Populism is on the rise globally and poses an existential threat to mainstream political parties. Traditional parties may try to debunk the populist rhetoric or fight back using populist tactics. A field experiment during the 2020 referendum in Italy shows that fighting back may be effective....

In theory, free and fair elections can improve the selection of politicians and incentivize them to exert effort. In practice, incumbency advantage and coordination issues may lead to the (re)election of bad politicians. We ask whether these two forces compound each other. Using a regression...