WhatIsPopulism?

WhatIsPopulism?

Jan-WernerMüller

UNIVERSITYOFPENNSYLVANIAPRESSPHILADELPHIA

Copyright©2016UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress

Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsusedforpurposesofrevieworscholarlycitation,noneofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformbyanymeanswithoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher.

PublishedbyUniversityofPennsylvaniaPressPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania19104-4112www.upenn.edu/pennpress

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ISBN978-0-8122-4898-2hardcoverISBN978-0-8122-9378-4e-book

TheonlymeaningIcanseeintheword“people”is“mixture”;ifyousubstitutefortheword“people”thewords“number”and“mixture,”youwillgetsomeveryoddterms...“thesovereignmixture,”“thewillofthemixture,”etc.

—PaulValéry

Allpowercomesfromthepeople.Butwheredoesitgo?

—BertoltBrecht

Contents

Introduction:IsEveryoneaPopulist?

1.WhatPopulistsSay

2.WhatPopulistsDo,orPopulisminPower

3.HowtoDealwithPopulists

Conclusion:SevenThesesonPopulism

NotesAcknowledgments

Introduction

IsEveryoneaPopulist?

NoUS election campaign in livingmemory has seen asmany invocations of“populism” as the one unfolding in 2015–16.BothDonaldTrump andBernieSandershavebeenlabelled“populists.”Thetermisregularlyusedasasynonymfor “antiestablishment,” irrespective, it seems,of anyparticularpolitical ideas;content,asopposedtoattitude,simplydoesn’tseemtomatter.Thetermisthusalso primarily associated with particular moods and emotions: populists are“angry”;theirvotersare“frustrated”orsufferfrom“resentment.”Similarclaimsaremadeaboutpolitical leaders inEuropeand their followers:MarineLePenand GeertWilders, for instance, are commonly referred to as populists. Boththesepoliticiansareclearlyontheright.But,aswiththeSandersphenomenon,left-winginsurgentsarealsolabeledpopulists:thereisSyrizainGreece,aleft-wingalliancethatcametopowerinJanuary2015,andPodemosinSpain,whichshares with Syriza a fundamental opposition to Angela Merkel’s austeritypoliciesinresponsetotheEurocrisis.Both—especiallyPodemos—makeapointoffeelinginspiredbywhatiscommonlyreferredtoasthe“pinktide”inLatinAmerica: the success of populist leaders such asRafaelCorrea, EvoMorales,and,aboveall,HugoChávez.Yetwhatdoallthesepoliticalactorsactuallyhavein common? If we hold with Hannah Arendt that political judgment is thecapacitytodrawproperdistinctions,thewidespreadconflationofrightandleftwhen talking about populism should give us pause. Might the popularity ofdiagnosing all kinds of different phenomena as “populism” be a failure ofpoliticaljudgment?Thisbookstartswiththeobservationthat,forallthetalkaboutpopulism—the

Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, one of the sharpest analysts ofdemocraticlifetoday,hasevencalledourtimean“AgeofPopulism”—itisfarfromobviousthatweknowwhatwearetalkingabout.1Wesimplydonothaveanything like a theory of populism, andwe seem to lack coherent criteria fordecidingwhenpoliticalactorsturnpopulistinsomemeaningfulsense.Afterall,everypolitician—especiallyinpoll-drivendemocracies—wantstoappealto“thepeople,”allwant to tell a story that canbeunderstoodbyasmanycitizensaspossible,allwanttobesensitivetohow“ordinaryfolks”thinkand,inparticular,feel.Mightapopulistsimplybeasuccessfulpoliticianonedoesn’tlike?Canthecharge “populism” perhaps itself be populist?Ormight, in the end, populism

actually be “the authentic voice of democracy,” as Christopher Laschmaintained?Thisbookseekstohelpusrecognizeanddealwithpopulism.Itaimstodoso

in threeways. First, Iwant to give an account ofwhat kind of political actorqualifiesaspopulist.Iarguethatitisanecessarybutnotsufficientconditiontobecriticalofelitesinordertocountasapopulist.Otherwise,anyonecriticizingthe status quo in, for instance, Greece, Italy, or the United States would bydefinition be a populist—and, whatever else one thinks about Syriza, BeppeGrillo’s insurgentFiveStarMovement,orSanders, for thatmatter, it’shard todeny that their attacks on elites can often be justified. Also, virtually everypresidential candidate in theUnitedStateswould be a populist, if criticismofexisting elites is all there is to populism: everyone, after all, runs “againstWashington.”In addition to being antielitist, populists are always antipluralist. Populists

claim that they, and they alone, represent the people. Think, for instance, ofTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declaring at a party congress indefianceofhisnumerousdomesticcritics,“Weare thepeople.Whoareyou?”Ofcourse,heknewthathisopponentswereTurks,too.Theclaimtoexclusiverepresentation is not an empirical one; it is always distinctly moral. Whenrunning for office, populists portray their political competitors as part of theimmoral,corruptelite;whenruling, theyrefuse to recognizeanyoppositionaslegitimate. The populist logic also implies that whoever does not supportpopulist parties might not be a proper part of the people—always defined asrighteousandmorallypure.Put simply,populistsdonotclaim“Weare the99percent.”Whattheyimplyinsteadis“Wearethe100percent.”Forpopulists,thisequationalwaysworksout:anyremaindercanbedismissed

as immoral andnotproperlyapartof thepeopleat all.That’s anotherwayofsayingthatpopulismisalwaysaformofidentitypolitics(thoughnotallversionsof identity politics are populist). What follows from this understanding ofpopulismasanexclusionary formof identitypolitics is thatpopulism tends topose a danger to democracy. For democracy requires pluralism and therecognitionthatweneedtofindfairtermsoflivingtogetherasfree,equal,butalsoirreduciblydiversecitizens.Theideaofthesingle,homogeneous,authenticpeopleisafantasy;asthephilosopherJürgenHabermasonceputit,“thepeople”canonlyappearintheplural.Andit’sadangerousfantasy,becausepopulistsdonot just thrive on conflict and encourage polarization; they also treat theirpolitical opponents as “enemies of the people” and seek to exclude themaltogether.

Thisisnottosaythatallpopulistswillsendtheirenemiestoagulagorbuildwalls along the country’s borders, but neither is populism limited to harmlesscampaign rhetoric or amere protest that burns out as soon as a populistwinspower. Populists can govern as populists. This goes against the conventionalwisdom, which holds that populist protest parties cancel themselves out oncetheywin an election, since by definition one cannot protest against oneself ingovernment.Populistgovernanceexhibits threefeatures:attempts tohijack thestateapparatus, corruptionand“massclientelism” (tradingmaterialbenefitsorbureaucratic favors forpolitical supportbycitizenswhobecome thepopulists’“clients”),andeffortssystematically tosuppresscivilsociety.Ofcourse,manyauthoritarianswilldosimilarthings.Thedifferenceisthatpopulistsjustifytheirconductbyclaimingthattheyalonerepresentthepeople;thisallowspopuliststoavowtheirpracticesquiteopenly.Italsoexplainswhyrevelationsofcorruptionrarelyseemtohurtpopulistleaders(thinkofErdoğaninTurkeyorthefar-rightpopulistJörgHaiderinAustria).Intheeyesoftheirfollowers,“they’redoingitforus,”theoneauthenticpeople.Thesecondchapterofthisvolumeshowshowpopulistswillevenwriteconstitutions(withVenezuelaandHungaryservingasthe most clear-cut examples). Contrary to the image of populist leaderspreferring to be entirely unconstrained by relying on disorganizedmasses thattheydirectlyaddressfromthebalconyofapresidentialpalace,populistsinfactoftenwanttocreateconstraints,solongastheyfunctioninanentirelypartisanfashion. Rather than serving as instruments to preserve pluralism, hereconstitutionsservetoeliminateit.The third chapter addresses some of the deeper causes of populism, in

particularrecentsocioeconomicdevelopmentsacrosstheWest.Italsoraisesthequestion of howone can successfully respond to both populist politicians andtheir voters. I reject the paternalistic liberal attitude that effectively prescribestherapyforcitizens“whosefearsandangerhavetobetakenseriously”aswellas the notion that mainstream actors should simply copy populist proposals.Neither is the other extreme of excluding populists from debate altogether aviable option, since it simply responds to the populist will to exclusion byexcludingthepopulist.Asanalternative,Isuggestsomespecificpoliticaltermsofhowtoconfrontpopulists.Morethanaquarterofacenturyago,avirtuallyunknownStateDepartment

officialpublishedanotoriousandwidelymisunderstoodarticle.TheauthorwasFrancisFukuyamaandthetitlewas,ofcourse,“TheEndofHistory.”Ithaslongbeenalazywaytoestablishone’sintellectualsophisticationtosaywithasneerthatobviouslyhistorydidnotendwith theconclusionof theColdWar.Butof

course, Fukuyama had not predicted the end of all conflict. He had simplywageredthattherewerenomorerivalstoliberaldemocracyatthelevelofideas.Heconceded that here and there, other ideologiesmight enjoy support, but henonethelessmaintainedthatnoneof themwouldbecapableofcompetingwithliberaldemocracy’s(andmarketcapitalism’s)globalattractiveness.Washesoobviouslywrong?RadicalIslamismisnoseriousideologicalthreat

toliberalism.(Thosewhoconjureupthespecterof“Islamofascism”tellusmoreabout their longingforclear-cutbattle linescomparable to those thatprevailedduring theColdWar than they do about the political realities of the present.)Whatisnowsometimescalled“theChinamodel”ofstate-controlledcapitalismobviouslyinspiressomeasanewmodelofmeritocracy,andperhapsnonemoreso than those who consider themselves as having the greatest merit.2 (ThinkSiliconValleyentrepreneurs.) Italso inspires through its trackrecordof liftingmillions out of poverty—especially, but not only, in developing countries.Yet“democracy” remains the chief political prize, with authoritarian governmentspayinglobbyistsandpublicrelationsexpertsenormoussumsofmoneytoensurethatthey,too,arerecognizedbyinternationalorganizationsandWesternelitesasgenuinedemocracies.Yet all is not well for democracy. The danger to democracies today is not

somecomprehensiveideologythatsystematicallydeniesdemocraticideals.Thedangerispopulism—adegradedformofdemocracythatpromisestomakegoodon democracy’s highest ideals (“Let the people rule!”). The danger comes, inotherwords, fromwithin thedemocraticworld—thepoliticalactorsposing thedangerspeakthelanguageofdemocraticvalues.Thattheendresultisaformofpolitics that isblatantlyantidemocraticshould troubleusall—anddemonstratethe need for nuanced political judgment to help us determine preciselywheredemocracyendsandpopulistperilbegins.

