist characteristics of populist parties are expected to impair the longevity of their coalition. We test this claim by examining 26 Western and Central Eastern European countries between 1990 and 2021. The empirical analysis shows that when populists are included in coalitions, government stability is indeed affected. The results hold when testing for other common factors of government instability. At the same time, the findings point at certain variations that deserve further research: Whereas this finding applies to government stability in general, populism does not contribute to earlier termination in countries where populist governments are more common. Overall, these results yield important implications for our understanding of how populism affects party government.