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Interpenetration Of Powers: Channels And Obstacles For Populist Impulses, Anya Bernstein

Journal Articles

Discussions of populism often focus on the most visible points of executive power: individual leaders. Yet individual leaders only accomplish things through administrative apparatuses that enable and support their power. Rejecting a political theology that imagines sovereignty as inhering in a single decision-maker, this article turns to political pragmatics focused on the people who populate the government. I draw on interviews with administrators in the government of two successful but quite different democracies. The first is the United States, an old, flagship democratic state. The second is Taiwan, which transitioned from a four-decade military dictatorship to a vibrant democracy in …