Chapter1

WhatPopulistsSay

“A spectre is haunting the world: populism.”1 Thus wrote Ghita Ionescu andErnestGellnerintheintroductiontoaneditedvolumeonpopulismpublishedin1969.ThebookwasbasedonpapersdeliveredataverylargeconferenceheldattheLondonSchoolofEconomics in1967,with the aim“todefinepopulism.”Themanyparticipants, it turnedout, couldnot agreeon suchadefinition.Yetreadingtheproceedingsofthegatheringcanstillbeinstructive.Onecannothelpthinkingthatthen,justastoday,allkindsofpoliticalanxietiesgetarticulatedintalk about “populism”—with thewordpopulism beingused formanypoliticalphenomenathatappearatfirstsighttobemutuallyexclusive.Giventhattodaywealsodon’tseemtobeabletoagreeonadefinition,onemightbetemptedtoask,Isthereatherethere?Backinthelate1960s,“populism”appearedindebatesaboutdecolonization,

speculationsconcerningthefutureof“peasantism,”and,perhapsmostsurprisingfromourvantagepointatthebeginningofthetwenty-firstcentury,discussionsabout the origins and likely developments of Communism in general andMaoism inparticular.Today,especially inEurope,allkindsofanxieties—and,much less often, hopes—also crystallize around the word populism. Putschematically,ontheonehand,liberalsseemtobeworriedaboutwhattheyseeas increasingly illiberalmassesfallingpreytopopulism,nationalism,andevenoutright xenophobia; theorists of democracy, on the other hand, are concernedabout the rise of what they see as “liberal technocracy”—which is to say,“responsible governance” by an elite of experts that is consciously notresponsivetothewishesofordinarycitizens.2PopulismmightthenbewhattheDutchsocialscientistCasMuddehascalledan“illiberaldemocraticresponsetoundemocratic liberalism.” Populism is seen as a threat but also as a potentialcorrectiveforapoliticsthathassomehowbecometoodistantfrom“thepeople.”3

TheremightbesomethingtothestrikingimageBenjaminArditihasproposedtocapturetherelationshipbetweenpopulismanddemocracy.Populism,accordingtoArditi,resemblesadrunkenguestatadinnerparty:he’snotrespectingtablemanners,heisrude,hemightevenstart“flirtingwiththewivesofotherguests.”Buthemight alsobeblurtingout the truth about a liberal democracy that hasbecomeforgetfulaboutitsfoundingidealofpopularsovereignty.4

In theUnitedStates, thewordpopulism remainsmostly associatedwith the

idea of a genuine egalitarian left-wing politics in potential conflict with thestancesofaDemocraticPartythat,intheeyesofpopulistcritics,hasbecometoocentrist or, echoing the discussion in Europe, has been captured by and fortechnocrats (or, even worse, “plutocrats”). After all, it is in particular thedefendersof“MainStreet”against“WallStreet”whoarelauded(orloathed)aspopulists. This is the case evenwhen they are established politicians, such asNew York City mayor Bill de Blasio and Massachusetts senator ElizabethWarren. In the United States, it is common to hear people speak of “liberalpopulism,”whereasthatexpressioninEuropewouldbeablatantcontradiction,given thedifferentunderstandingsofboth liberalismandpopulismon the twosidesoftheAtlantic.5Asiswellknown,“liberal”meanssomethinglike“SocialDemocratic” in North America, and “populism” suggests an uncompromisingversion of it; in Europe, by contrast, populism can never be combined withliberalism,ifonemeansbythelattersomethinglikearespectforpluralismandan understanding of democracy as necessarily involving checks and balances(and,ingeneral,constraintsonthepopularwill).As if these different political usages of the same word were not already

confusing enough, matters have been further complicated by the rise of newmovements in thewake of the financial crisis, in particular theTea Party andOccupy Wall Street. Both have variously been described as populist, to theextent that evenacoalitionbetween right-wingand left-wing forcescriticalofmainstream politics has been suggested, with “populism” as the potentialcommondenominator.Thiscurioussenseofsymmetryhasonlybeenreinforcedbythewaysinwhichthe2016presidentialcontesthaswidelybeendescribedinthe media: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are supposedly both populists,withoneontherightandtheotheroneontheleft.Both,wearefrequentlytold,haveat least incommon that theyare“antiestablishment insurgents”propelledbythe“anger,”“frustration,”or“resentment”ofcitizens.Populismisobviouslyapoliticallycontestedconcept.6Professionalpoliticians

themselves know the stakes of the battle over its meaning. In Europe, forinstance,ostensible “establishment figures” are eager to tag theiropponents aspopulists.Butsomeofthoselabeledaspopulistshavegoneonthecounterattack.Theyhaveproudlyclaimed the label for themselveswith theargument that, ifpopulismmeansworkingforthepeople,thentheyareindeedpopulists.Howarewe to judge such claims, and how should we draw distinctions between realpopulists and those who are merely branded as populists (and perhaps otherswho are never called populists, never call themselves populists, and yet stillmight be populists)?Arewe not facing complete conceptual chaos, as almost

anything—left,right,democratic,antidemocratic,liberal,illiberal—canbecalledpopulist,andpopulismcanbeviewedasbothfriendandfoeofdemocracy?Howtoproceed, then?Inthischapter,I takethreesteps.First,I trytoshow

whyseveralcommonapproaches tounderstandingpopulism in fact leaddowndead ends: a social-psychological perspective focused on voters’ feelings; asociologicalanalysisfixatedoncertainclasses;andanassessmentofthequalityofpolicyproposalscanallbesomewhathelpfulinunderstandingpopulism,butthey do not properly delineatewhat populism is and how itmight differ fromotherphenomena.(Norisithelpfultolistentotheself-descriptionsofpoliticalactors,asifoneautomaticallybecomesapopulistsimplybyusingtheterm.)Inplace of these approaches, I will follow a different path to understandingpopulism.7

Populism, I argue, is not anything like a codifieddoctrine, but it is a set ofdistinct claims andhaswhatonemight call an inner logic.When that logic isexamined,onediscoversthatpopulismisnotausefulcorrectiveforademocracythat somehowhas come tobe too “elite-driven,” asmanyobservershold.Theimageaccording towhich liberaldemocracy involves abalancewherewecanchoose to have a little bit more liberalism or a little bit more democracy isfundamentally misleading. To be sure, democracies can legitimately differ onquestions such as the possibility and frequency of referenda or the power ofjudgestoinvalidatelawsoverwhelminglypassedinalegislature.Butthenotionthat we move closer to democracy by pitting a “silent majority,” whichsupposedly is being ignored by elites, against elected politician is not just anillusion;itisapoliticallyperniciousthought.Inthatsense,Ibelievethatapropergraspofpopulismalsohelpsdeepenourunderstandingofdemocracy.Populismissomethinglikeapermanentshadowofmodernrepresentativedemocracy,andaconstantperil.Becomingawareofitscharactercanhelpusseethedistinctivefeatures—and, to somedegree, also the shortcomings—of the democraciesweactuallylivein.8

UnderstandingPopulism:DeadEnds

Thenotionofpopulismassomehow“progressive”or“grassroots”islargelyanAmerican (North, Central, and South) phenomenon. In Europe, one finds adifferenthistoricallyconditionedpreconceptionofpopulism.Therepopulismisconnected, primarily by liberal commentators, with irresponsible policies orvariousformsofpoliticalpandering(“demagoguery”and“populism”areoften

used interchangeably). As Ralf Dahrendorf once put it, populism is simple;democracyiscomplex.9Moreparticularly,thereisalong-standingassociationof“populism”with theaccumulationofpublicdebt—anassociation thathasalsodominated recent discussions of parties likeSyriza inGreece andPodemos inSpain, which are classified by many European commentators as instances of“left-wingpopulism.”Populism is also frequently identifiedwith a particular class, especially the

pettybourgeoisieand,untilpeasantsandfarmersdisappearedfromtheEuropeanand theAmerican political imaginations (ca. 1979, I’d say), those engaged incultivating the land.This can seem like a sociologically robust theory (classesareconstructs,ofcourse,buttheycanbeempiricallyspecifiedinfairlypreciseways).Thisapproachusuallycomeswithanadditionalsetofcriteriadrawnfromsocial psychology: those espousing populist claims publicly and, in particular,those casting ballots for populist parties, are said to be driven by “fears” (ofmodernization, globalization, etc.) or feelings of “anger,” “frustration,” and“resentment.”Finally, there is a tendency among historians and social scientists—in both

Europe and the United States—to say that populism is best specified byexaminingwhatpartiesandmovementsthatatsomepointinthepasthavecalledthemselves“populists”haveincommon.Onecanthenreadtherelevantfeaturesofthe“-ism”inquestionofftheself-descriptionsoftherelevanthistoricalactors.Inmyview,noneoftheseperspectivesorseeminglystraightforwardempirical

criteria is helpful for conceptualizing populism. Given how widespread theseperspectives are—and how often seemingly empirical and neutral diagnosessuch as “lower-middle class” and “resentment” are deployed without muchthinking—Iwanttospelloutmyobjectionsinsomedetail.Firstofall,whenexaminingthequalityofpolicies,it’shardtodenythatsome

policiesjustifiedwithreferenceto“thepeople”reallycanturnouttohavebeenirresponsible: those deciding on such policies did not think hard enough; theyfailedtogatheralltherelevantevidence;or,mostplausibly,theirknowledgeofthelikelylong-termconsequencesshouldhavemadethemrefrainfrompolicieswithonlyshort-termelectoralbenefitsforthemselves.Onedoesnothavetobeaneoliberaltechnocrattojudgesomepoliciesasplainlyirrational.ThinkofHugoChávez’s hapless successor as president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, whosought to fight inflationby sending soldiers into electronics stores andhavingthemputstickerswith lowerpricesonproducts. (Maduro’spreferred theoryofinflation came down to “parasites of the bourgeoisie” as themain cause.) OrthinkoftheFrenchFrontNational,whichinthe1970sand1980sputupposters

saying“TwoMillionUnemployedIsTwoMillionImmigrantsTooMany!”Theequationwas so simple that everyone could solve it and seemingly figure outwithbonsenswhatthecorrectpolicysolutionhadtobe.Still,we cannot generate a criterion forwhat constitutespopulism thisway.

