populism in history and theory

NSSR & ELTE joint series by Andrew Arato and guest lecturers

Course description: In the most general sense populism, critical claim-making on behalf of the norm of popular sovereignty, is as old as liberal or representative democracy. It is fueled by what has been rightly called the democracy deficits of existing political regimes. Yet the consequences of populist politics have been not only anti liberal, but repeatedly, if not invariably, authoritarian and anti-democratic. Populism has existed in the form of intellectual critique, movements, governments and, more controversially, regimes. Each phase has had a different relationship to democratic norms, representative as well as participatory. The course will first attempt to define populism, using the method of the “immanent critique” of its best theoretical representatives, e.g. Ernesto Laclau. We will examine the relationship of each component of the definition to democratic norms. Next, we will go on to compare the earliest historical cases, notably the Russian Narodnichestvo, American populisms, East European agrarian populisms, and Argentine Peronism. We will consider the types of “host ideologies” that could serve populist protest and government, specifically nationalism, socialism and participatory democracy, and examine the differences between left and right populisms. We will go on to discuss the different sources of the demand for populism, populism and constitutionalism, as well as political alternatives.