Core Concepts of Populism

What follows is a translation of the first part of the book A Very Short Introduction to Populism, published in 2017. The book's author, Cas Mudde, is a political scientist and researcher of extremist currents and populism in Europe.

Core Concepts of Populism

Authors: Cas Mudde[1] / Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser[2]

Translator: Amin Latifi

Populism has three core concepts: the people, the elite, and the general will.

The People

Most debates surrounding the concept and phenomenon of populism focus on the ambiguity of the term[3] "the people." Almost everyone agrees that "the people" is a kind of construct that, at best, implies a certain interpretation (and simplification) of reality. Consequently, some scholars have argued that the ambiguity of the term "the people" renders the concept useless, while others have sought clearer alternatives, such as "the heartland."[4] Nevertheless, Ernesto Laclau[5] argues forcefully that it is precisely the fact that "the people" is an "empty signifier"[6] that makes populism such a powerful political ideology and phenomenon. If we accept the premise that populism has the capacity to accommodate "the people" within its framework by appealing to voters and articulating their demands, then this approach can create a common identity among different groups and serve as an opening for their support of common interests.

Although "the people" is a construct that is open to considerable flexibility, the term is most often used in a combination of these three meanings: the people as sovereign, the people as the common people, and the people as the nation. In all these cases, the main distinction between "the people" and "the elite" depends on a second set of characteristics. These characteristics are, respectively: political power, socio-political status, and nationality. Given that all manifestations of populism more or less include some combination of these categories of characteristics, one rarely finds cases where only one of the meanings of the people mentioned above appears.

The concept of the people as sovereign is built upon the modern democratic idea that introduces "the people" not only as the ultimate source of political power but also as the "rulers." This concept is closely linked to the American and French Revolutions, rooted in the famous words of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln: "government of the people, by the people, for the people." However, the formation of any democratic regime does not mean that the gap between the rulers and the people[7] will disappear entirely. Under certain circumstances, the people who are sovereign may feel that the elites in power do not represent them (well), and therefore may raise criticisms—or even rebel against the ruling political system. These actions may set the stage for a populist struggle "to return government to the people."

In other words, the concept of "the people as sovereign" is a common theme within various populist traditions, recalling the fact that the ultimate source of political power in any democratic system comes from a collective body that, if ignored, may result in mobilization [of the people] and uprising. Indeed, this was one of the driving forces behind the People's Party of the United States (also known as the Populist Party) in the late nineteenth century, as well as other populist manifestations in the United States throughout the twentieth century and today.

The second meaning of “the people” is the idea of the “common people,” which explicitly or implicitly refers to a broader concept that blends socio-economic position with particular cultural traditions and popular values. Talk of the “common people” points to a kind of critique of the dominant culture, which views the judgments, tastes, and values of ordinary citizens with suspicion. In opposition to this elitist outlook, the concept of the “common people” defends the dignity and knowledge of groups that have been objectively or subjectively excluded and rejected from power because of their socio-cultural and socio-political standing. This is why populist leaders and voters often seize upon cultural elements that the dominant culture considers marks of baseness and inferiority. For example, Juan Domingo Perón[8], president of Argentina in the fifties and seventies, promoted new concepts and representations of the political community in Argentina that celebrated and praised groups that had previously been marginalized in general, and the so-called shirtless ones (descamisados) and blackheads (cabecitas negras) in particular.[9]

Addressing the interests and opinions of the “common people” is indeed one of the most frequently used pretexts that can be found in the various experiences labeled populist. It is also worth knowing that this meaning of the people tends toward both homogenization and division: this meaning not only seeks to unite the angry and silent majority, but also attempts to incite this majority against a specific enemy (namely, “the establishment”). This anti-elitist driving force goes hand in hand with a critique of institutions such as political parties, large organizations, and bureaucracies, which are accused of distorting the “sincere” bonds between populist leaders and the “common people.”

