Weird definition of populist and I don’t think the governments classified as “populist” generally meet the definition. My guess is they wanted to group countries they could put the worst statistics on and label them “populist” so they could push their own elitist political agenda.
The study claims that Turkey is a populist country!
President Recep Erdogan is a rigid Islamist who jails or impoverishes any political leader or group that disagrees with him.