Populism

Populism is a political term and has been a concept in political science since the 1960s. The Latin root populus means people, also in the historical-political sense of nation. The term is used for a wide range of historical and political phenomena, and its content therefore is contested. It has been viewed as a multi-faceted historically specific occurrence, as a certain kind of ideology, a technique of rule, a political tactic, or a way of protest and communication, thus making it difficult to come to one precise academic definition.

In the 19th century, populism arose as a partisan political term meaning the party for the ordinary people against the exploiting classes by praising a simple life among relatives in rural communities. Rooted in the traditional worldview of agriculture as the dominant mode of production and living, and facing increasing industrialization, urbanization, and division of labor, diverse expressions of populism emerged, such as the Russian Narodniks, who demanded the sharing out of large landholdings and the revival of the traditional rural common land economy, and the Populist Party in the United States, who protested against the deflationary gold standard policy and monopolistic freight rates of the private railway companies. Further examples of this agrarian populism had been the Acción Popular (Peru), the Poporanism (Romania) in the interwar period, and the Mulelism (Zaire).

In North America, the Populist Party, also known as the People's Party, arose in the context of a severe crisis in the situation of western farmers and the ignorance of both the Democrats and the Republicans to respond to the demands for unlimited coinage of silver in order to counter the deflation of agricultural prices after the Panic of 1873. The Populist Party made efforts to bring women and African Americans into the political arena and gained significant support in the South, Southwest, and Great Plains. Ideologically, it had been influenced by a revivalist Protestantism that saw a simple and modest [Page 1147]rural life as an ideal that was endangered by the increasing industrialization. While living in the countryside was idealized as honest, pure, and in accordance with religious spirit, living in the cities was associated with corruption, decadence, and atheism. Populists saw themselves struggling against the big trusts and banks (“big business”), the federal government in Washington (“big government”), and the trade union movement (“big labor”). Its concrete demands focused on stopping non-Protestant immigration, banning alcohol, reducing the cost of credit to farmers, and increasing the number of public offices to which representatives should be elected directly. The decline of the Populist Party began in 1896 when the Democrats took up several of its causes. From 1984 to 1996, far-right activists took over the name Populist Party and stood for several elections.

In Canada, Preston Manning founded the populist Reform Party in 1987. Conservative in its political profile, it aimed at strengthening the Canadian West against what had been said to be preference for Quebec by the central government. In addition, it demanded a cut in government spending on social programs and reductions in taxation. The Reform Party propagated citizens' initiatives on political issues like capital punishment and balanced budgets. After several electoral failures, and struggling with infiltration from far-right groups like the Heritage Front, the party became the major beneficiary of the Tory collapse in the 1993 elections when the Progressive Conservatives suffered a heavy defeat and the Reform Party replaced them as the major right-wing party in Canada. Since the Reform Party was not able to build a stable base in francophone Canada, it was disbanded in 2000, but some ideas and personnel transferred allegiance to the new Pan-Canadian party, the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance.

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