Forinmostareasofpubliclife,theresimplyisnoabsolutelyclear,uncontestedline between responsibility and irresponsibility. Often enough, charges ofirresponsibility are themselves highly partisan (and the irresponsible policiesmost frequentlydenounced almost alwaysbenefit theworst-off).10 In anycase,makingapoliticaldebateamatterof“responsible”versus“irresponsible”posesthe question, Responsible according towhich values or larger commitments?11

Freetradeagreements—totakeanobviousexample—canberesponsibleinlightof a commitment to maximizing overall GDP and yet have distributionalconsequences that one might find unacceptable in light of other values. Thedebate thenhas tobeabout thevaluecommitmentsofasocietyasawhole,orperhaps about the different income distributions that follows from differenteconomic theories. Setting up a distinction between populism and responsiblepolicies only obscures the real issues at stake. It can also be an all-too-convenientwaytodiscreditcriticismofcertainpolicies.Focusing on particular socioeconomic groups as the main supporters of

populism is no lessmisleading. It is also empirically dubious, as a number ofstudies have shown.12 Less obviously, such an argument often results from alargelydiscreditedsetofassumptionsfrommodernizationtheory.Itistruethatinmanycases,voterswhosupportwhatmightinitiallybecalledpopulistpartiesshareacertainincomeandeducationalprofile:especiallyinEurope,thosewhovoteforwhatarecommonlyreferredtoasright-wingpopulistpartiesmakelessandarelesseducated.(Theyarealsooverwhelminglymale—afindingthatholdsfortheUnitedStatesaswell,butnotforLatinAmerica.)13Yetthispictureisbynomeansalwaystrue.AstheGermansocialscientistKarinPriesterhasshown,economically successful citizens often adopt an essentially Social Darwinistattitude and justify their support for right-wing parties by asking, in effect, “Ihave made it—why can’t they?” (Think of the Tea Party placard demanding“RedistributeMyWorkEthic!”)14Notleast,insomecountriessuchasFranceandAustria, populist parties have become so large that they effectively resemblewhatusedtobecalled“catch-allparties”:theyattractalargenumberofworkers,buttheirvotersalsocomefrommanyotherwalksoflife.Anumberofsurveyshaveshownthatone’spersonalsocioeconomicsituation

andsupportforright-wingpopulistpartiesoftendonotcorrelateatall,becausethelatterisbasedonamuchmoregeneralassessmentofthesituationofone’s

country.15 It would be misleading to reduce perceptions of national decline ordanger(“Elitesarerobbingusofourowncountry!”)topersonalfearsor“statusanxiety.”Manysupportersofpopulistpartiesactuallypridethemselvesondoingtheir own thinking (even their own research) about the political situation anddenythattheirstancesarejustaboutthemoraredrivenmerelybyemotions.16

One should be very careful indeed about using such loaded terms as“frustration,” “anger,” and especially “resentment” to explain populism.Thereareatleasttworeasonsforthis.First,whilecommentatorsinvokingatermlikeresentmentmight not be rehearsingNietzsche’sTheGenealogy ofMorality inthebackof theirminds, it is hard to seehowone could entirely avoid certainconnotationsofressentiment.Thosesufferingfromresentmentarebydefinitionweak,evenifinNietzsche’sanalysisthoseconsumedbyresentmentcanbecomecreative, with the cleverest among the weak vanquishing the strong byreordering the rankofhumanvalues.The resentful arenonethelessdefinedbytheirinferiorityandtheirreactivecharacter.17Theyfeelbadaboutthestrongandbottleup that feeling; theirself-understanding is thusfundamentallydependentonthestrong,astheyultimatelylongforproperrecognitionbythesuperior.Inthat sense, the resentful are always incapable of anything like autonomousconduct.Theyhavetokeeplyingtothemselvesabouttheirownactualcondition,even if they can never quite believe their own lies. As Max Scheler put it,resentmentleadshumansslowlytopoisontheirownsouls.18

Now,maybe one really believes that this is actually true of all peoplewhowearbaseballcapsemblazonedwith theslogan“MakeAmericaGreatAgain.”Or that those who vote for populist parties always have authoritarianpersonalities or perhaps what social psychologists call “low agreeablepersonalities.”19Butoneshouldatleastfaceuptothepoliticalconsequencesofsuch psychologizing diagnoses—namely, that they end up confirming thosepeople’sviewof“liberalelites”asbeingnotjustdeeplycondescendingbutalsoconstitutivelyunabletoliveuptotheirowndemocraticidealsbyfailingtotakeordinarypeopleattheirword,preferringinsteadtoprescribepoliticaltherapyasa cure for fearful and resentful citizens. The simple fact is that “anger” and“frustration”might not always be very articulate—but they are also not “justemotions” in the sense of being completely divorced from thought. There arereasons for anger and frustration,whichmost people can actually spell out insome form or other.20 This is not to say, of course, that all these reasons areplausibleandshould justbeacceptedat facevalue; the feelingofhavingbeenwronged or sentiments that “the country has been taken away from us” arecertainly not self-validating. But simply to shift the discussion to social

psychology(andtreattheangryandfrustratedaspotentialpatientsforapoliticalsanatorium) is toneglectabasicdemocraticduty toengage in reasoning.Hereseemingly enlightened liberals appear to be repeating the very exclusionarygesturesof someof their illustriousnineteenth-centurypredecessorswhowerewary of extending the franchise because the masses were “too emotional” toexercisethevoteresponsibly.Now, even if onewere to conclude that nothing should prevent elites from

criticizingthevaluecommitmentsofordinarycitizens,itisstillratherpeculiartoconflatethecontentofasetofpoliticalbeliefswiththesocioeconomicpositionsand the psychological states of its supporters.This is like saying that the bestway to understand Social Democracy is to redescribe its voters as workersenviousofrichpeople.Theprofileofsupportersofpopulismobviouslymattersinhowwethinkaboutthephenomenon.Butitisnotjustpatronizingtoexplaintheentirephenomenonasan inarticulatepoliticalexpressionon thepartof thesupposed “losers in the process of modernization.” It is also not really anexplanation.Then why do so many of us keep resorting to it? Because consciously or

unconsciously, we continue to draw on a set of assumptions derived frommodernization theory that had its heyday in the 1950s and1960s.This is trueevenofmanypolitical theorists and social scientistswho, if asked,would saytheyconsidermodernization theory tobe thoroughlydiscredited. Itwas liberalintellectuals like Daniel Bell, Edward Shils, and Seymour Martin Lipset (allheirsofMaxWeber)whointhecourseofthe1950sbegantodescribewhattheyconsideredtobe“populism”asahelplessarticulationofanxietiesandangerbythoselongingforasimpler,“premodern”life.21Lipset,forinstance,claimedthatpopulism was attractive for “the disgruntled and the psychologicallyhomeless, . . . the personal failures, the socially isolated, the economicallyinsecure,theuneducated,unsophisticated,andauthoritarianpersonalities.”22TheimmediatetargetsofthesesocialtheoristswereMcCarthyismandtheJohnBirchSociety—but their diagnosis often extended to the original American populistrevolt of the late nineteenth century. Victor C. Ferkiss, for instance, saw thefollowersof theFarmer’sAllianceand thePeople’sParty asnothing less thantheprecursorsofadistinctAmericanvarietyoffascism.23Thisthesiswasnottoremain uncontested—but the background assumptions are still present amongmanysocialandpoliticalcommentatorstoday.24

Finally, there is the thought that populismmust have something to dowiththosewho first called themselves populists.Thinkof theRussiannarodniki inthe late nineteenth century and their ideology of Narodnichestvo, which is

usuallytranslatedas“populism.”ThenarodnikiwereintellectualswhoidealizedtheRussianpeasantsandsawthevillagecommuneasapoliticalmodelforthecountry as a whole. They also advocated “going to the people” for politicaladvice and guidance. (Like many urban intellectuals, they found that “thepeople”neitherwelcomedtheminthewaystheyhadhopednorrecognizedthepolitical prescriptions deduced from their supposedly “pure ways of life” byintellectuals.)For many observers, there simply has to be a reason something called

“populism”emergedsimultaneouslyinRussiaandtheUnitedStatestowardtheendofthenineteenthcentury.Thefactthatbothmovementshadsomethingtodowith farmers and peasants gave rise to the notion—prevalent at least until the1970s—that populism had a close connection to agrarianism or that it wasnecessarily a revolt of reactionary, economically backward groups in rapidlymodernizingsocieties.While that association is largely lost today, theoriginsof “populism” in the

UnitedStatesinparticularstillsuggeststomanyobserversthatpopulismmustatleastonsomelevelbe“popular”inthesenseoffavoringtheleastadvantagedorbringing the excluded into politics—a sense that is reinforced by a glance atLatin America, where the advocates of populism have always stressed itsinclusionaryandemancipatorycharacterinwhatremainsthemosteconomicallyunequalcontinentontheglobe.To be sure, one cannot simply by fiat ban such associations: historical

languagesarewhattheyareand,asNietzschetaughtus,onlythatwhichhasnohistory canbedefined.Butpolitical and social theory also cannot simply rootitself inoneparticularhistoricalexperience—with, forexample,every formofpopulismpresumedtofitthetemplateoftheAmericanPeople’sParty.25Wehavetoallowforthepossibilitythataplausibleunderstandingofpopulismwillinfactend up excluding historical movements and actors who explicitly calledthemselvespopulists.Withveryfewexceptions,historians(orpoliticaltheorists,to the extent that they care about suchhistorical phenomena)wouldnot arguethat a proper understanding of socialism needs to make room for NationalSocialismjustbecausetheNaziscalledthemselvessocialists.Butthen,todecidewhich historical experience really fits a particular “-ism,” we must of coursehaveatheoryofthatparticular“-ism.”Sowhatispopulism?

