populism’ as a way of moving beyond socialism or social democracy advocated by the likes of Mouffe (2018) and Laclau (2005a), and ponders over whether these arguments hold water at a time when the left-wing populist moment seems to be waning.
Chapter 5 examines the relationship between populism and liberalism. Against widespread claims that populism is always illiberal, this chapter argues that the reality is far more complex, as right-wing populists increasingly reconfigure liberal tropes for their own purposes – for example, they claim to oppose more open immigration policies or cultural diversity in order to protect gender and sexual equality – and left-wing populists in Europe and the Americas often maintain a commitment to pluralism in their conception of ‘the people’. Exploring the ways in which populists engage with, exploit and deploy various tenets of liberalism while undermining others to a serious degree, the chapter shows that the binary between populism and liberalism is far from impermeable and that questions of liberalism, pluralism and heterogeneity raise important questions about how we seek to define and identify cases of populism in the contemporary political landscape.
The final chapter addresses perhaps the key question that still remains at the core of popular and academic debates about populism: is populism, ultimately, a good or a bad thing for democracy? The chapter shows that the answer to this question really depends on what subtype of democracy one favours: a liberal democrat will probably see populism as a threat to the very functioning of democracy insofar as closing down the space for plural understandings of ‘the people’ and the recognition of legitimate opposition is concerned, while a radical democrat will see it as opening up a space for the reconstitution of ‘the people’ in an otherwise moribund post-democratic environment. Contrasting these positions, the chapter argues that both sides also have a distinct view of the potentiality of populism, liberals seeing populism as a precursor to authoritarianism, whereas for radical democrats left-wing populism leads to a truly radical and plural political order. The chapter examines the problems with these views – particularly the increasing tendency to conflate the phenomena of authoritarianism and populism on the liberal side and the worrying propensity to ignore the problematic effects of positioning the leader as central to populism on the radical side – and how these can lead to a selective interpretation of populism’s democratic or anti-democratic credentials.
And so, by the end of this book, you should have a much better of idea of
what populism ‘is’ and what is at stake in debates over its meaning;
the key conceptual and normative drivers behind different schools of thought on populism;
how populism interacts with other key isms in the contemporary political landscape – especially nationalism, nativism, socialism and liberalism; and
how different visions of democracy underlie whether populism is seen as a threat or as a corrective to democratic politics.
Most importantly, you will see that, when it comes to populism, theory cannot be neatly separated from practice. While we all know that famous figures such as Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Juan Perón, Hugo Chávez and Rodrigo Duterte are often labelled ‘populists’, we cannot dig any deeper or gain any insight into what this means without considering the theoretical and conceptual debates behind the label. This is not merely an academic question: how we label and understand political leaders, parties and movements matters, because such labels can have significant effects on how we judge the legitimacy and validity of their bearers’ political claims. For example, whether a party is seen as ‘mainstream’ or ‘populist’ can have important ramifications for its acceptability as a coalition partner by other parties, while whether a leader is seen as ‘populist’ or not is often used as shorthand for where that leader falls in terms of respect for the democratic rules of the game. In short, there is a lot wrapped up in the seemingly simple term ‘populism’.
There are also good practical reasons to pay attention to the concept of populism. In a world beset by increased polarisation, the growth of anti-elite sentiment, and the proliferation of fake news, echo chambers and increasingly partisan media, populism is not going to go away any time soon. Despite the wishful thinking of those who dream of ‘the death of populism’ or those who aim to ‘defeat populism’ once and for all, it looks like populism is here to stay; while the time of Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Marine Le Pen will eventually come up, the fact of the matter is that new Trumps, new Modis and new Le Pens are likely to emerge in their shadows. More so, the legacies of populism will linger: while a populist actor can disappear from the political landscape, he or she can have significant long-term cultural and institutional effects – effects of a kind that, say, a post-Trump Republican Party (and US politics more generally) will surely have to grapple with. In such circumstances, no matter where you stand when it comes to populism – against it, for it, or on the fence about it – the reality is that it matters; it is here and, rather than being a blip on the political radar, has become a central part of contemporary political life. Understanding the concept is thus of vital importance today. Hopefully this book can help you in this key task.
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