Populism

Populism is a notoriously vague concept, and scholars of populism frequently mention its polysemic and elusive, chameleon-like nature. It was defined as an ideology, a doctrine, a mentality, a system of ideas and a political style, also a rhetoric, demagogy, and discourse, or as a number of concrete historical movements. Thus many advocate speaking of populism in the plural and prefer examining each concrete case individually.

Indeed, there are very specific and idiosyncratic characteristics to the Narodnichestvo of agrarian Russia, the populiusmo of Argentinean descamisados (“the shirtless people”), the American farmers movement, and even the supporters of Joerg Heider in Austria or Jean-Marie Le Pen in France at the beginning of the 21st century. There are, however, some common denominators to all of these historical phenomena and analytical concepts. They are all an appeal to the people against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of society.

Populism basically distinguishes between the people, el pueblo, and the social groups in power, the elites. It regards the pueblo as the incarnation of the authentic nation—the good, the just, the virtuous, and the moral—while despising the oligarchy for representing evil, the foreign, the unjust. It therefore aspires to reestablish the mythical unified community of the past.

The other crucial element of populism is the centrality of the leader. He is the one who expresses the nation and embodies its spirit; he represents all that is good and beautiful in the nation. Therefore, he is qualified to maintain a more autocratic system of government than liberal representative democracy.

Thus populism has a radical nature. It opposes the liberal concept of democracy, which emphasizes separation of powers, political parties, representative institutions, civil rights, and pluralism. It also challenges the established powers and calls for their overthrow by, or the inclusion of, the counter-hegemonic bloc.

That is why populism is seen by its supporters as a positive concept, promoting the participation of the periphery within the political system and equal distribution of power in society. Its opponents, on the other hand, point to the ethnocentric, nationalist, xenophobic impulses; its antiparty and antiparliamentarian nature, and for being a system of political mobilization used by charismatic yet demagogic leaders.

Close to the turn of the 20th century, a new wave of populism spread in the world, similar to the previous wave of the 1960s. The new trend was descried as “neopopulism,” “new populism,” or “postpopulism.” Besides the fact that in this phase populism moved from the left to the right, the new populism had a different economic orientation, and it strongly supported neoliberal economics.

[Page 626]Yet what is so peculiar to the new populism is the interrelationship with the media. Though populist leaders always had to use the mass media to connect with “the people,” this time television and television culture became central to this political style, to such a degree that it justified the use of the term Telepopulism.

Indeed, the nature of contemporary media fosters populist values and populist leaders. They appeal to, and in the name of, the common (wo)man, engage emotions, promote popular culture and popular discourse, and encourage anti-intellectualism. They personify and personalize issues and have preference for style and packaging rather than substance. Consequently, the more people rely on television for political knowledge, the more they incline to a populist approach.

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