TheLogicofPopulism

Populism,Isuggest, isaparticularmoralistic imaginationofpolitics,awayofperceivingthepoliticalworldthatsetsamorallypureandfullyunified—but,Ishallargue,ultimately fictional—peopleagainsteliteswhoaredeemedcorruptor in some other way morally inferior.26 It is a necessary but not a sufficientcondition to be critical of elites in order to qualify as a populist. Otherwise,anyone criticizing the powerful and the status quo in any country would bydefinition be a populist. In addition to being antielitist, populists are alwaysantipluralist: populists claim that they, and only they, represent the people.27Other political competitors are just part of the immoral, corrupt elite, or sopopulists say, while not having power themselves; when in government, theywillnotrecognizeanythinglikealegitimateopposition.Thepopulistcoreclaimalso implies thatwhoeverdoesnotreallysupportpopulistpartiesmightnotbepartoftheproperpeopletobeginwith.InthewordsoftheFrenchphilosopherClaudeLefort, the supposedly real people first has to be “extracted” from thesumtotalofactualcitizens.28This idealpeople is thenpresumed tobemorallypureandunerringinitswill.Populism arises with the introduction of representative democracy; it is its

shadow.PopulistshankerafterwhatthepoliticaltheoristNancyRosenblumhascalled“holism”:thenotionthatthepolityshouldnolongerbesplitandtheideathat it’s possible for the people to be one and—all of them—tohave one truerepresentative.29 The core claim of populism is thus a moralized form ofantipluralism. Political actors not committed to this claim are simply notpopulists.30Populismrequiresaparsprototoargumentandaclaimtoexclusiverepresentation,withbothunderstoodinamoral,asopposedtoempirical,sense.31There can be no populism, in other words, without someone speaking in thenameofthepeopleasawhole.ThinkofGeorgeWallace’s infamousstatementupon his inauguration as governor of Alabama: “In the name of the greatestpeople that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss thegauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . segregation now . . .segregationtomorrow...segregationforever.”32Segregationdidnotlastforever,butwhatWallace said about it tarnished his reputation forever; it was clearlyracism.Yet the rhetoric that revealedWallace tobe a populist centeredonhisclaimexclusivelytospeak“inthenameofthegreatestpeoplethathaveevertrodthisearth.”WhatexactlygavethegovernorofAlabamatherighttospeakinthename of allAmericans—minus, evidently, the proponents of “tyranny,”whichmeant, of course, the Kennedy administration and everyone else who wasworkingtoendsegregation?Andwhatallowedhim,furthermore,toclaimthatthe “real America”waswhat he called “theGreat Anglo-Saxon Southland”?33

Clearly,everythinggoodandauthenticintheUnitedStateswasSouthern,orsoitseemedwhenWallaceexclaimed,“AndyounativesonsanddaughtersofoldNewEngland’s rock-ribbedpatriotism . . . andyou sturdynativesof thegreatmid-West . . . and you descendants of the farWest flaming spirit of pioneerfreedom . . . we invite you to come and be with us . . . for you are of theSouthernmind...andtheSouthernspirit...andtheSouthernphilosophy...youareSouthernerstooandbrotherswithusinourfight.”Towardtheendoftheaddress, Wallace claimed that virtually all Founding Fathers had beenSoutherners.34

This is the core claim of populism: only some of the people are really thepeople.ThinkofNigelFaragecelebratingtheBrexitvotebyclaimingthatithadbeen a “victory for real people” (thus making the 48 percent of the BritishelectoratewhohadopposedtakingtheUKoutoftheEuropeanUnionsomehowlessthanreal—or,putmoredirectly,questioningtheirstatusaspropermembersof thepoliticalcommunity).Orconsidera remarkbyDonaldTrump thatwentvirtuallyunnoticed,giventhefrequencywithwhichtheNewYorkbillionairehasmadeoutrageousanddeeplyoffensivestatements.AtacampaignrallyinMay,Trumpannouncedthat“theonlyimportantthingistheunificationofthepeople—becausetheotherpeopledon’tmeananything.”35

SinceGreek andRoman times, “the people” has beenused in at least threesenses:first,thepeopleasthewhole(whichistosay,allmembersofthepolity,orwhatusedtobecalled“thebodypolitic”);second,the“commonpeople”(thepartoftherespublicamadeupofcommoners,orinmodernterms:theexcluded,the downtrodden, and the forgotten); and, third, the nation as a whole,understoodinadistinctlyculturalsense.36

It is plainly inadequate to say that all appeals to “the people” qualify aspopulism.Anidealizationofthepeople(thinkofBakuninsaying“thepeopleistheonlysourceofmoraltruth. . .andIhaveinmindthescoundrel,thedregs,uncontaminatedbybourgeoiscivilization”)wouldnotnecessarilybepopulism,thoughtheRussiannarodnikiinthelatenineteenthcenturyunderstoodpopulisminpreciselythisway.Lessobviously,advocacyfor“thecommonpeople”ortheexcluded—evenifitinvolvesanexplicitcriticismofelites—isalsoinsufficientevidenceofpopulism.Forapoliticalactorormovementtobepopulist,itmustclaim that a part of the people is the people—and that only the populistauthentically identifies and represents this real or true people. Put in termsderivedfromancientRome,fightingfortheinterestsoftheplebs,“thecommonpeople,” is not populism, but saying that only the plebs (as opposed to thepatricianclass,nevermindtheslaves)isthepopulusRomanus—andthatonlya

particular kind of populares properly represents the authentic people—ispopulism. In the samevein, inMachiavelli’sFlorence, fighting for thepopoloagainst the grandi would not automatically be populism, but saying that thegrandi do not belong in Florence, no matter what they say or do,would bepopulism.Populiststhemselvesoftenconceiveofpoliticalmoralityintermsofworkand

corruption. This has led some observers to associate populismwith a distinctideology of “producerism.”37 Populists pit the pure, innocent, alwayshardworkingpeopleagainstacorruptelitewhodonotreallywork(otherthantofurther their self-interest) and, in right-wing populism, also against the verybottomofsociety(thosewhoalsodonotreallyworkandlivelikeparasitesofftheworkofothers).InAmericanhistory,thinkofthewayfollowersofAndrewJacksonopposedboth“aristocrats”atthetopandNativeAmericansandslavesbelowthem.38 Right-wing populists also typically claim to discern a symbioticrelationshipbetweenanelitethatdoesnottrulybelongandmarginalgroupsthatare alsodistinct from thepeople. In the twentieth-centuryUnitedStates, thesegroupswereusually liberal eliteson theonehandand racialminoritieson theother. The controversy over Barack Obama’s birth certificate made this logicalmostridiculouslyobviousandliteral:atoneandthesametime,thepresidentmanaged toembody in theeyesof right-wingersboth the“bicoastalelite”andtheAfricanAmericanOther,neitherofwhichreallybelongstotheUnitedStatesproper. This helps explain the extraordinary obsession of the “birthers” withproving thatObamawasnot just symbolicallyan illegitimateofficeholderbutplainlyan illegalone—an“un-American” figurewhohadusurped thenation’shighest office under false pretenses. (This obsession went far beyond thetendency of right-wingers during the 1990s to term Bill Clinton “yourpresident”—though the basic impulse to cast the chief executive asfundamentally illegitimate was similar.)39 One might also think of post-Communist elites and ethnic groups such as theRoma inCentral andEasternEurope, or “Communists” and illegal immigrants (according to SilvioBerlusconi)inItaly.Intheformercase,theliberalpost-Communistelitesdonotproperly belong, as they collude with outside powers such as the EuropeanUnion and espouse beliefs alien to the true homeland, while the Roma—Europe’s most discriminated minority—has no proper place in the nation tobeginwith.Thefar-rightpopulistJobbikpartyinHungary,forinstance,alwaysanalogizes“politiciancrime”and“gypsycrime.”40

Themoralistic conceptionof politics advancedbypopulists clearly dependsonsomecriterionfordistinguishingthemoralandtheimmoral,thepureandthe

corrupt,thepeoplewhomatter,inTrump’sparlance,andthose“whodon’tmeananything.” But the distinction does not have to be work and its opposite. If“work” turns out to be indeterminate, ethnicmarkers can readily come to therescue.(Ofcourse,racistthoughtoftenequatesraceandlazinesswithouthavingto make that equation explicit: nobody ever imagines welfare queens to bewhite.)Still, it’s amistake to think thatpopulismwill always turnout to be aform of nationalism or ethnic chauvinism. There are a variety of ways for apopulisttodistinguishmoralandimmoral.Whatwillalwaysneedtobepresentissome distinctionbetween themorallypurepeopleand theiropponents.Thisassumption of the noble people also then distinguishes populists from otherpolitical actors who are antipluralists. For instance, Leninists and highlyintolerant religious actors do not think of the people as morally pure andunerringinitswill.Noteveryonewhorejectspluralismisapopulist.

JustWhatExactlyDoPopulistsClaimtoRepresent?

Contrarytoconventionalwisdom,populistsdonothavetobeagainsttheideaofrepresentationassuch;rather,theycanpositivelyendorseaparticularversionofit. Populists are fine with representation, as long as the right representativesrepresent the rightpeople tomake the right judgmentandconsequentlydo therightthing.Apartfromdeterminingwhoreallybelongstothepeople,populiststherefore

need to say somethingabout the contentofwhat the authenticpeople actuallywant.Whattheyusuallysuggestisthatthereisasingularcommongood,thatthepeoplecandiscernandwillit,andthatapoliticianoraparty(or,lessplausibly,amovement) can unambiguously implement it as policy.41 In this sense, as CasMudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser have pointed out in their importantworkonempiricalcasesofpopulism,populistalwayssoundsatleastsomewhat“Rousseauean,” even if there are also important differences between populismandRousseau’sdemocraticthought,towhichI’llturninamoment.42Moreover,the emphasis on a singular common good that is clearly comprehensible tocommonsenseandcapableofbeingarticulatedasasingularlycorrectpolicythatcan be collectively willed at least partly explains why populism is so oftenassociated with the idea of an oversimplification of policy challenges.43Hungary’s right-wing populist leader Viktor Orbán, for instance, did notparticipateindebatesbeforethe2010and2014elections(bothofwhichhewentontowin).Heexplainedhisrefusaltodebateasfollows:

No policy-specific debates are needed now, the alternatives infront of us are obvious [ . . . ] I am sure you have seen whathappens when a tree falls over a road andmany people gatheraroundit.Hereyoualwayshavetwokindsofpeople.Thosewhohave great ideas how to remove the tree, and sharewith otherstheirwonderful theories, and give advice.Others simply realizethat thebest is to startpulling the tree from the road. . . . [W]eneed to understand that for rebuilding the economy it is nottheories that are needed but rather thirty robust lads who startworkingtoimplementwhatweallknowneedstobedone.44

