Governing in the Name of the People: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Populist Party Behaviour in Coalition Executives

Abstract

This study examines how populist parties adapt their political behaviour when transitioning from anti-establishment opposition to governing responsibility in coalition executives. It investigates whether populist parties moderate their rhetorical and behavioural repertoire upon entering office, and how the institutional constraints of coalition governance shape their performative strategies. A qualitative comparative case-study design was employed, drawing exclusively on secondary documentary sources. The analysis examines two coalition governments involving populist parties: the Austrian ÖVP–FPÖ coalition (2017–2019) and the Italian Lega–M5S coalition (2018–2019). Data comprise official parliamentary transcripts, coalition agreements, government policy programmes, ministerial press releases, and existing qualitative case-study literature. Documentary materials were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterns of behavioural continuity and adaptation. The analysis reveals that populist parties do not uniformly abandon their anti-establishment behavioural repertoire upon entering government. Rather, they engage in selective behavioural moderation: diluting confrontational rhetoric in policy-implementation domains while intensifying performative anti-elite symbolism in communicative arenas. Coalition agreements function as behavioural scripts that constrain ministerial action but simultaneously provide discursive resources for sustaining populist identity. Cross-case comparison indicates that behavioural adaptation is mediated by party organisational structure and senior partners tolerance for populist performativity. The study advances political behaviour scholarship by demonstrating that populist governing behaviour is neither fully constrained by institutional responsibility nor immune to contextual pressure. Findings carry implications for coalition theory, democratic accountability, and the comparative study of executive behaviour in fragmented party systems.