Populism: definition and theoretical approaches POLb1111 Populism and political parties Aims of the lecture • •Explain the core features of populism as a distinctive concept • • •Briefly introduce different approaches to the study of populism • • •Define different types of populism • • • • • 2 The main thesis is that… • • •…populism is like arancini. • • 3 Adobe Systems 4 Problems with populism Canovan (1999): ‘contested concept’ Stanley (2008): vague term retaining an ‘awkward conceptual slipperiness’ Taggart (2000): ‘chameleonic nature’ Problems with populism •- Popular perception of populism (unrealistic promises, irresponsible policies, demagoguery, spending, socialist policies, xenophobia…) • • •- Negative political label • • •- Terminological mess: protest parties, challenger parties, anti-party parties, anti-mainstream parties, anti-political establishment parties, anti-establishment reform parties, discontent parties, neopopulism/ new populism, anti-corruption parties, national populist parties… - 5 Popular perception of populism •Stretching of the term • •All politicians are populists (from time to time) • •Content – unrealistic promises, irresponsible policies, demagoguery, spending, socialist policies, xenophobia… • •See Bale, Taggart, van Kessel. 2011: “Thrown around with abandon? Popular understandings of populism as conveyed by the print media: a UK case study.” Acta Politica 46 (2). •Populism as a label in political fight • 6 Three waves of populism •Empirical diversity of populism (Pauwels 2014) • •19th century populism – the People`s Party in the USA, „narodniky“ in Russia (Canovan 1981, Taggart 2000) • •Latin American populism – Peron, Chávez, De la Torre… • •New populism – radical right-wing or radical left parties in Europe •(+ exclusively/centrist populist parties) • •Case driven definitions (agrarian populism until the 1970s, RRP in Western Europe) • • 7 POPULISM AS AN IDEOLOGY •Ideology: • •total, closed and cohesive view of human beings in society / a systematic body of concepts / a comprehensive normative vision / the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program • •Is populism an ideology? • •Populism is usually not regarded as a full-blown ideology (such as socialism, liberalism etc.) 8 POPULISM AS A THIN-CENTERED IDEOLOGY •Cas Mudde (2004, 2007): •“populism as an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” • •thin-centered ideology – does not cover all aspects of life, only specific political questions •can be combined with other thin-centered of full blown ideologies – ‘a receptive partner for full ideologies’ (Stanley 2008), ‘colourless’(Jagers, Walgrave, 2007) – East-Central European experience, M5S •Stanley, B. (2008). „The thin ideology of populism.“ Journal of Political Ideologies, 13(1), 95-110. • 9 ANALYTICAL CORE OF POPULISM •Deconstruction of the definition (Rooduijn 2016, see also Deiwiks 2009, Stanley 2008, Muller 2016): •Muller (2016): moralistic imagination of politics • 1.The people as a homogeneous group – the people and the elite 2. 2.Denigration of the elites 3. 3.The antagonistic relationship between the elites and the people 4. 4.The idea of (restoration) of popular sovereignty • 10 Adobe Systems ̶ Political elites People Populists THE ‘ PURE PEOPLE’ AS A HOMOGENEOUS GROUP •Crucial importance for populism • •Refusal of division of society into different groups (antipluralist – next lecture) • •How is the people defined – an empty signifier? • •Purity as the most single important characteristic of the people • •Taggart: heartland, idealized conception of the community 12 Class task!!! •Imagine you are a populist leader coming from: • a)The United States b)Italy c)Poland d)Czech Republic e)The United Kingdom 13 •How would you define the „pure people“ or a member of your heartland? 14 1 bonus point! (5 minutes to complete the task) 15 THE ‘ PURE PEOPLE’ AS A HOMOGENEOUS GROUP •Culturally/politically determined content of the “people” • •As the sovereign – demos, against principles of liberal and representative democracy • •As a nation – ethnos, populism = nationalism (?), vs. foreigners, immigrants etc. • •As a class – ‘working people’, the ‘99 per cent’ vs. ‘the rich’, the ‘1 per cent’, exploitation the lower class • •BUT related to the host ideology (see later) • 16 Adobe Systems 17 Political elites People Populists DENIGRATION OF THE ELITES •Establishment/elites as a collective, monolithic entity •Criticism targeting all the established actors • •Political parties, businessmen, ‘the rich’, oligarchy, the ‘1 per cent’, ‘champaigne/drinkers’, “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, Hollywood-loving” liberal elites … •Particular interests which are in opposition to the interests of the people •Sabotaging the interests and democratic rights of the people •Beyond the usual opposition • 18 Class task!!! •Imagine you are a populist leader coming from: • a)The United States b)Italy c)Poland d)Czech Republic e)The United Kingdom 19 •How would you define the elites (and why)? 