The third and final meaning of the people is the people as the nation. In this case, the term “the people” is used to refer to the national community, defined either in a civic sense or in an ethnic sense—as when we speak of “the Brazilian people” or “the Dutch people.” This means that [the people] includes all those who are “native” to a country, and all of them together form a community with a common life. Accordingly, the various communities made up of “the people” represent specific, unique nations that draw strength from foundational myths. That said, defining the boundaries of the nation is an exceedingly difficult task. Experience shows that equating “the people” with any existing state is a complicated undertaking, especially because different groups exist within the same territory.

The Elite

Unlike “the people,” few authors have theorized about the meaning that “the elite” holds in populism. It is clear that the main aspect of this issue is shaped by morality, insofar as the distinction is one between the pure people and the corrupt elite. But this distinction says little about who the elite is. Most populists do not merely despise the ruling political system; their critique also targets economic elites, cultural elites, and media elites. All of these elites are portrayed as a single corrupt group, all of a piece, working against the “general will” of the people. Although this differentiation is fundamentally rooted in the moral sphere, the elite are nonetheless identified based on various broader criteria.

First and foremost, elites are identified on the basis of power relations, meaning elites include all those who hold key positions within politics, the economy, media, and the arts. However, it is clear that this does not include the populists themselves, nor those within these sectors who are sympathetic to the populists. For example, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) constantly criticizes the “media” under the pretext of defending “the elites” and their unfair treatment of the party, though there is one medium that is spared from these criticisms: Die Kronen Zeitung[10]. This illustrated tabloid, read by almost one in five Austrians, was for a long time a staunch supporter of this party and its late leader Jörg Haider[11], and was therefore considered the true voice of the people.

Because populism holds a fundamentally anti-establishment position, several scholars claim that populists, by definition, are incapable of keeping themselves in power. After all, doing so would turn them into (part of) the “elites.” But to say they cannot do this ignores both the distinction between the people and the elites, which is a distinction belonging to the moral sphere and not dependent on position, and the skill of populist leaders. From former Slovak Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar[12] to the late President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, populists who have been in power have been able to sustain their anti-establishment rhetoric to some extent by redefining the elites. What is specific to their arguments is that real power is not held by democratically elected leaders, i.e., the populists, but by shadowy forces that remain in illegitimate power to undermine the voice of the people. This is where the “paranoid style of politics,” as the prominent American progressive historian Richard Hofstadter[13] describes populism, clearly manifests itself.

Not unrelated to the definitions of the people we provided above, elites can also be defined by economic (class) and national (nativist) criteria. Although populists advocate for a post-class world and often say that class divisions are artificial constructs to weaken “the people” and keep “the elites” in power, they nevertheless occasionally define elites by economic criteria. This is more true of left-wing populists who try to blend populism with a vague form of nationalism. However, even right-wing populists link the ultimate struggle between the people and the elites to economic power, arguing that political elites are in cahoots with economic elites and place “special interests” above the “public interest.” This critique is not necessarily anti-capitalist; for instance, many Tea Party activists in the United States are staunch defenders of the free market, but they believe that big businesses, with the help of their political cronies in Congress, corrupt the free market through protectionist laws, stifle competition, and squeeze out small businesses, which are considered the true engines of capitalism and part of “the people.”

Linking elites to economic power is particularly useful for populists in office, as it allows them to "explain" their political failures; for instance, that elites are sabotaging their work, elites who may have lost political power but still hold economic power. This line of reasoning could often be heard in post-communist Eastern Europe, especially during the transition period of the 1990s, and it still finds supporters among contemporary left-wing populist presidents in Latin America. For example, President Chávez frequently blamed economic elites for thwarting his efforts to "democratize" Venezuela, while Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras[14], the populist left leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), condemned "lobbyists and oligarchs in Greece" for undermining his government (as it happens, neither of these claims was baseless).

