Valuing Public Goods in a Populist World: A Comparative Analysis of Network Dynamics and Societal Outcomes

The EU strives to create socio-economic wealth for its citizens by ensuring fair and equal access to public goods. These goods are nonexcludable and non-rivalrous utilities that benefit society. Countries are the primary providers of these goods, but private firms, NGOs, politicians, and the media also play a role. A central challenge is to govern the creation and fair distribution of public goods as actors interact and collaborate in their creation. Institutions ensure fair and equal access to public goods, as purely market-based supply would result in misallocations. The rule of law corrects such misallocation by stipulating subsidies, taxes, regulations, or monopolies for certain public goods. However, populism has gained momentum globally, challenging democracy and the rule of law. It involves gaining and maintaining power by targeting formal and informal institutions, including the rule of law. Populist politics typically create an in-group and an out-group, interfering in creating and distributing public goods. This creates countervailing pressures between the rule of law and populism, affecting the distribution of public goods. We study how the rule of law and populism impact the creation and distribution of public goods by societal actors. Our analysis takes a network perspective and considers actors' interactions, collaborations, and potential collusions for a multi-dimensional view of socio-economic outcomes. We investigate how the structure of these networks and their degree of populism, a construct we define as “networked populism,” affect the contribution of societal actors to socio-economic outcomes. In summary, our study analyses how the rule of law and populism impact the creation and distribution of public goods by societal actors.