Populism can be defined as the post-Marxist adaptation of leftist Manicheanism. In Western Europe, this process materialized after 1989, while in Latin America populism was applied before 1989. Populism is based on: a Manichean ideology with a binary cosmology of the world; the expansion of the public expenditure with damaging effects (high inflation rates) on the economy; charismatic leaders making plebiscitary appeals to the population, with a limited role of intermediate actors (interests groups or parties) and institutions; a high mobilization process from above leading to a movimientismo of the lower sectors of the population. The four cases of orthodox macro-economic populism were: Peron in Argentina, Allende in Chile, Garcia in Peru, and Chavez/Maduro in Venezuela. In partial populism, there is plebiscitarianism, but the increase of the public expenditure and of the inflation rate remains under control (Syriza, Movimento 5 Stelle, Correa, Morales, and Cristina Kirchner). Orthodox populism has always had negative consequences in politics, leading to authoritarian regimes, increased conflict and military coups; instead, partial populism has never endangered democracy and is usually coupled with hybrid/illiberal regimes. The political cultures of the right are not populist, because there is not the increase of public expenditure, but there is plebiscitarianism.

In this article, political economies have been linked to the decision-making processes of Latin American countries, before and after 1989. Conservative and liberal reforms have usually been applied through neo-oligarchic decision-making processes. Social-democrat economic policies have often been implemented with neo-corporatism. When “soft” populism prevailed, partitocrazia was the typical political instrument of lef tist governments, either if they governed or if they were at the opposition. Thus, they usual ly vetoed rightist presidents’ market reforms. The political consequence of “hard” populism has been authoritarianism, like in Venezuela with Chavez and Maduro. In “hybrid” economic policies, combining different models of political economies, there is not a stable decision-making process, and political conflict is usually strong.

This article explores the attitudes of Italy's ruling and opposition parties towards the European Union (EU) enlargement process in Central and Eastern Europe. It shows that during both left (1996–2001) and right (2001–2006) governments there was a convergence between conservative and constructivist political platforms. In the first case, support for the Balkan countries (i.e., Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia) and Turkey was based on their economic (penetration of Italian firms) and political (stabilisation of a difficult area) potential. In the second case, support was justified for both economic (i.e., redistributive policy towards Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia) and cultural (i.e., pursuing a ‘plural’ Europe by including Turkey) reasons. Some liberal criticism based on Turkey's partial compliance with the political requirements for accession were raised by individual politicians of moderate right and left parties, and cultural biases against Islamic Turkey were stressed by the Lega Nord. Neither view, however, had a significant impact on the decision-making process.

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Collaboration is an intense cooperation aimed at realizing common objectives; coordination wants to avoid adverse interests. There is anarchy when governments make unilateral decisions. In conflicts actors have incompatible scopes. The World Health Organization implemented some standards to help governments to manage the sanitary emergence. The communication network of health technicians has informally pushed governments to apply those standards. Eastern Asian states were faster in their reactions than Western countries. Coordination worked with the diffusion of informal norms and not of codified and binding regimes of international law. Sweden did not fully apply those standards, but without deep objections and with ad hoc exceptions. Taiwan’s standards were even more efficient than WHO.