Here Orbán equates the correct policy with what common sense can easilydiscern.Whatneedstobedoneisobvious;nodebateaboutvaluesorweighingofempiricalevidenceisrequired.Except that it is required. We have already seen how, for populists, there

cannotbesuchathingaslegitimatecompetitionwhenpopulistsrunforoffice—hencesloganssuchas“Abbassotutti!”(“Downwiththemall!”),“¡Quesevayantodos!” (“Everyone out!”), Qu’ils s’en aillent tous! (“Let them all go!”), orBeppeGrillo’s“V-Days”(“V”stoodforvaffanculo[fuckoff]).Whentheyareinpower, there is likewise no such thing as a legitimate opposition.But then, ifthey are the only legitimate representatives of the people, how can it be thatpopulistsaren’tinpoweralready?Andhowcouldanyonebeagainstthemoncetheyhaveattainedpower?Hereacrucialaspectofpopulists’understandingofpoliticalrepresentationcomesintoplay:whileitcansoundasiftheyespouseanotionofademocraticrepresentationofthepopularwill,theyactuallyrelyonasymbolic representation of the “real people” (as in the notion of “realAmericans,” a beloved term of George Wallace). For them, “the peoplethemselves” is a fictional entity outside existing democratic procedures, ahomogeneous andmorally unified bodywhose allegedwill can be played offagainstactualelectionresultsindemocracies.ItisnotanaccidentthatRichardNixon’s famous (or infamous) notion of a “silent majority” has had such anillustrious career among populists: if the majority were not silent, it wouldalready have a government that truly represented it.45 If the populist politicianfailsat thepolls, it isnotbecauseheorshedoesnot represent thepeople,butbecausethemajorityhasnotyetdaredtospeak.Aslongtheyareinopposition,populists will always invoke an uninstitutionalized people “out there”—inexistential opposition to officeholderswho have been authorized by an actualelection,orevenjustopinionpolls,whichfailtoreflectwhatpopulistsseeasthe

truepopularwill.Suchanotionof “thepeople”beyondallpolitical formsand formationwas

influentially theorized by the right-wing legal theoristCarl Schmitt during theinterwar period.Hiswork, together with that of Fascist philosopher GiovanniGentile,servedasaconceptualbridgefromdemocracytonondemocracywhenthey claimed that fascism could more faithfully realize and instantiatedemocratic ideals than democracy itself.46 Conversely, an opponent of Schmittsuch as theAustrian jurist (anddemocratic theorist)HansKelsen insisted thatthe will of parliament was not the popular will; and that something like anunambiguouspopularwillwasinfactimpossibletodiscern.Allwecouldverifywereelectionoutcomes,andeverythingelse,accordingtoKelsen(inparticularanorganicunityof“thepeople”fromwhichsomeinterestabovepartiescouldbeinferred),amountedtoa“metapoliticalillusion.”47

Thetermillusionisjustifiedhere.Forthewholepeoplecanneverbegraspedand represented—not least because it never remains the same, not even for aminute:citizensdie,newcitizensareborn.Yetitisalwaystemptingtoclaimthatonecanactuallyknowthepeopleassuch.48Robespierremadeiteasyforhimselfwhenhesaidthathesimplywasthepeople(inasensethatfollowsthelogicofthekingswhomtheFrenchRevolutionhaddeposed).ItistellingthattheFrenchrevolutionaries never found a satisfactory way symbolically to represent theprincipleofpopularsovereignty:thewholepeoplecouldnotappearassuch,andparticular symbols, such as the Phrygian cap, a crowned youth, or Hercules,clearlyfailedtoconvince.Jacques-LouisDavidwantedtoerectagiantstatueof“the people” on the PontNeuf; the foundationswere to bemade of shatteredroyal monuments, and the bronze of the statue was supposed to have beenfurnishedbythemeltedcanonsofthe“enemiesofthepeople.”(Theplanswereapproved, but only amodelwas constructed.) The supposedlymost importantactor of the revolution—the sovereign people—became the “Yahweh of theFrench,” which is to say, utterly unrepresentable. (Only the word could beshown:atrevolutionaryfestivals,flagsbearingcitationsfromRousseau’sSocialContractweretobecarriedaround.)49

As it happens,weare also in apositionnow to clarify themajordifferencebetweenpopulistrepresentationofthepeopleandRousseau’sgeneralwill.Theformationof thelatterrequiresactualparticipationbycitizens; thepopulist,ontheotherhand,candivinetheproperwillof thepeopleonthebasisofwhat itmeans,forinstance,tobea“realAmerican.”MoreVolksgeist,ifyoulike,thanvolontégénérale—aconceptionofdemocracyinwhich“substance,”“spirit,”or,putmore straightforwardly, “true identity”decides, andnot the larger number.

Whatmightinitiallyhavelookedlikeaclaimbypopuliststorepresentthewillturnsouttobeaclaimtorepresentsomethinglikeasymbolicsubstance.Yet,onemightobject,don’tpopulistsoftendemandmorereferenda?Yes.But

one needs to be clear about what the meaning of a referendum for populistsreally is. They do not want people to participate continuously in politics. Areferendum isn’t meant to start an open-ended process of deliberation amongactualcitizenstogeneratearangeofwell-consideredpopularjudgments;rather,thereferendumservestoratifywhatthepopulistleaderhasalreadydiscernedtobe the genuine popular interest as a matter of identity, not as a matter ofaggregatingempiricallyverifiableinterests.Populismwithoutparticipationisanentirelycoherentproposition.Infact,populistsarenoteveninherentlyantielitist,ifonetakesthelattertomeanthatpowershouldalwaysbeaswidelydispersedaspossible.Asmentionedabove,populistshavenoproblemwithrepresentationaslongastheyaretherepresentatives;similarly,theyarefinewithelitesaslongastheyaretheelitesleadingthepeople.HenceitisnaïvetothinkthatonehasscoredadecisivepointagainstafigurelikeTrumpifonepointsoutthatheisinfactpartoftheexistingelite(albeitnotthepoliticaleliteinanarrowsense);thesame is true of businessmen-turned-politicians in Europe, such as the SwisspopulistChristophBlocher.Theyknowthattheyarepartoftheelite,andsodotheirsupporters;whatmattersistheirpromisethatasaproperelite,theywillnotbetray the people’s trust and will in fact faithfully execute the people’sunambiguouslyarticulatedpoliticalagenda.Itisthusnoaccidentthatpopulistsinpower(aboutwhomIhavetosaymore

in the next chapter) often adopt a kind of “caretaker” attitude toward anessentiallypassivepeople.ThinkofBerlusconi’sreigninItaly:theidealwasfora Berlusconi supporter comfortably to sit at home, watch TV (preferably thechannelsownedbyBerlusconi),andleavemattersofstatetotheCavaliere,whowould successfully govern the country like a very large business corporation(whichwas sometimes calledazienda Italia). Therewas no need to enter thepiazza and participate.Or think of the secondOrbán government inHungary,from2010 onward,which crafted a supposedly authentic national constitution(aftersomeshamprocessof“nationalconsultation”byquestionnaire)butfeltnoneedtoputthatconstitutiontoapopularvote.We are also in a better position now to understand why populists often

conclude“contracts”with“thepeople”(thedeeplypopulistSwissPeople’sPartyhas done so, as did Berlusconi and Haider; in the United States, somemightremember Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America”).50 Populists assume that“thepeople”can speakwithonevoiceand issue something likean imperative

mandate that tells politicians exactlywhat they have to do in government (asopposedtoafreemandate,accordingtowhichrepresentativeshavetousetheirownjudgment).Thusthereisnorealneedfordebate,letalonethemessyback-and-forthofdeliberatinginCongressorothernationalassemblies.Thepopulistshave always already been the faithful spokespersons of the real people andworkedoutthetermsofthecontract.Yetthefactisthattheimperativemandatehasnot reallycome from thepeopleat all; its supposedlydetailed instructionsare based on an interpretation by populist politicians. Political scientists havelongargued thatacompletelycoherent,single“popularwill” isa fantasy51andthat no one can credibly claim, as Juan Perón used to do, that “the politicalleaderistheonewhodoeswhatthepeoplewant.”52Whatislessobviousisthatpretending that there is such a will also weakens democratic accountability.Populistscanalwaysturnbacktothepeopleandsay,“Weimplementedexactlywantyouwanted,youauthorizedus;ifanythinggoeswrong,it’snotourfault.”Bycontrast,afreemandate,asopposedtoanimperativeone,putstheburdenonrepresentativestojustifyhowtheyusedtheirpolitical judgment,whenelectiontime—that is to say, time for accountability—comes around. Populists like tosuggestthatafreemandateissomehowundemocratic;theoppositeistrue,anditisnotanaccidentthatdemocraticconstitutionsthatspecifyanunderstandingofrepresentatives’roleoptforafree,andnotanimperative,mandate.Principled,moralizedantipluralismandtherelianceonanoninstitutionalized

notionof“thepeople”alsohelpsexplainwhypopulistssofrequentlyopposethe“morallycorrect”outcomeofavotetotheactualempiricalresultofanelection,when the latter was not in their favor. Think of Victor Orbán claiming, afterlosing the2002Hungarianelections, that“thenationcannotbe inopposition”;orofAndrésManuelLópezObradorarguing,afterhisfailedbidfortheMexicanpresidency in 2006, that “the victory of the right ismorally impossible” (anddeclaringhimself“thelegitimatepresidentofMexico”);53orofTeaPartyPatriotsclaimingthatthepresidentwhowonamajorityofthevoteis“governingagainstthemajority.”54Thenthere is theexampleofGeertWilders,whohascalled theDutch Tweede Kamer a “fake parliament” with “fake politicians.” And then,finally, there isDonaldTrump reacting to every loss in theprimarieswith thecharge that his opponents were committing fraud, as well as his preemptiveclaim that the entire system—including the Republican National Conventionitself—is “rigged.” In short, the problem is never the populist’s imperfectcapacity to represent the people’s will; rather, it’s always the institutions thatsomehow produce the wrong outcomes. So even if they look properlydemocratic, there must be something going on behind the scenes that allows

corruptelitestocontinuetobetraythepeople.Conspiracytheoriesarethusnotacuriousadditiontopopulistrhetoric;theyarerootedinandemergefromtheverylogicofpopulismitself.

