Infrastructuralism, distributive politics and the persistence of populist rule

This paper offers a practice-oriented lens and a context-sensitive approach to inquire into what populists do when in government and how resilient they remain. Bringing in-depth country insights on Turkey as an exemplary and early case that animates the triumph of populism as a global phenomenon, two conclusions are drawn. First, the development strategy of populist governments draws extensively on the promotion of large-scale infrastructure projects as a tool to generate and preferentially redistribute material benefits among varied sections of society and provide visual evidence of progress. Second, politically driven, tactical repertoires play a key, yet often unattended, role in perpetuating populist rule, variably allocating investments to core constituents, battleground and opposition regions. Hence, rather than constraining themselves to a repertoire that is commonly attributed to populists, they tactically shift strategies of reward and punishment to escape context-specific threats and solidify their grip on political power. It is concluded that ‘infrastructure’ serves as a critical arena for understanding the distributional dynamics and political strategies of populist policymaking, revealing how material interventions are strategically deployed to cultivate popular support and reinforce the durability of populist rule.