Populism

The term populism (from the Latin populus 'people') is assigned several attributes by social scientists. It is characterised by a choice of topics and rhetoric linked to political intentions and directed at popular sentiment. On the one hand, this involves the creation of certain moods, and on the other, the exploitation and reinforcement of existing moods for one's own political purposes. Populism often manifests itself in a specific political style and serves as a strategy for gaining power. Only occasionally does it appear in research as a component of individual ideologies.

In political debate, populism or populist is a frequent accusation that representatives of different schools of thought make of each other when they consider the statements and demands of the other side to be popular but unrealistic or disadvantageous. One then also speaks of a political catchword, or "fighting term".

Populists often thematise an opposition between "the people" and "the elite", claiming to be on the side of the "common people". Populism is thus often accompanied by a rejection of power elites and institutions, anti-intellectualism, a seemingly apolitical appearance, an appeal to "common sense" and the "voice of the people". In political debate, populists often rely on polarization, personalization, moralization, and arguments ad populum or ad hominem. Also characteristic is the rejection of traditional political parties. Populists like to interpret the function of parties to participate in the formation of the political will of citizens (see Article 21 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany) as a paternalism of responsible citizens and instead demand direct articulation of will through direct democracy. Populism is not based on a specific value system and can therefore be accompanied by very different ideologies and objectives. It is often a stylistic device of protest parties and politicians, or of social movements. Historically, Peronism and Poujadism, for example, are known as populist movements. Common are the terms "left-wing populism" and "right-wing populism". The latter has grown considerably in influence in Europe and the USA at the beginning of the 21st century, especially in connection with a defensive attitude towards migrants and immigrant refugees. The causes of the populist upsurge are considered to be the problems and cultural insecurities in some parts of society resulting from advancing globalization and increased migration, as well as a widespread lack of satisfaction with decision-making processes and political practice. While populist parties are a relatively recent phenomenon in Germany, this is not the case in other European countries. For example, Austria's Freedom Party was founded in the 1950s, the Front National in the early 1970s. It can therefore only be said to a limited extent that populism per se is a reaction to the migration issue.

Term

Origin

Populist was the first political party to call itself the Populist Party (1891 to 1908) at the end of the 19th century in the USA. It achieved the realisation of some of its demands and soon dissolved again. Since then, populism has come to stand for a politics that is directed at the common people in opposition to the interests of the established. Historian Thomas Frank sees populism in a positive light. For it fought for social progress in the USA and its criticism of the elites was by no means hostile to science. In English, the term is not a fighting term with the often negative connotation as in German.

The modern word populism is an artificial word formation from the original terms of popularity or being popular. As late as the 19th century these were understood as popular, - intelligible to the people, intended for the people, affable - entering into popular custom. Besides the Latin derivation, there is also the French meaning populace, in German Pöbel or mob. To make something understandable to the people was called popularizing.

Long before the concept of populism in politics, the sciences were already talking about popular philosophy. During the Enlightenment in the 18th century, it cultivated the presentation of philosophical problems in a generally understandable form. Representatives were, for example, Christian Garve, Johann Jakob Engel, Johann Georg Sulzer, Thomas Abbt or Moses Mendelssohn.

Slang

The Duden (21st edition) explains the term as opportunistic politics, which "seeks to win the favour of the masses". In colloquial language, this is a frequent accusation against certain parties and individual politicians. The term is then used buzzword-like to criticize a manipulation and instrumentalization of the population for their own purposes. Among other things, it stands for the accusation of trying to win votes with empty or unrealistic promises, for personal striving for power and a lack of sense of responsibility for the political future of the country and its citizens.

Politicians described as populists, on the other hand, often emphasise their "closeness to the people" in contrast to "established" politics, accuse their opponents of being blind to problems, of proceeding undemocratically and of being committed to elitist particular interests.

Social Science

In the social sciences there are three basic approaches to understanding political populism: 1.) as ("thin") ideology, 2.) as strategy, 3.) as style; or as the totality of these three elements.

The Encyclopedia of Democracy defines populism as "a political movement that emphasizes the interests, cultural traits, and spontaneous sentiments of ordinary people, as opposed to those of a privileged elite. To gain legitimacy, populist movements often appeal directly to the will of the majority-through mass meetings, referenda, or other forms of direct democracy-with little interest in separation of powers or the rights of minorities."

Political scientist Cas Mudde defines populism as "an ideology that assumes society is divided into two homogeneous, antagonistic groups, the 'pure people' and the 'corrupt elite,' and asserts that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale or general will of the people."