PopulistLeadership

At first sight,manypopulist leaders seem toconfirm theexpectation that theyare“justlikeus,”thattheyare“men(orevenwomen)ofthepeople.”Butthensomeleadersclearlydon’tfitthatdescription.DonaldTrumpsurelyisnot“justlikeus”inallkindsofways;infact,itmightseemthattherealpopulistleaderisexactly the opposite of “us”—which is to say, ordinary. He or she must becharismatic, for one thing,whichmeans endowedwith extraordinary gifts. Sowhich is it?Was Hugo Chávez just an average person? Or was he somehowspecialbecausehewas“alittleofallofyou,”ashelikedtoputit?Atfirstsight,itmightappearthatthebasiclogicofrepresentationthroughthe

mechanismofelectionalsoappliestopopulists:onechoosesapopulistpoliticianbecauseofhisorhersuperiorcapacitytodiscernthecommongood,asjudgedbythepeople.55Thisisnodifferentfromthegeneralunderstandingofelectionsaccordingtowhichthevotehelpsusget“thebest”intooffice(anotionthathasledsomeobserverstoarguethatelectionsalwayscontainanaristocraticelement;ifwereallybelievedthatallcitizenswereequal,wewouldemploylotteries tofilloffices, just aswas thecase inancientAthens).56Theperson electedmightseem more likely to discern the common good because he or she sharesimportantfeatureswithus,butthisisnotnecessary.Inanycase,nobodycanbe“identical” with us, strictly speaking. Even “Joe the Plumber” is in a sensespecialbecauseheismoreordinarythananyone.57

A clue to how populist leadership actually operates might be the electionslogans of the Austrian far-right populist politician Heinz-Christian Strache(successortoJörgHaideraschairmanofAustrianFreedomParty):“ERwill,wasWIRwollen”(“HEwantswhatWEwant”),whichisnotquitethesameas“Heislikeyou.”Oranotherone:“Er sagt,wasWiendenkt” (“He says,whatViennathinks”),not“Hesays(oris),whatViennais.”Or,toevokeafictionalpoliticianfrom a completely different part of the world, “My study is the heart of thepeople,”whichisWillieStark’ssloganinAlltheKing’sMen(thegreatestnovelonpopulismeverwritten,basedlooselyonHueyLong’scareerinLouisiana).The leader correctly discerns what we correctly think, and sometimes he

mightjustthinkthecorrectthingalittlebitbeforewedo.This,Iwouldventure,

is the meaning of Donald Trump’s frequent imperatives issued on Twitter to“THINK!” or “GET SMART!”All this does not depend on charisma; neitherdoesitrelyonbeinganoutsiderinpolitics.Ofcourse,it’smorecredibletorunagainstexistingelitesifoneisn’tobviouslyoneofthem.Yettherearecertainlycaseswhere populists are clearly identifiable as nothing but career politicians:GeertWildersandViktorOrbán,forinstance,havespenttheirentireadultliveswithinparliaments.Itdoesnotseemtohavehurttheirstandingaspopulists.Butinwhatwaysexactlydotheyclaimtorepresentandalso“lead”us?Ifthe

analysis presented earlier is accurate, “symbolically correct” representationmatters here, too. It’s not that the leader has to be particularly charismaticpersonally.Butheorshehastoprovideasenseofadirectconnectionwiththe“substance”ofthepeopleand,evenbetter,witheverysingleindividual.Thisiswhy Chávez’s campaigns featured slogans such as “¡Chávez es Pueblo!”(“Chávez is the people!”) and “¡Chávez somos millones, tú también eresChávez!”(“Chávezwearemillions,youarealsoChávez!”).Andafterhisdeath,peoplecametogetheraroundthenewimperative“SeamoscomoChávez”(“Let’sbelikeChávez”).The leader does not have to “embody” the people, as statements such as

“Indira is India, and India is Indira” might suggest. But a sense of directconnectionandidentificationneedstobethere.Populistsalwayswanttocutoutthemiddleman, so to speak, and to rely as little as possible on complexpartyorganizationsasintermediariesbetweencitizensandpoliticians.Thesameistrueof wanting to be done with journalists: the media is routinely accused bypopulists of “mediating,” which, as the very word indicates, is what they areactually supposed todo,butwhich is seenbypopulistsas somehowdistortingpoliticalreality.NadiaUrbinatihascoinedtheuseful,ifatfirstsightparadoxical,concept of “direct representation” for this phenomenon.58A perfect example isBeppeGrillo andhisFiveStarMovement in Italy,which literallygrewoutofGrillo’sblog.TheordinaryItaliancancheckoutwhatisreallygoingonthroughdirectaccesstoGrillo’swebsite,providesomeinputonline,andthenalsocometoidentifywithGrilloastheonlyauthenticrepresentativeoftheItalianpeople.AsGrillohimselfexplained,“Folks, itworkslikethis:Youletmeknow,andIplaytheamplifier.”59Whenthegrillini—asGrillo’sfollowersarecalled—finallyentered parliament, Gianroberto Casaleggio, Grillo’s strategist and Internetimpresario, explained that “Italian public opinion” itself had at last arrived inparliament.60

Arguably,DonaldTrump’sTwitteraccounthashadasimilarlureinthe2016presidentialcampaign:“realAmericans”canbedonewith themediaandhave

directaccess(or,rather,theillusionofdirectcontactwith)amanwhoisnotjusta celebrity; the self-declared “Hemingway of 140 characters” uniquely tells itlike it is. Everything that liberals fromMontesquieu and Tocqueville onwardonce lauded as moderating influences—what they called intermediateinstitutions—disappearshereinfavorofUrbinati’s“directrepresentation.”Inthesame way, everything that might contradict what we are already thinking issilencedintheechochamberoftheInternet.Theweb(andaleaderlikeTrump)always have an answer—and, amazingly, it always happens to be the onewewereexpecting.Principled antipluralism and the commitment to “direct representation”

explain another feature of populist politics that is often commented on inisolation. I refer to the fact that populist parties are almost always internallymonolithic,withtherank-and-fileclearlysubordinatedtoasingleleader(or,lessoften,agroupofleaders).Now,“internaldemocracy”ofpoliticalparties—whichsomeconstitutionsactuallytaketobealitmustestfordemocracyandhencethelegitimacy (and, ultimately, legality) of parties—can be a bit of a pious hope.Manyparties still arewhatMaxWeber said theywere:machines for selectingand electing leaders or, at best, arenas for personality-driven micropolitics asopposed to a forum for reasoned debate.While this is a general tendency ofparties, populist parties are particularly prone to internal authoritarianism. Ifthere isonlyonecommongoodandonlyoneway to represent it faithfully (asopposed to a self-consciously partisan but also self-consciously fallibleinterpretationofwhatthecommongoodmightbe),thendisagreementwithintheparty that claims to be the sole legitimate representative of the commongoodobviously cannot be permissible.61 And if there is only one “symbolicallycorrect”representationoftherealpeople—theunderstandingonwhichpopulistsalwaysfallback,aswehaveseen—thenthere’salsonotmuchpointindebatingthat.GeertWilders’sPartijvoordeVrijheid(PVV)isanextremeexample.Thisis

not just metaphorically a one-man-party; Wilders controls everything andeveryone.Initially,WildersandhischiefintellectualMartinBosmadidnotevenwant to establish a political party but a foundation. This proved legallyimpossible, but thePVV todayoperates as apartywith exactly twomembers:Wildershimselfandafoundation,StichtingGroepWilders,with(onemighthaveguessedit)onceagainWildersastheonlymember.62ThemembersofthePVVinparliamentaremerelydelegates(andareextensivelycoachedbyWilderseverySaturdayonhowtopresent themselvesandhowtodo their legislativework).63SomethingsimilaristrueofGrillo.Heisnotjustthe“amplifier,”ashepretends.

Heexercisescentralcontrolover“his”parliamentarydeputiesandexpelsfromthemovementthosewhodaretodisagreewithhim.64

Now, in practice, populists have compromised here and there, enteredcoalitions,andmoderatedtheirabsoluteclaimtoauniquerepresentationofthepeople.Butitwouldbewrongtoconcludefromthisthattheyare,afterall,justlikealltheotherparties.Thereisareasontheywanttobea“front”(asinFrontNational),a“movement,”orindeedafoundation.65Apartyisjustapart(ofthepeople),whereaspopulistsputforwardtheclaimtostandforthewhole,withoutremainder.In practice, it is also clear that the content of the “correct symbolic

representation”ofthepeoplecanchangeovertimeevenwithinthesameparty.ThinkoftheFrontNational(FN).UnderfounderJean-MarieLePen,thepartywas initially a rallying point for right-wing extremists, monarchists, andespecially those who could not accept France’s loss of Algeria in the 1960s.Morerecently,LePen’sdaughterMarinehasdroppedthehistoricalrevisionismofherfather(whoinfamouslycalledthegaschambersa“historicaldetail”),andtriedtopresentherpartyasthelastdefenderofFrenchrepublicanvaluesagainstthe twin threats of Islam and Eurozone economic dictatorship by Germany.EverysecondSundayinMay,theFNholdsarallyatthestatueofJeanned’Arcin the first district of Paris, symbolically rededicating itself to Frenchindependence and what it construes as authentic French popular sovereignty.Timeshave changed, and sohave theways inwhich “the real people” canbeevokedthroughspecifyingthemainenemiesoflaRépublique.Such transformations can be effected more easily if the central symbolic

statementof thepopulists isvirtuallyempty.Whatdoes“MakeAmericaGreatAgain” actuallymean, other than that the people have beenbetrayedby elitesandthatanybodywhoopposesTrumpmustalsosomehowbeagainst“AmericanGreatness”?WhatdidGeorgeWallace’s “StandUp forAmerica” (thenationalversionofhissuccessfulslogan“StandUpforAlabama”)signify,otherthanthatthe United States was being victimized and that anyone critical of WallaceautomaticallyfailedtodefendAmerica?

OneMoreTime:Isn’tEveryoneaPopulist,Then?

Aswe have seen, populism is a distinctlymoral way to imagine the politicalworld and necessarily involves a claim to exclusive moral representation. Ofcourse, it’snot justpopulistswho talkaboutmorality;allpoliticaldiscourse is

shot throughwithmoralclaims, justasvirtuallyallpoliticalactorsmakewhatMichaelSawardhas called “the representative claim.”66At the same time, fewpolitical actors go around saying, “We are just a faction; we just representspecialinterests.”Evenfewerwouldadmitthattheiropponentsmightbejustasrightastheyare;thelogicofpoliticalcompetitionanddifferentiationmakesthatimpossible.Whatdistinguishesdemocraticpoliticiansfrompopulistsisthattheformermakerepresentativeclaimsintheformofsomethinglikehypothesesthatcan be empirically disproven on the basis of the actual results of regularprocedures and institutions like elections.67 Or, as Paulina Ochoa Espejo hasargued, democratsmake claims about the people that are self-limiting and areconceivedof as fallible.68 In some sense, they’dhave to subscribe toBeckett’sfamouswordsinWorstwardHo:“Evertried.Everfailed.Nomatter.Tryagain.Failagain.Failbetter.”Populists, by contrast, will persistwith their representative claim nomatter

what;becausetheirclaimisofamoralandsymbolic—notanempirical—nature,itcannotbedisproven.Wheninopposition,populistsareboundtocastdoubtonthe institutions that produce the “morally wrong” outcomes. Hence they canaccuratelybedescribedas“enemiesofinstitutions”—althoughnotofinstitutionsin general.They aremerely the enemies ofmechanisms of representation thatfailtovindicatetheirclaimtoexcusivemoralrepresentation.Nonpopulist politicians donot propose in rousing speeches to speakmerely

forafaction(thoughsomedo;atleastinEurope,partynamesoftenindicatethatthepartiesinquestiononlyreallymeantorepresentaparticularclientele,suchas smallholders or Christians). Nor do run-of-the-mill democratic politiciansnecessarilysubscribetoahigh-mindedethicsaccordingtowhich,beyondallourpartisan differences, we are engaged in a common project of perfecting thepolitical community’s foundational political values.69 But mostwould concedethat representation is temporary and fallible, that contrary opinions arelegitimate, that society cannot be representedwithout remainder, and that it isimpossible for one party or politicians permanently to represent an authenticpeople apart from democratic procedures and forms. Which means that theyimplicitly accept a basic claim thatwas clearly articulated byHabermas: “thepeople”appearonlyintheplural.70

To summarize, populism is not amatter of a specific psychological cast, aparticularclass,orsimplisticpolicies.Neitherisitjustaquestionofstyle.Yes,GeorgeWallacemadeapointofwearingcheapsuitsandtellingAmericansthathe“putketchuponeverything.”Yes,somepopuliststestthelimitsofhowrudeonecanbeinadebate(oraboutthehostofadebate).Butitdoesn’tfollow,as

somesocialscientistshold,thatwecansimplyandsafelyidentifypopulistsbytheir“badmanners.”71Populismisnotjustanymobilizationstrategythatappealsto“thepeople”;72 itemploysaveryspecifickindof language.Populistsdonotjust criticize elites; they also claim that they and only they represent the truepeople.Whethersomeonespeaksthatlanguageornotisn’tamatterofsubjectiveimpressions. Scholars such as Keith Hawkins have systematically identifiedelements of populist language and even quantified its occurrence in differentcountries.73Onecan thereforealsomeaningfully speakofdegreesofpopulism.The main point is that this populist rhetoric can be pinned down. The nextquestioniswhathappenswhenpopulistsputtheirideasintopractice.

