Populism
Introduction: What is Populism?
Populism, as described by Jan-Werner Mueller, is a term regularly used as a synonym for “anti-establishment,” irrespective of any particular political ideas: content, as opposed to attitude, simply doesn’t seem to matter.The term is thus also primarily associated with particular moods and emotions: populists are “angry”; their voters are “frustrated” or suffer from “resentment.” Populists are always critical of elites and anti-pluralist. They make the distinctly moral claim that they, and they alone, represent the people.Accordingly, as Mueller surmises, when running for office, populists portray their political competitors as part of the immoral, corrupt elite; when ruling, they refuse to recognize any opposition as legitimate.
Brief History and Context
Back in the late 1960s, “populism” appeared in debates about decolonization, speculations concerning the future of “peasantism,” and, discussions about the origins and likely developments of Communism in general and Maoism in particular.
The notion of populism as somehow “progressive” or “grassroots” is largely an American (North, Central, and South) phenomenon.
However, in Europe, populism is connected, primarily by liberal commentators, with irresponsible policies or various forms of political pandering. More particularly, there is a long-standing association of “populism” with the accumulation of public debt.
Description: What Does It Look Like?
Populist governance exhibits three features:
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Attempts to hijack the state apparatus
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Corruption and “mass clientelism” (trading material benefits or bureaucratic favours for political support by citizens who become the populists’ “clients”)
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Efforts to systematically suppress civil society
Many authoritarians will do similar things, but the difference is that populists justify their conduct by claiming that they alone represent the people: this allows populists to avow their practices openly.Populists often want to create constraints by rewriting constitutions to enable them to function in an entirely partisan fashion. Rather than serving as instruments to preserve pluralism, constitutions serve to eliminate it.
Contrast and Comparison: Similarities and Differences Between Populism and Democracy
According to Mueller, populism is a degraded form of democracy that promises to make good on democracy’s highest ideals (“Let the people rule!”).
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Dutch social scientist described the phenomenon of populism as an “illiberal democratic response to undemocratic liberalism.” It is seen as a threat, but also a potential corrective for a politics that has somehow become too distant from “the people.”
In this sense, the relationship between populism and democracy can be thought of as the drunken guest at a dinner party, representative populism, who does not respect able manners, is rude, and even lecherous, but may somehow paradoxically blurt out the truth about its founding ideal of popular sovereignty.
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Populism is like a permanent shadow of modern representative democracy, and a constant peril.
According to William A Galston, populism in comparison to liberal democracy, accepts the principles of popular sovereignty and democracy, understood in straightforward fashion as the exercise of majoritarian power.
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It is skeptical, however, about constitutionalism, insofar as formal, bounded institutions and procedures impede majorities from working their will. It takes an even dimmer view of liberal protections for individuals and minority groups.
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Thus, populism or an “illiberal democratic” regime is a governing system capable of translating popular preferences into public policy without the impediments that have prevented liberal democracies from responding effectively to urgent problems.
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There is also an internal challenge to liberal democracy concerning populists who seek to drive a wedge between democracy and liberalism.
Many citizens (small yet vocal minority when empowered or “silent majority”), their confidence in their future shaken, long instead for an imagined past that insurgent politicians have promised to restore.
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In practice, not every manifestation of populism threatens liberal democracy.
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But sometimes, the populist challenge does directly threaten liberal democracy. Left unchecked:
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Moves to undermine freedom of the press;
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Weaken constitutional courts;
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Concentrate power in the hands of the executive;
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And marginalize groups of citizens based on ethnicity, religion, or national origin,
Will undermine liberal democracy from within.
Who are the Populists: What Do They Do and What Do They Want?
Populists hanker after what political theorist Nancy Rosenblum has called “holism”: the notion that the polity should no longer be split and the idea that it’s possible for the people to be one and – all of them – to have one true representative.
Accordingly to Mueller, the core claim of populism is thus a moralized form of antipluralism. However, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to state that not everyone who rejects pluralism is a populist.
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For a political actor or movement to be populist, it must claim that a part of the people IS the people – and that only the populist authentically identifies and represents this real or true people.
Populists do not want to participate continuously in politics. The referendum they hold is only meant to ratify what the populist leader has already discerned to be the genuine popular interest as a matter of identity, not as a matter of aggregating empirically verifiable interests.
Populists have no problem with representation as long as they are the representatives; similarly, they are fine with elites as long as they are the elites leading the people.
The populist leader does not have to “embody” the people, but a sense of direct connection and identification needs to be there. Populists always want to cut out the middleman, so to speak, and to rely as little as possible on complex party organizations as intermediaries between citizens and politicians.
The same is true of wanting to be done with journalists: the media is routinely accused by populists of “mediating,” which is ironically what they are actually supposed to do, but which is seen by populists as somehow distorting political reality.
Populist parties are almost always internally monolithic, with the rank-and-file clearly subordinated to a single leader. And so populist parties are particularly prone to internal authoritarianism.
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Galston lastly mentions that populist parties often espouse measures, such as trade protectionism and withdrawal from international institutions, that challenge established arrangements but not liberal democracy itself.
Populists at Play Around the World
1. Marine Le Pen
She is the current president of the far-right National Front party of France, having been introduced to the leadership position in 2011 after her father’s tumultuous and inflammatory 39-year reign as leader of the party. Over more than a decade, she has made a meticulous effort to rebrand her party as a France-first populist vehicle standing up for the little guy, minus the outrage linked to her dad, having now reformed the party as the “National Rally” as opposed to her father’s original “National Front” party. However, when taking a closer look at the policies her party platforms and outlines, as opposed to her carefully managed and curated rhetoric, she still continues to represent dangerous far-right ideology that aims to remake civil society by singling out minorities, especially Muslims and immigrants. Summarized in a 2024 article on Marine Le Pen by Nicholas Vincour in the American political digital newspaper company Politico, she is described by a language specialist and researcher Cécile Alduy as someone who “espouses an organicist vision of society whereby the individual bends to traditional social hierarchies that are beyond their control: the determinism of blood, family and nation. Even if she tries to erase the stigmatizing aspect of her program vis-a-vis certain groups, she has a far-right ideology and her elected officials are far right” (Vinocur, 2024).
2. Giorgia Meloni
Current and first female Prime Minister of Italy since 2022, having been elected as leader of Fratelli d’Italia (the Brothers of Italy) party, the country’s historically most right-wing government since the end of World War II. Her party has roots in the neo-fascist movement that emerged out of the ruins left by Benito Mussolini and Italy’s crushing defeat and surrender during World War II. Her opposition to immigration, along with her appeal to “common sense” values rooted in conservatism, have endeared her to her base of supporters, and other populists leaders around the world, like Donald Trump. Quoted from historian and Italian professor Lorenzo Castellani in NPR article written by Adam Raney, “ ‘she is proposing herself as a sort of defender of the borders, a very Trumpian approach from this point of view,’ referring to former President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric and policies” (Raney, 2022).
Concluding Thoughts
To succinctly summarize William A. Galston’s thoughts on populism, in short, populism:
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Plunges democratic societies into an endless series of moralized zero-sum conflicts;
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Threatens the rights of minorities;
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And it enables overbearing leaders to dismantle the checkpoints on the road to autocracy.
The appeal of populism – with its embrace of tribalism, its Manichaean (polarizing conflict between opposites) outlook, and the constant conflict it entails – is deeply rooted in the enduring incompleteness of life in liberal societies.
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