According to the sociologist Karin Priester, populism is "not a concept of substance, but of relation"; it cannot therefore be defined out of itself, but only in relation to or in distinction from an Other (opponent). Populism is described by the political scientist Paul Taggart as "inherently incomplete"; he attests to its "empty heart". The external characteristics of populism could therefore be filled with or combined with very different substantive values and goals. In Michael Freeden's terminology, it is described as a "thin ideology" that can lean on various "host ideologies". Taggart compares populism to a chameleon that adapts its ideological colouring to the values of the population in its respective "heartland".

Sociologists Hartmut Rosa, Henning Laux and Ulf Bohmann use the example of financial market regulation to describe the "temporal-sociological paradox" of populism: the populist demand to "finally act instead of always talking" strengthens those political forces that promise quick and easy solutions. Systematic immediate decisions by the executive, however, would make the time-consuming formation of opinion and will of a pluralistic public impossible. The more the desire for unconditional acceleration of political action is met, the more likely it is that participatory procedures will be abbreviated or bypassed. A corresponding style of politics could in turn lead to the confirmation of the populist perception that only "those up there" would decide among themselves.

Anton Pelinka describes populism in general as "protest directed against the control mechanisms that are supposed to avoid direct 'rule by the people'." This is based on a radical understanding of democracy, according to which democracy - in the style of Abraham Lincoln - is "government of the people, for the people and by the people". Populists favored plebiscitary or direct democracy, while disdaining representative forms. For the "true" democracy that populism strives for, intermediary institutions such as parliaments or parties are of secondary importance, if not a hindrance. These institutions - even if they were democratically legitimised in the conventional sense - would only presume to speak for "the people". However, Pelinka complains about the inflationary use of the term populism, which is often blurred and used arbitrarily as a fighting term or a subterfuge.

US political scientist Marc F. Plattner of the National Endowment for Democracy sees populism as a majority-oriented understanding of democracy beyond liberalism and constitutionalism: "Populists want what they believe to be the will of the majority to prevail - often directed by a charismatic populist leader - with as few obstacles or delays as possible." As a result, they would have little sympathy for the liberal emphasis on procedural niceties and the protection of individual rights. In addition to their basic anti-liberal tendency, however, populist currents can also act as a wake-up call for members of a country's elites, according to Plattner, if they have become comfortable due to their own privileges, for example, and/or have strayed too far from the majority opinion in their political positioning.

Hans-Georg Betz regards populist rhetoric as an opportunistic strategy, which is aimed at "picking up on latent or open resentment among the population, mobilising it and stirring it up emotionally, and making political capital out of it".

According to Jan Jagers and Stefaan Walgrave, populism can also be merely a certain style of communication that political actors use towards the people. In this case, they speak of "thin populism" (as opposed to ideological "thick populism"). Benjamin Moffitt and Simon Tormey suggest that populism should be seen primarily as a matter of political style, associated with the breakdown of ideological opposition and the increasing 'stylisation' of politics. They focus on its "performative" and "aesthetic" elements and characterize populism by a simplification of political discourse, "neat us-versus-them antagonisms" and proposals for solutions that are limited to short, pithy catchwords ("sound-bite solutions").

The political scientist Ernesto Laclau understands populism as a performatively effective discourse strategy that aims at a simplification and bipolar division of political discourse. In this process, various demands are bundled together and antagonistically positioned vis-à-vis established politics. For Laclau, there is no political intervention that is not, at least to some degree, populist.

Jan-Werner Müller sees the criterion for populism less in the content and form of a statement than in the way it is justified: If this is neither democratic nor scientific, but is derived from an alleged "will of the people" that can neither be verified nor proven and thus blocks any pluralistic discourse, it is populism in the methodological sense.

French economist Thomas Piketty advises against using the term populism altogether, saying it is under-complex and ignores the fact that there may well be different legitimate positions on issues of borders and property.

History of populism

According to its conceptual origin, populism is also referred to historical manifestations, e.g. to tyrants in Greek antiquity, to the Populares (Populists) in the late Roman Republic, to the agitation of mendicant monks (Dominicans, Capuchins) in the Middle Ages and early modern period, or to the social revolutionary Russian Narodniki. Ancient historians such as Lukas Thommen see parallels with the political style of the Populares in the Roman Civil Wars and Estates Wars, who turned against the ruling conservative aristocratic elite of the Optimates.