Chapter2

WhatPopulistsDo,orPopulisminPower

One might be tempted to conclude by now that populists live in a kind ofpoliticalfantasyworld:theyimagineanoppositionbetweencorruptelitesandamorallypure,homogeneouspeoplethatcandonowrong;theyplayasymbolicrepresentationofthatpeopleoffagainstsordidpoliticalrealitieswherepopulistsdonotyetrule.Aren’tsuchfantasiesboundtofail?Conventionalwisdomhasit thatpopulistpartiesareprimarilyprotestparties

and that protest cannot govern, since one cannot protest against oneself (and,once political actors have become an elite in power, it will simply proveimpossible for them to perpetuate an antielitist stance).1 Finally, there’s thenotion thatpopulists,when they reachoffice,will somehowlose theirnimbus;charismawillbeusedupand“disenchanted”ineverydayparliamentaryroutines.Returningtoanearlier (inmyview,flawed)definitionofpopulism,onemightthinkthatthesimplisticprescriptionsofpopulistswillalsoquicklybeexposedasunworkable.Antipoliticscannotgeneraterealpolicies.The notion that populists in power are bound to fail oneway or another is

comforting.It’salsoanillusion.Foronething,whilepopulistpartiesdoindeedprotest against elites, this does not mean that populism in government willbecomecontradictory.Firstofall,allfailuresofpopulistsingovernmentcanstillbeblamedonelitesactingbehindthescenes,whetherathomeorabroad(hereweseeagainthenot-so-accidentalconnectionbetweenpopulismandconspiracytheories).Manypopulistvictorscontinue tobehave likevictims;majoritiesactlikemistreatedminorities.Chávezwouldalwayspointtothedarkmachinationsof the opposition—the officially deposed “oligarchy”—trying to sabotage his“twenty-first century socialism.” (When that did not seem plausible, he couldalways hold the United States responsible for any failures of the BolivarianRevolution.)RecepTayyipErdoğanhaslikewisepresentedhimselfasapluckyunderdog; he would always be the street fighter from Istanbul’s toughneighborhoodKasımpaşa,bravelyconfrontingtheoldKemalistestablishmentoftheTurkishrepublic—evenlongafterhehadbeguntoconcentrateallpolitical,economic,andculturalpowerinhisownhands.Populistsinofficecontinuetopolarizeandpreparethepeoplefornothingless

thanwhat is conjuredup as a kindof apocalyptic confrontation.They seek tomoralizepoliticalconflictasmuchaspossible(forChávez,GeorgeW.Bushwas

nothinglessthanthedevilhimself,ashedeclaredontheworldstageatasessionoftheUnitedNations).Thereisneveradearthofenemies—andthesearealwaysnothinglessthanenemiesofthepeopleasawhole.Chávezdeclaredinthemidstof a general strike initiatedby theopposition in 2002, “This is not about pro-Chávez and anti-Chávez . . . but . . . the patriots against the enemies of thehomeland.”2 A “crisis” is not an objective state of affairs but a matter ofinterpretation.Populistwillofteneagerlyframeasituationasacrisis,callingitan existential threat, because such a crisis then serves to legitimate populistgovernance.Putdifferently,a“crisis”canbeaperformance,andpoliticscanbepresented as a continuous state of siege.3 Figures like Chávez and Ecuador’sRafael Correa understand governing as a permanent campaign—which, to besure, is an attitude also found among nonpopulist politicians.YetCorrea goesseveralstepsfurtherinconceivingofhisroleaspresidentasthatofapermanent“motivator.”4

Populists combine this constant creation of pressure with an aestheticproductionof“proximity to thepeople.”ViktorOrbánhashimself interviewedon Hungarian radio every Friday; Chávez hosted the famous show AlóPresidente, in which ordinary citizens could phone in and tell the country’sleader about theirworries and concerns. The presidentwould then sometimesgive government members in attendance seemingly spontaneous instructions.(Chávezoncetoldhisdefenseministerliveonairtodispatchtentankbattalionsto the Columbian border.) Every now and then, welfare measures would beannouncedinfrontoftherollingcameras;theshowsometimeslastedforuptosixhours.Today,CorreaandBolivianpresidentEvoMorales takepart in theirownsimilarTVprograms.5

One can dismiss such practices as a curious kind of political folklore or, infact, as similar to the public relations that have become mandatory for allpoliticians inwhathasbeendescribedas the“mediademocracy”or“audiencedemocracy”ofourtime(inwhichcitizensengageinpoliticalactivityprimarilybywatchingthepowerful).6It isalsotrue,however,thatpopulistsemployveryparticular techniques of governing—and that these techniques can be justifiedmorally with reference to the core logic of populism. Populists in powerinvariably fall back on the argument that they are the onlymorally legitimaterepresentativesofthepeopleandthat,furthermore,onlysomeofthepeopleareactuallythereal,authenticpeoplewhoaredeservingofsupportand,ultimately,goodgovernment.Thislogiccanmanifestitselfinthreedistinctways:akindofcolonization of the state, mass clientelism as well as what political scientistssometimescall“discriminatorylegalism,”and,finally,thesystematicrepression

of civil society. It is not just populistswho engage in such practices; what isdistinctiveaboutpopulistsisthattheycandosoquiteopenly.Theyclaimtohaveamoral justification for their conduct, and on the international stage, at least,they have a good chance of maintaining a reputation as democrats. Exposingthesepracticesforwhattheyareisnotnearlyasdamagingforpopulistsasonemight think, since theywillmerelyassert that theyare implementingaproperconception of democracy. Let me spell out these seemingly counterintuitiveclaimsinsomemoredetail.

ThreePopulistTechniquesforGoverningandTheirMoralJustifications

First, populists tend to colonize or “occupy” the state. Think ofHungary andPolandasrecentexamples.Oneof thefirst fundamentalchangesViktorOrbánandhisFideszPartysoughtwasatransformationofthecivilservicelaw,soastoenable the party to place loyalists in what should have been nonpartisanbureaucraticpositions.BothFidesz and JarosławKaczyński’sLawand JusticeParty (PiS) also immediately moved against the independence of courts.Procedures of existing courts were amended and new judges were appointed.Whereareshapingoftheentiresystemproveddifficult,ashasbeenthecaseinPolandsofar,paralysisofthejudiciaryprovedanacceptablesecondbestforthegoverning party. Media authorities were also immediately captured; the clearsignalwentoutthatjournalistsshouldnotreportinwaysthatviolatetheinterestsofthenation(whichwereofcourseequatedwiththeinterestsofthegoverningparty).ForKaczyński,whohaslongbelievedthatashadowy“network”isbentonundermininghisparty, itwasalsocrucial tobring thesecret servicesundercontrol. Whoever criticized any of these measures was vilified as doing thebidding of the old elites (which the populists as proper representatives of thepeoplehadfinallymanagedtoreplace)orasbeingoutrighttraitors(Kaczyńskispoke of “Poles of the worst sort” who supposedly have “treason in theirgenes”).Theendresultisthatpoliticalpartiescreateastatetotheirownpoliticallikingandintheirownpoliticalimage.Suchastrategy toconsolidateorevenperpetuatepower isnot theexclusive

preserveofpopulists,ofcourse.Whatisspecialaboutpopulistsisthattheycanundertakesuchcolonizationopenlyandwith thesupportof theircoreclaimtomoral representationof thepeople.Why,populists canask indignantly, shouldthe people not take possession of their state through their only rightful

representatives?Whyshouldthosewhoobstructthegenuinepopularwillinthenameofcivilserviceneutralitynotbepurged?Thestaterightfullybelongstothepeople;itshouldnotconfrontthemassomethinglikeanalienapparatus—rather,thepeopleshouldproperlytakepossessionofit.Second,populiststendtoengageinmassclientelism:theexchangeofmaterial

andimmaterialfavorsbyelitesformasspoliticalsupport.Again,suchconductisnotexclusivetopopulists:manypartiesrewardtheirclientelefor turningupatthe voting booths, though fewwould go so far asAustrian arch-populist JörgHaider,whowould literallyhandouthundred-eurobills to“hispeople”on thestreets inCarinthia.Someobservershaveheld that, froma realist perspective,massclientelismandearlyformsofdemocracyaremoreorlessthesamething—for clientelism establishes somemeaningful political reciprocity and allowsfor some modicum of accountability.7 What makes populists distinctive, oncemore, is that they can engage in such practices openly andwith publicmoraljustifications,sincefor themonlysomepeoplearereally thepeopleandhencedeservingofthesupportbywhatisrightfullytheirstate.Similarly,onlysomeof thepeopleshouldget toenjoy the fullprotectionof

thelaws;thosewhodonotbelongtothepeopleor,forthatmatter,whomightbesuspectedofactivelyworkingagainstthepeople,shouldbetreatedharshly.(Thisis“discriminatory legalism,” theview that“formyfriends,everything; formyenemies,thelaw.”)8

