Democratic tension as a breeding ground for populism
•„A broad tendency that is always latent to some degree in modern democracies“ (Plattner, 2010)
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•„If it becomes clear that those involved see in democracy nothing but horsetrading, they, and
eventually the system itself, are liable to lose their legitimacy. When too great a gap opens up
between haloed democracy and the grubby business of politics, populists tend to move on to the
vacant territory, promising in place of the dirty world of party monoevring the shining ideal of
democracy renewed.“ (Canovan 1999: 11).
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•Populism as a ‘shadow of democracy’, democracy/political crisis as a (possible explanation of the
rise of populism x different kind of populisms)
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Populism as a threat to democracy I.
•Democracy seen by populist only as the ‘power of the people’ – reductionist definition of
democracy (Mény, Surel, 2002)
•‘democratic illiberalism’ (Pappas, 2012)
•‘pure populist democracy vs. the practice of constitutional democracy’ (Abts, Rummens, 2007)
•‘little patience with liberalism`s emphasis on procedural niceties and protections for individual
rights’ (Plattner, 2010)
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•Populism is not against democracy per se, but against the principles of liberal democracy

Populism as a threat to democracy II.
•Negative effects on different aspects of democracy:
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1.Position of individuals and social groups
•Rejection of the unified-in-diversity vision of society
•Circumvention of minority rights in the name of majority rule/majority rights
•Ignorance of constitutional guarantees for the individual rights of citizens
•Attitudes to NGOs, media, academia
•Pluralism at stake with populism
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Populism as a threat to democracy III.
•2. Institutions and rules of liberal democracy
•System of ‘checks and balances’, a complex model of bargaining, compromises in contrast with
populist vision of democracy
•Delegitimization of institutions necessary for ‘good governance’
•‘Solutions’:
•By-passing of representative principles of liberal democracy by promotion of elements of direct
democracy
•Limitation of separaration of powers, weakening of ‘pluralist’ institutions (parliaments,
opposition rights, discussion, constitutional courts…)
•Delegimisation of elected bodies, replacing by ‘non-political’ principles
•Effectivity instead of procedural checks
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•
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Populism as a threat to democracy IV.
•3. Effectiveness of political processes
•Indirect effect related mostly to democracy support
•Limited coalition potential of populist parties – formation of ideologically non-connected
coalitions (a new political cleavage - Greece) – convergence of political space – growing
dissatisfaction with democracy (lack of representativeness)
•Formation of ‘populist democracies’ (Pappas) – reaction to success of populist rhetoric, populist
inflation
•Populists in government – ‘mainstreamization’, lack of trust, ‘spiral of discontent’ – clash of a
programme of redemptive democracy and the practice of pragmatic democracy
•Drop of legitimity of standard institutions of liberal democracy (intentional delegimisation –
framing and cueing)
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Populism as a corrective to democracy
•Populist success as a litmus paper of pragmatism of democracy
•Corrective function of populism (Mudde, Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012)
•Mostly related to the inclusionist face of populism:
1.Representation of ‘silent majority’
2.Mobilization and representation of excluded sections of population (issues important for this
part of society but neglected by political representation)
3.Increase of democratic accountability – new issues in the political agenda
4.‘Democratisation of democracy’ – related to mobilization, revitalization/intensification of
political conflicts
5.
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Conclusion
•Populism based on basic principles of democracy (the essence of populism is democratic)
•Different faces of democracy: idea/practice of democracy – liberal democracy
•
•Three faces of populism:
1.Latent and permanent danger to liberal democracy
2.Possible corrective to liberal democracy
3.Litmus paper of functioning of democracy (demand)

Populists at elections
POLb1111 Populism and political parties


Main goals
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•
•1. Why are populist political parties successful?
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•2. Who votes for populists?
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Demand side – who votes for populists?
•Rich literature dealing with voting behaviour in general (for a review see Pauwels 2015):
•The sociological approach
•Protest voting
•The economic model of voting/ideological proximity
•Issue voting
•Valence voting
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The sociological approach
•The Columbia school (1940s) – The People`s Choice
•Social determinism – how does social environment influence voting behaviour?
•High correlation of social variables and vote choice
•Cleavage theory – Rokkan, Lipset
•Transposition of the existing social conflicts into politics (state – church, centre – periphery,
urban – rural, class)
•„defreezing“ of the European party systems from the 1960s
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•
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Social structural models – modernization thesis
•Support for PRR among so-called losers of modernization
•Based on negative perception of social transformation processes
•Social breakdown and deprivation thesis – from industrial to postindustrial society;
individualization + erosion of collective identities
•New skills needed to cope with modern society (flexibility, entrepreuneurship)
•Demand for PRR:
•return to traditional values
•protest vote against incompetent established parties
•dealignment and increasing importance of new issues (e.g. immigration)
•Results: less educated, unemployed, less qualified, insecure male workers supporting RRP (Bezt,
Luebbers, Ivarsflaten, Kriesi…)

Protest voting
•Based on the anti-establishment part of populist appeals
•Low level of trust and populist voting
•Low trust in institutions, politicians tend to vote populist parties
•Dissatisfaction with democracy explaining voting for all populist parties regardless their host
ideology (Pauwels 2015, confirmed also by Hawkins /2010/ - Chavez in Venezuela)
•BUT a more complicated relationship (Hooghe, Dassonville 2018):
•Low level of trust related to voting for populist parties
•Decrease of trust related to voting for PP
•Voting for PP decreases political trust

Economic model of voting, issue voting
•Closely related to rational choice theory
•Maximization of utility as the main theoretical assumption
•Voters seeking as much information as possible – „perfectly informed voter“
•Pure economic voting – pocket book, entropic (mixed results)
•Proximity model – voting the political party with closest policy positions (Kitschelt et al. 1995
– the winning formula, but De Lange 2016)
•Attitudes crucial for the host ideology correlates with support for PP (van der Brug et al. 2010,
Pauwels 2015, March 2012 but also Smith 2010 – crime linked to immigration)
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Psychological roots of populist voting
•Bakker et al. (2018)
•Congruence of voters` and politicians` personality (populist message)
•Personal traits typical for voters of populist political parties
•The Big Five model
•Case selection
•H: Low level of agreeableness increases the chance to voter for a populist party.
•Effect founds across the researched cases (Tea Party, Die Linke, PVV)
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Comparing voters of populist parties
•Rooduijn (2018)
•Little effort dedicated to comparative analysis of populist voters
•Comparison of 15 cases from Western Europe
•Testing the usual theoretical assumptions (economic voting, protest voting, losers of
globalization)
•Absence of solid common ground of electoral base across populist parties (political distrust but
the size of the effect varies over the time)
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Effects of populist attitudes
•A new strand of research
•(A) scale(s) of populist attitudes developed (used e.g. by Hauwaert and van Kessel 2018)
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Conclusion
•Chameleonic nature of populism
•Number of explanatory factors – a complex explanation
•Demand and supply side
•Host ideology matters (Art 2020: The Myth of Global Populism?)
•