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Summary of all articles for the course Political Parties, Origins, Transformations and Future Prospects of Political Science at Radboud University.
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Political Parties articles summaryMudde “Populism: an ideational approach”
In addition to the many studies that explicitly define populism as an ideology, numerous studies do
not include clear definitions, but nevertheless employ implicitly ideational understandings of
populism.
Muddes definition of populism= “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.”
4 core concepts:
1. Ideology
2. The people
3. The elite
4. General will
Essence of populist division is morality (while with socialism the opposition is based on class and with
nationalism based on nation)
Fundamental opposition between the people and the elite. This is because of morality.
- Essence of the people is their purity, they are authentic. The elite are corrupt, because they are
not authentic.
- Purity and authenticity are defined in moral terms, not ethnic or racial terms. It is about doing
the right thing, which is doing what is right for all the people. this is possible because
populism considers the people a homogeneous group.
- The elite comes from the same group as the people, but they have willingly chosen to betray
them by putting their special interests and inauthentic morals of the elite over those of the
people.
Ideology:
- “a body of normative and normative-related ideas about the nature of man and society as well
as the organization and purposes of society”
- Populism is a ‘thin’ or ‘thin-centered’ ideology:
o It does not possess the same level of intellectual refinement and consistency as ‘thick’ or
‘full’ ideologies, such as socialism or liberalism.
o Instead they exhibit a restricted core attached to a narrower range of political concepts.
o Consequently, thin ideologies have a more limited ambition and scope: they do not
formulate a broad menu of solutions to major socio-political issues.
- Some populism scholars don’t like the term ideology (in general). They say it is too inflexible and
monolithic. Or they say that in the end political actors will always act strategically.
- Others scholars don’t like the term ideology for the case of populism: while populists use a
populist discourse, they do not really believe in it. Populists are accused of saying whatever the
people want to here in an opportunistic attempt to gain popularity.
- Populism is sometimes defined as an ideology and other times as a looser set of ideas,
connected to an essential struggle between the good people and corrupt elite.
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,The people:
- Critique: the people do not really exist and are a mere construction of the populists.
Reaction: even though this may be true, history has taught us that the fact that core concepts of
main ideologies are based on imagined communities has not made them any less relevant in
actual politics and societies.
Critiques: this is different than class or nation because this has no real content at all empty
signifiers.
Mudde: it is not completely empty. Populism is based on a moral divide, the people are pure.
While this is vague and culturally determined, it does provide some content to the signifier.
- Idealized conception of the community. The populist perception of the people is usually related
to the self-perception of the targeted people.
- Populists combine populism with (features of) other ideologies (host ideology), for example
social populism or national populism.
The elite:
- Anti-thesis of the people.
- Simply defined as ex negativo.
- Theoretically populism distinguishes the people and the elite on the basis of just one dimension,
i.e. morality. This pits the pure people against the corrupt elite. In practice, populists combine
populism with other ideologies and apply different meanings to the people.
- This is not always the case for populists who combine populism and nationalism. Ethnic
minorities and immigrants, for example, are primarily excluded from the people (i.e. the nation)
on the basis of ethnic rather than moral criteria—a consequence of nativism rather than
populism. At the same time, the (cultural, economic, political) elite are primarily excluded on the
basis of moral rather than ethnic criteria—based on populism rather than nativism. Even when
nativist populists primarily attack the elite for putting the interests of ethnic minorities over
those of the “native” majority, the rejection of the elite is first and foremost moral, not ethnic.
General will:
- Linked to the homogenous interpretation of the people.
- Politics should follow the general will of the people. They all have the same interests and
preferences.
- This belief in a general will of the people is linked to two important concepts in the populist
ideology: common sense and special interests.
o Populists often claim to base their policies on common sense, i.e. the result of the
honest and logical priorities of the (common) people. Anyone who opposes common
sense is, by definition, devious and part of the corrupt elite. The elite creates problems
and is out of touch with the people.
o Common sense solutions are neither ideological nor partisan, they follow ‘logically’ from
the general will.
o The elite’s proposed solutions are representations of “special interests”
o Given that populism considers the people as homogeneous, any group of people is seen
as either artificially created or irrelevant for politics. Hence, every call for policies that
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, benefit specific groups, even if it is to remove existing inequalities, is denounced as
“special interest politics.”
