Understanding Populism

Abstract

The diversity of features attributed to populism - and, as a result, the variety of critiques leveled at it - are remarkable. It sometimes seems as though people are using the same terms to address very different phenomena. Is there any distinctive meaning to populism? Is populism inherently anti-democratic or, on the contrary, is it the epitome of democratic practice? What should an engagement with populist movements mean for the theory and practice of democracy? This paper seeks to map the discursive ecosystem that populism determines. It canvasses the phenomena often associated with populism, proposes an interrelated set of concerns that is distinctive to populism, suggests how populism intersects with propensities and affinities with which it is often associated, emphasises the role of growing economic inequality, and suggests responses to populist movements that are grounded in a truly democratic constitutionalism.

Toward A (Not The) Political Philosophy Of Populism: Democracy, Moral Dualism And Minimalst Theory In Christopher Lasch

“…The people manifests itself through electing leaders, while the elites embattle themselves in the interconnected strongholds of media, academia, finance, the judiciary and the so-called deep state, all of which confine the scope of elected institutions. In populist rhetoric, the people are endowed with the attributes of being authentic and sincere while the elites are seen as posturing and deceiving (Canovan 2004;Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017. The binary thought habit involved in this attitude to elites and people infuses populism's entire vocabulary with a propensity to draw sharp contrasts: anything is either good or corrupt, a trait that tends to undermine the practices of negotiation and compromise entailed by the democratic process (Webber 2023).…”

Jurisdictional Relationships: Democracy and the Administrative State Through the Lens of Caring Society v Canada

“…Specifically, it points to the importance of developing theories of law that can account for the full complexity of human lives and communities. While critical analysis of contemporary politics, including populism, serves to help deconstruct the simplistic binaries and thin ideologies that can disconnect politics from our lives (Webber, 2023: 9), the Caring Society case demonstrates that it is crucial to attend to the embodied, affective aspects of our lives and relationships. In its decision, the Tribunal attempts to grapple with some of the tensions in the case somewhat directly: the first sentence of the decision reads: ‘This decision concerns children ’.…”

“…In this paper, I explore the critical resources for responding to these challenges that can be gained by attending to the administrative state as a whole, and its relationship to democratic public discourse. Lack of public trust in institutions and the insulation of political decisions from accountability are important contributors to the public alienation that fuels populist discourses (Webber, 2023: 9–10). When the practices of state institutions are corrosive to trust, accountability and meaningful political discourse, they undermine the possibilities for genuine democratic engagement and create a breach easily filled by the anti-elitist and commonsensical claims of populist politics.…”

“…At the same time, critical responses to populism need to take seriously the embodied experiences of citizens and the complexity of the relationships at hand. The challenge is to promote the possibilities of democracy in a manner that is grounded in the realities of everyday life (such as the care of children), and not to cede the ground of democratic egalitarianism to the populist rhetorics of anti-elitism that can sometimes be ironic and “self-liquidating” (Webber, 2023: 8). Instead, how can we build or restore political communities in which the abstract words of collective aspiration, whatever they may be – ‘democracy’, ‘consent’, ‘freedom’, ‘love’ – are meaningfully connected to actual practices and experiences?…”

“…Attention to the meaning and workings of jurisdiction is also important because it helps address the complexity of ‘the people’ of contemporary states (Webber, 2023: 5–7). In contrast to the substantive wholeness and directness of the peoples’ voice postulated by populist discourses, jurisdiction calls attention to the specific legal mechanisms that identify, serve, or account for individuals, institutions and communities.…”