Populists also often claim that elites do not merely ignore the people's interests, but even work against the country's interests. Within the European Union, many populist parties accuse political elites of prioritizing the interests of the European Union over those of their own country. Similarly, Latin American populists have for decades accused political elites of defending the interests of the United States instead of their own countries. And some populists, mixing populism and anti-Semitism, believe that national political elites are part of this long-standing anti-Jewish conspiracy and accuse them of being "agents of Zionism." For example, in Eastern and Central Europe, where most politicians are from right-wing populist parties, including the Attack party (Ataka) in Bulgaria and the Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik), national elites are accused of being agents of Israel and Jewish interests.

Finally, when the distinction between the people and the elite is both a moral and an ethnic-tribal distinction, populism can be fully fused with nationalism. Here, elites are no longer seen merely as agents of a foreign power but are considered foreign themselves. Assuming these elites (in any sector) are almost exclusively "native," it is a wonder of the world that these slogans are not the talk of Europe's xenophobic populists. Setting aside the anti-Semitic slogans of Eastern Europe, the most obvious form of ethnic-tribal populism (or "ethnopopulism") exists in contemporary Latin America. For example, Bolivian President Evo Morales[15] has drawn a distinction between the authentic "mestizo" people and the corrupt "European" elites, thereby officially playing the role of racial balance of power in Bolivia.

While the key distinction in populism is a moral one, populist actors employ various secondary criteria to differentiate between the people and the elite. This allows populists to be flexible, an issue that becomes important when they gain power. Although defining the elite based on the same criteria used to define the people can be a meaningful definition, this is not always the case. For example, xenophobic populists in Europe often define the people by ethnic-tribal criteria, thereby excluding "foreigners" (i.e., immigrants and minorities), but they do not claim that the elites belong to a different ethnic group. They actually argue that elites, in any case, support the interests of immigrants more than those of the native people.

Populists often blend different interpretations of elites and the people, i.e., interpretations based on class, ethnicity, and morality. For example, contemporary American right-wing populists such as Sarah Palin[16] and the Tea Party describe elites as latte-drinking, Volvo-driving East Coast liberals and implicitly contrast this description with the /real/ Main Street/native people who drink regular coffee, drive American-made cars, and live in Middle America (the heartland). Pauline Hanson[17], leader of the right-wing populist One Nation party, constantly compares the real, rural Australians, proud of their British immigrant heritage, with the intellectual elites of the city who "want to turn this country upside down by giving Australia back to the Aborigines."

The General Will

The third and final core concept of populist ideology is the concept of the general will. Using this concept, populist actors and voters resort to a specific conception of the political that is closely related to the work of the renowned philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Rousseau distinguished between the general will (volonté générale) and the will of all (volonté de tous). While the former concept refers to the capacity of the people to join together as a community and legislate to establish their common good, the latter means the simple sum of particular interests at a specific moment in time. Populism's monistic and moralistic distinction between the pure people and the corrupt elite reinforces the idea that a general will exists.

In light of this distinction, the task of politicians is quite straightforward and clear: they must, to quote the English political theorist Margaret Canovan, "be wise enough to discern what the general will is, and have the necessary charisma to form individual citizens into an organized community that can be counted upon to will." Hugo Chávez, in his 2007 inaugural address, provides a supreme example of such a populist understanding of the general will:

Nothing...would be more consistent with the general doctrine than to consult the nation as a whole regarding the principal aims upon which government, the constitution, and the supreme rules are founded. Individuals are subject to error and deception, but the people are not. The people possess a high level of awareness concerning their own good and the measure of their independence. For this reason, their judgment is pure, their will is strong, and no one can corrupt or threaten it.