20 1 bonus point! (5 minutes to complete the task) 21 Adobe Systems 22 Political elites People Populists Adobe Systems 23 Political elites People Populists Adobe Systems 24 Political elites People Populists THE ANTAGONISTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PEOPLE AND THE ELITE •Manichaean view (moral dimension, normative outlook) •The good (‘pure’) people and the bad elite •People betrayed by the corrupt elite •Alienation of the elite, people exploited by the elite •P. speak in the name of the ‘oppressed people’ •The chief social divide between the governing and the governed – denial of the old cleavages •Aggresive and/or mocking rhetoric (‘political class’, ‘dinosaurs’, ‘robber barons’, ‘thieves’, ‘oligarchy’, ‘godfathers’…) •Emphasis on the proclaimed crisis (elites blamed for it) - political, cultural, social, economic • • 25 Adobe Systems 26 Political elites People Populists THE IDEA OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY • •Sovereignty taken away from the people by the elite - against the representative democracy (next lecture) •Often proponents of direct democracy (not a defining characteristic of p.) •Renewal of the ‘distorted’ relationship between the elites and the people •People are fully formed and self-aware (no need for incompetent political elites) •‘common sense’ as the leading principle (‘votes for us are votes for common sense’ – R. John (VV)) •All representatives have to do is to listen to the vox populi • • 27 Adobe Systems 28 Political elites People Populists Adobe Systems 29 Types of populism ̶ Adobe Systems 30 ̶thin-centered ideology (Freeden 1996) ̶Goes together with other thin-centered of full blown ideologies: ̶ ̶Populist radical right (Lega, National Rally, Bolsonaro) ̶Populist radical left (Podemos, Syriza) ̶Centrist populist parties (ANO, M5S) ̶ Typology of populism (based on Pauwels 2014; Havlík, Stanley 2015; modified) Social populism Radical right-wing populism Neoliberal populism Non-ideological populism Construction of the people Working class, the opressed, 99%, the exploited (Pure) nation, ethnos Hard-working taxpayers, entrepreneurs Ordinary people, citizens Depiction of the elites/enemies Capitalists, imperialists, bankers, exploiters Immigrants, foreigners, multiculturalism, feminism Bureaucratic elites/states, interventionist state Corrupt incompetent politicians Host ideology Socialism Nativism Economic liberalism Not clear Examples PDS, Syriza, SP NF, VB, Ataka LPF, ALP, ANO (SVK) ANO (CZ), NDSV, M5S 31 PRR Nativism •The key concept is nationalism •A political doctrine based on the congruence on the cultural and the political unit, i.e. on the nation and the state •Internal homogenization + external exclusiveness as tools •How to distinguish between moderate and radical nationalism? •Nativism = „An ideology, which holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (“the nation”) and that nonnative elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the homogenous nation-state.“ (Mudde 2007: 19) •= combination of nationalism and xenophobia •Different construct of native(ness) – racist, cultural, religious… Economy •Not of the primary importance for populist radical right •Winning formula – free market economic policies combined with xenophobia and social-cultural conservatism (Kitschelt and McGann) •The empirical evidence provides a more mixed picture •Protectionism determined by nativism (critical approach to international market) •Welfare chauvinism – social benefits guaranteed only for natives Populism and radical left •„chameleonic“ nature of populism open to appeal from different parts of the ideological spectrum •Combination of left-ideologies with populism relatively new – European populism almost exclusively tied to radical right politics (X the 19th centure populism in USA, Latin American experience) •1990s – atmosphere critical to the prevailing economic (neo)liberalism + the fall of communism in CEE (losers of transition) •The ideological background of radical left populism = populism + democratic socialism Democratic socialism as a host ideology •„A democratic ideology between revolution and reform“ (Pauwels 2014) •Reformism of social democratic parties criticized – abandonment of the working class (centrism, a power-seeking strategy) •Revolutionary ideas of communism (overthrowing of democracy and capitalism) rejected •On the left from social democracy but seeking to transform the system •The crucial importance of issues related to the economic dimension of political competition (X RRP) – welfare-state, redistribution, public ownership, (socioeconomic) equality •The new left issues (feminism, environmentalism) •Conflict of pop. and demsoc.: •minority status of the working class and „common sense“ (vox populi) vs educative activities of the „vanguard of the proletariat“ • • Populism of radical left •“populism as a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (Mudde, 2007) • •Who are the people? •The ordinary hard-working people •Who is the enemy? •The (neoliberal) political and economic elites, a bourgeois class •Social democratic parties – traitors of the interest of the working class, i.e. RLP presenting themselves as „purifiers“ •External enemies – imperialists (USA, EU) •Exploitation of the working class by the elites – a Manichean view (intensity of the conflict) • • New/centrist populism •Emergence in CEE in the late 1990s •Arisen from the dissatisfaction to political elites and anti-political/anti-party sentiments •The lack of a coherent host ideology •The key issue is corruption, otherwise modest profile (AERPs – Hanley, Sikk) lacking radicalism of PRR or PRL •Politics presented by a grubby business performed by incompetent and selfish politicians •Offer of a “third way”, “non-ideological solutions”, “common sense”… •The people – citizens, ordinary people •Very flexible in terms of attitudes to other issues Conclusion •populism as a contested concept X agreement on the analytical/definitional core: the people and the elite as homogeneous groups, antagonistic (and essentially moralistic) relationship between the two, popular sovereignty •Populism and democracy (next lecture) •Populism and demagoguery and/or opportunism •Vague use of the term in the media/popular discourse X a precisely defined in political science (and in this course) •Populism usually combined with other ideologies that fill the “emptiness” of populism •The omnipresent moralistic antagonism between the people and the elites varies in its specific context • 41 Thank you for your attention. 42