Beginnings in the USA

The term was coined as a self-designation of the farmers' movement in the USA, which - starting from the Farmers' Alliance of the 1870s in Texas - fought against big business concentrated in New York City for a policy of cheap credit, the silver currency, referendum democracy and agricultural exploitation cooperatives and founded the People's Party for this purpose in 1889/1890. The first Populists saw their ideas of state regulation and welfare as fully in line with the scientific findings of the late 19th century. At the same time, however, they were in constant struggle with the economic and academic elites and regarded all privilege with suspicion, including the prestige that gave authority to the academic professions. Their thinking was radically democratic, ascribing to experts the task of serving and informing the people as they went about their day's work as citizens in a democracy. The party was carried by peasant revolt against high interest rates on loans and transportation fees (railway oligopoly). It flourished most among farmers in the Southwest and Great Plains. About 45 members of the party sat in Congress between 1891 and 1902. The party's goals included the abolition of national banks, a graduated income tax, the direct election of senators (17th Amendment to the United States Constitution), and public administration reform. Conspiracy theories were prevalent in this movement.

The Democratic Party took up some of these demands and ideas, so that they were echoed in the New Deal. US consumer and anti-trust movements are also seen in this tradition of populism. On the whole, this term was usually viewed more positively in the US than in Europe and used neutrally by scholars; it did not necessarily have xenophobic connotations - apart from the era of McCarthyism - but represented a recourse to the promise of democracy made by the US founding fathers. As a concept in social and political science, however, populism only entered the academic debate from the 1960s onwards, and the US sociologist Edward Shils can be identified as its forefather. Prior to that, the term was only the subject of investigation by historians who dealt with the aforementioned peasant movements in the United States.

Modernization movement or anti-modern reaction?

There is disagreement among historians as to whether the movement of US populism at the end of the 19th century should rather be seen as anti-modern (linked to the accusation that the farmers' movement saw simple and rural life as an ideal state) or, on the contrary, as modern (e.g. because of its overarching political goals, the promotion of education among farmers and the encouragement of cooperation among farmers in the Farmers' Alliance). Tim Spier sees populist movements like that of the US farmers as reactions to more or less successful or even failed modernization movements, whose ambivalent consequences create the conditions for a broad mobilization of the losers of modernization.

Although this movement was not a permanent fixture on the US political landscape, Populist Party prompted important policy shifts such as term limits and the secret ballot. Some of its positions were adopted by other movements and politicians over the following decades, for example in the programmatic modernization policies of the New Deal (see above). This led to the renewal of agriculture, banking, electricity, unemployment and welfare programs, the introduction of minimum wages, the prohibition of child labor, and cultural renewal. However, as the New Deal opened further and further to the left, threatening Southern influence on the party, the white Southern population reacted with racism.

Forms of appearance in the 20th century

In the 1970s, American neoconservatives called the ecology, women's and peace movements in the US populist in order to disparage them as anti-modernist, irrational and regressive ("back to the Stone Age" etc.). Neo-Marxists, on the other hand, called Margaret Thatcher's policies populist. This British prime minister had succeeded in portraying the previously ruling Labour government as a "power bloc" and replacing it with demands for "more personal initiative and freedom" against "those up there", even though her policies of social cuts disadvantaged some of her constituents themselves.

In France, populist movements such as the tax strike movement of small traders and artisans led by Pierre Poujade (1920-2003) in the 1950s are also referred to as Poujadist.

According to Pierre Bourdieu, populism is "always just ethnocentrism with reversed signs", in that members of the elites, contrary to their mainstream and "for populist motives ... ascribe to the people a quasi-inherent knowledge of politics" and thus make proselytes of the lower strata of the population.

Latin America is considered a centre of populist politics. For some observers, it represented the most important political force of the 20th century there, as it brought about the subordination of broad sections of the population to a political leader figure. Populist regimes have come to power there for long periods: Juan Domingo Perón, Argentine president from 1943-55 and 1973-74; Eva Perón (without any ministerial office); Getúlio Vargas, head of government in Brazil from 1930-45 and from 1950-54; and President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-40) in Mexico. The more recent left-wing populist governments of Presidents Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1999-2013), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil (2003-2011), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina (2007-2015) or Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006-2019) are, however, measured by different yardsticks than those common in Europe: "When Morales guarantees the impoverished population of Bolivia a minimum pension of the equivalent of barely 50 euros in old age, German newspapers call it 'populist election gifts'. But when in Germany the minimum rate of state social benefits is set at eight times the Bolivian people's pension, the same newspapers speak of 'social cuts'."