By employing the concept of the general will, many populists level Rousseau's critique at representative government. This critique sees "representative" government as an aristocratic form of rule in which citizens are treated as passive beings who are occasionally mobilized through elections in which they do little more than choose their representatives. In contrast, populists cling to the utopia of Rousseau's republic of popular government, that is, the idea that citizens are capable of [themselves] both making and executing the laws. It is no surprise that populist actors, across differences of time and place, usually support the implementation of direct democracy mechanisms such as referendums and plebiscites. For instance, from former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori[18] to the current President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa[19], contemporary populism in Latin America tends to approve constitutional changes through a constituent assembly established following referendums.

Based on the foregoing, it can be argued that there is a kind of elective affinity between populism and direct democracy, as well as other institutional mechanisms that serve to foster a direct relationship between populist leaders and voters. In other words, one of the practical consequences of populism is the strategic promotion of institutions whose structure empowers the supposed general will. Indeed, followers of populism criticize the ruling system for lacking the ability and/or interest to take the will of the people into account. And this criticism is often not without reason. For example, right- and left-wing populist parties in Europe decry the elitist nature of the European Union (EU) project, while contemporary left-wing populists in Latin America excoriate the (former) elites for turning a blind eye to the “real” problems of the people.

The populist concept of the general will, rather than being based on a rational process emerging from the public sphere, is founded on the notion of “common sense.” This means that it shapes the general will within a specific framework that is effective both for aggregating various demands and for identifying a common enemy. By laying hold of the people's general will, populism establishes a specific type of discursive logic that enables the formation of a collective subject with a robust identity (“the people”) capable of challenging the status quo (“the elite”). From this angle, populism can be viewed as a democratizing force, because it defends the principle of popular sovereignty with the aim of empowering groups who feel that the ruling political system does not represent them.

Nevertheless, populism also has a dark side. Whatever the manifestation of populism, the singular core of populism, and particularly its concept of the “general will,” may well end up supporting authoritarian tendencies. Indeed, populist actors and voters often share a concept of the political that lies close to the concept developed by the German political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888–1985). According to Schmitt, the existence of a uniform and homogeneous people is essential for the formation of any democratic order. In this sense, the general will is built upon the unity of the people and upon a clear demarcation from those who do not belong to this people[20] and, consequently, are not treated equally. In short, since populism implies that the general will is not only transparent but also absolute, it can legitimize authoritarianism and narrow-minded attacks on anyone who (it is claimed) poses a threat to the homogeneity of the people. Some commentators go so far as to say that populism is fundamentally anti-political because populist actors and voters seek to build anti-political utopias where there is supposedly no disagreement among (or within) “we the people.” This is best captured in Paul Taggart's[21] concept of the “heartland”—a community and territory imagined by populists that represents a homogeneous identity which is claimed to be authentic and incorruptible. But this is only part of the picture. By claiming to oppose “political expediency” and to break the “taboos” that elites impose on the people, populists promote a politics of re-contaminating certain issues, topics such as immigration in Western Europe or the so-called Washington Consensus[22] policies in Latin America, which are knowingly or unknowingly (as they should be) ignored by the ruling system.

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[1]- Cas Mudde

[2]- Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser

[3]- term

[4]- the heartland

[5]- Ernesto Laclau

[6] - An empty signifier or floating signifier is a signifier that does not refer to a specific, determinate signified and, for instance, depending on the situation, different signifieds can be intended by it. M.

[7]- governed

[8]- Juan Domingo Perón

[9] - In Perón's Argentina, the affluent social class and factory owners were enraged by the improvement of workers' conditions; they often called rural industrial workers by names such as cabecita negra (a bird), grasita (because of their greasy heads and hands), and descamisados (because they worked without shirts). M.

[10]- Die Kronen Zeitung

[11]- Jörg Haider

[12]- Vladimír Mečiar

[13]- Richard Hofstadter

[14]- Alexis Tsipras

[15]- Evo Morales

[16]- Sarah Palin

[17]- Pauline Hanson

[18]- Alberto Fujimori

[19]- Rafael Correa

[20]- demos

[21]- Paul Taggart

[22]- Washington Consensus

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English text of this section of the book

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