- Populists are the genuine voice of the people
Strengths of the ideational approach:
- Distinguishability: sets clear boundaries
o ‘either-or’ criteria of conceptualization
o Distinction between populists and non-populists
o The ideational approach of populism has proven to be measurable and able to
distinguish populism and non-populism in various empirical studies. This sets the
ideational approach apart from other popular definitions of populism.
- Categorizability: allows for the construction of logical taxonomies
o While different types of populism could be distinguished, populism per se could not.
o And one important reason why the temptation to force all populist phenomena into one
category should be resisted, is that the various populisms we have distinguished are not
just different varieties of the same kind of thing: they are in many cases different sorts of
things, and not directly comparable at all.
The argument that a concept cannot be defined, but that different types of that
concept can nevertheless be distinguished
o Taxonomy of populism requires two things: 1. A clear definition of populism, 2. Each
type of populism should include all features of the concept of populism plus at least
one other feature. different types of populism populism with adjectives
(combination of populism with other ideologies)
o We should construct a proper typology: one that distinguishes different types on the
basis of one or more dimensions, connecting them in a clear and consistent manner.
ideational approach to construct typologies. Example: left-wing populism vs right-wing
- Travelability: enables cross-national and cross-regional travel
o The essence of the “travelling problem” is that many definitions are geographically or
temporally specific.
o The ideational approach has been successfully applied in studies of populism all across
the globe.
- Versatility: can be applied at different levels of analysis
o Importantly, the ideational approach of populism is (so far) unique in its applicability to
quantitative studies at the mass level.
o The important advantage of this versatility is that it enables the integration of very
different types of populism studies.
Alternative approaches:
- Discursive approach: populism as a discursive strategy of political elites to provide meaning to
the term “the people” (and “the elite”) to maximize popular support.
- Organizational approach: populism as a particular type of popular mobilization, in which leaders
relate directly to their followers
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, - Performative (cultural) approach: defines politics, in part, on the basis of a high-low axis, which
essentially refers to the ways in which political actors relate to people. Populists behave and
speak in a popular manner and emphasize strong personalistic leadership.
Hawkins, Read & Pauwels “Populism and its causes”
Existing causal arguments fall short in three important ways:
1. They fail to explain populism’s universal, cross-regional characteristics
2. Little attention to the causes of populism at the individual level
3. Little attention to the role of populist ideas
Two broad causal mechanisms in populism literature:
1. A Durkheimian ‘mass society’ thesis that revolves around threats to culture and feelings of
identity loss
2. A Downsian ‘economic’ thesis based on spatial and materialist conceptions of political
representation
Mass society thesis:
- ‘What holds society together? How has that changed with the advent of modernity?’
- Durkheim: society is constituted by solidarity between individuals, arguing that certain values
and norms (collective consciousness) form a moral glue that results in social integration.
- Industrialization fundamentally changes the way individuals interact with each other and the
institutions with which they are familiar. It created a society in which social relations are
increasingly mediated by the state.
- During the transition, mass society may be characterized by what Durkheim called anomie =
disconnection and normlessness.
- Populism is predicated on the weakness or absence of mass-based civil society (especially
organized labor or traditional religion)
Individuals find themselves powerless to mobilize; discontent grows. This
fragmentation and the inability to organize autonomously drive individuals to search
for some other source of identity.
They find this identity in populist politics. This offers a broad, popular, identity that
proclaims the previously marginalized masses the true sovereign.
- This popular identity is constituted positively, by reference to the supposed moral superiority of
the common people, but also negatively, by positing a history of exploitation at the hands of a
corrupt elite.
- Charismatic leaders play an important role in articulating this identity, as the embodiment of the
popular will.
However, this is fragile because the leaders may prove incompetent or unfaithful and
their policies may be unsustainable.
Scholars question whether a popular identity can ever serve as a stable, long-term basis
for social cohesion.
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