Somepopulistsgotluckyinthattheyhadresourcesfreelyavailabletoengageinmassclientelismandeveneffectivelybuildupentireclassestosupporttheirregimes.Chávezbenefitedcruciallyfromtheoilboom.9ForregimesinCentraland Eastern Europe especially, funds from the European Union have beenequivalent to oil for some Arab authoritarian states: governments canstrategicallyemploythesubsidiestobuysupportoratleastkeepcitizensquiet.What’smore,theycanformsocialstratathatconformtotheirimageoftheidealpeopleandthatareloyaltotheregime.ChávezcreatedtheBoliburguesía,whichdid very well indeed as a result of the “Bolivarian Revolution.” Erdoğancontinues to enjoy the unshakeable support of an Anatolianmiddle class thatemerged with the economic boom under his Justice and Development (AK)Party.(Thismiddleclassalsoembodiestheimageofanideal,devoutlyMuslimTurk,asopposed toWesternized,seculareliteson theonehandandminoritiessuchastheKurdsontheother.)Hungary’sFideszhasbuiltupanewgroupthatcombines economic success, family values (having children brings manybenefits),andreligiousdevotionintoawholethatconformstoOrbán’svisionofa“Christian-national”culture.10

Onceagain,statecolonization,massclientelism,anddiscriminatorylegalismarephenomena that canbe found inmanyhistorical situations.Yet inpopulistregimes, theyarepracticedopenlyand,onemight suspect,witha cleanmoralconscience.Hencealsothecuriousphenomenonthatrevelationsaboutwhatcanonly be called corruption simply do not seem to damage the reputation ofpopulistleadersasmuchasonewouldexpect.Haider’sFreedomPartyandtheItalianLegaNord turnedout tobe farmorecorrupt than traditionalelites theyhadlongcriticized;yetbothstillthrivetoday(somuchsothattheLegaNordhasnow replaced Berlusconi’s party as the main right-wing opposition in Italy).Erdoğan, the self-declared “Man of the Nation” (Milletin Adamı) remainsuntouchedbycorruptionscandals.Clearly, theperceptionamongsupportersofpopulists is that corruption and cronyism are not genuine problems as long astheylooklikemeasurespursuedforthesakeofamoral,hardworking“us”andnotfortheimmoralorevenforeign“them.”Henceitisapioushopeforliberalstothinkthatalltheyhavetodoisexposecorruptiontodiscreditpopulists.Theyalso have to show that for the vast majority, populist corruption yields nobenefits, and that a lack of democratic accountability, a dysfunctionalbureaucracy,andadeclineintheruleoflawwillinthelongrunhurtthepeople—allofthem.There is one more element of populist statecraft that is important to

understand. Populists in power tend to be harsh (to say the least) withnongovernmentalorganizations(NGOs)thatcriticizethem.Again,harassingoreven suppressing civil society is not a practice exclusive to populists.But forthem, opposition from within civil society creates a particular moral andsymbolic problem: it potentially undermines their claim to exclusive moralrepresentationofthepeople.Henceitbecomescrucialtoargue(andsupposedly“prove”)thatcivilsocietyisn’tcivilsocietyatall,andthatwhatcanseemlikepopularoppositionhasnothingtodowiththeproperpeople.ThisexplainswhyrulerslikeVladimirPutininRussia,ViktorOrbáninHungary,andPiSinPolandhave gone out of their way to try to discredit NGOs as being controlled byoutsidepowers(anddeclarethem“foreignagents”).Inasense,theytrytomakethe unified (and passive) people in whose name they speak a reality on thegroundbysilencingordiscreditingthosewhodissentfromthepopulistleader’sconstrualofthepeople(and,sometimes,bygivingthemeveryincentivetoleavethecountryandtherebytoseparatethemselvesfromthepeople).11Putdifferently,aPiSgovernmentoraFideszgovernmentwillnotonlycreateaPiSstateoraFideszstate; itwillalsoseektobringintoexistenceaPiSpeopleandaFideszpeople(oftenbyestablishingakindofproxy,government-friendlycivilsociety).

Populistscreatethehomogeneouspeopleinwhosenametheyhadbeenspeakingallalong.And that leads to a final great irony. Populism in power brings about,

reinforces,oroffersanothervarietyoftheveryexclusionandtheusurpationofthestatethatitmostopposesinthereigningestablishmentitseekstoreplace.12What the “old establishment” or “corrupt, immoral elites” supposedly havealways done, the populists will also end up doing—only, one would havethought,withoutguiltandwithasupposedlydemocraticjustification.

DoesPopulisminPowerEqual“IlliberalDemocracy”?

Now,ifonefollowsmyaccountupuntilthispoint,onemaywellwonder,Whydopopulistsnotgoall thewaywhen itcomes to regimechange? If they trulybelievewhat they say—that they are theonly legitimate representativesof thepeople—why do they not dispense with elections altogether? If all othercontenders forpowerare illegitimate,whynotexclude themfromthepoliticalgamecompletely?Theanswertothispuzzleisnecessarilysomewhatspeculative.Weknowthat

manyofthepopulistswhohavecometopowercontinuouslytesttheirlimits:achange in the election lawshere, somepressureonunfriendlymedia there, anextra tax audit for a pesky NGO—but nothing that looks like a rupture withdemocracyaltogether.Ofcourse,wedonotknowtheirthinkingandtheirexactcalculations.Butitseemsplausiblethat,intheirmindsatleast,thecostsofopenauthoritarianismaresimplytoohigh.Officiallyabolishingoratleastsuspendingdemocracycomeswithenormous lossof international reputation (andpossiblylossof internationalmaterial support, though, as the recent examplesofEgyptand Thailand demonstrate, even what looks like the advent of old-fashionedmilitary-bureaucraticdictatorshipneednotleadtoacompletebreakoftiestotheinternationalcommunity).In the face of such pulling-back from outright authoritarianism, many

observers have been tempted to call regimes like Turkey’s and Hungary’s“illiberal democracies.” Yet this designation is deeply misleading and in factundermines attempts to rein in populist actors. “Illiberal democracy” leavesgovernmentslikeKaczyński’s,Orbán’s,orMaduro’sinthepositionofclaimingthat their countries are still democracies, just not liberal ones.This is not justsomepettysemanticpoint;outsideobserversshouldbeabsolutelyclearthatitisdemocracyitselfthatpopulismdamages.Giventheprevalenceofthediagnosis

of “illiberal democracy” among political scientists and policy analysts, letmeexplaininsomedetailwhyitiswrongheaded.ThetermilliberaldemocracybecamepopularinWesternpolicycirclesinthe

mid-1990sasawayofdescribingregimesthatheldelectionsbutdidnotobservethe rule of law and violated checks and balances in particular. In a highlyinfluential article, the American journalist Fareed Zakaria claimed thatgovernments with popular backing were regularly breaching the principles ofwhat he called “constitutional liberalism.” The latter included political rights,civil liberties, and property rights.The diagnosis of “illiberal democracy”wasonesymptomofageneralphilosophicalandpoliticalhangoverafter1989.IntheheadydayswhenCommunismfellandtheworldseemeddrunkondemocracy,itappearedthatmajorityruleandtheruleoflawwouldalwaysgoneatlytogether.Butsoonelectionsproducedmajoritiesthatthenusedalltheavailablepowertooppressminoritiesandviolatefundamentalrights.Theclearimplicationwasthatliberalism had to be strengthened to contain the dangers of democracy incountrieswherethepoliticalcontendersexhibita“winner-take-all”mentality.This conceptual split between liberalism and democracy was not exactly a

newone.Both left-wingandright-wingcriticsof“bourgeoisdemocracy”havelong operated with it. Very broadly speaking, Marxists charged that undercapitalism, liberalism offered mere “formal freedoms” and a kind of fakepoliticalemancipationwhileeffectivelyprotectingwhatwasoftenreferredtoasthe “private autonomy” of citizens (which is to say, it secured their status asparticipants in themarketandgave the state the roleofenforcerofcontracts).On the right,CarlSchmitt, in the courseof the1920s, claimed that liberalismwas an outdated ideology: in the nineteenth century, it had justified elitesrationally debating policies in parliament, but in the age of mass democracy,parliaments were a mere façade for sordid deals among special interests. Bycontrast, the genuine popular will could be represented by a leader such asMussolini. Acclamation by a homogeneous people became the hallmark ofproper democracy, which Schmitt defined as “the identity of governed andgoverning”; unelected institutions such as constitutional courts might beunderstoodasguardiansofliberalism,buttheywereessentiallyundemocratic.Schmittalsoperformedafatefulconceptualsplitbetweenthe“substance”of

thepeopleon theonehand and the empirical outcomeof electionsor opinionsurveyson theother—thevery splitpopulists regularlyuse, as I argued in theprevious chapter. It isworth quoting Schmitt here in full because his thoughtexplainsmany recent shifts to authoritarianismunder the guise of democratic-soundinglanguage:

Theunanimousopinionofonehundredmillionprivatepersonsisneitherthewillofthepeoplenorpublicopinion.Thewillofthepeoplecanbeexpressed justaswell andperhapsbetter throughacclamation,throughsomethingtakenforgranted,anobviousandunchallengedpresence,thanthroughthestatisticalapparatusthathas been constructed with such meticulousness in the last fiftyyears. The stronger the power of democratic feeling, the morecertainistheawarenessthatdemocracyissomethingotherthanaregistration system for secretballots.Compared to ademocracythat is direct, not only in the technical sense but also in a vitalsense, parliament appears an artificial machinery, produced byliberal reasoning, while dictatorial and Caesaristic methods notonlycanproducetheacclamationofthepeoplebutcanalsobeadirectexpressionofdemocraticsubstanceandpower.13

Morerecently,criticsofthesupposedhegemonyofliberalisminthepost-1989world—most prominently the left-wing theorist ChantalMouffe—have arguedthat“rationalist”liberalthoughthascometodenythelegitimacyofconflictanddisagreement, which is inherent in democracy. At the same time, SocialDemocratic parties have abandoned the task of offering a real alternative toneoliberalism;theirconvergenceona“ThirdWay”reinforcedthesenseamongvoters that theywere being offered “elections without choice” (or, asMouffeonceputitinaninterview,amerechoicebetweenCokeandPepsi).AccordingtoMouffe, this convergence of political parties, as well as the compulsion toreach consensus—which allegedly can be found in the democratic theories ofJohn Rawls and Jürgen Habermas—has provoked strong antiliberalcountermovements,mostprominentlyright-wingpopulism.Beyond these debates in political theory, “liberalism”—at least in Europe,

though not in theUnited States—has come to stand for unfettered capitalism;very much like in the United States, it has also turned into shorthand formaximizing thefreedomofpersonal lifestyles.After thefinancialcrisis,anewwaveofself-declaredantiliberalsusedtheambiguitiessurroundingthe“L-word”to make the case for a different form of democracy. Erdoğan, emphasizingtraditional Islamic morality, started to present himself as a “conservativedemocrat.” Orbán, in a controversial speech in 2014, unveiled his project ofcreating an “illiberal state.” More recently, during the refugee crisis, theHungarian leaderhas announced that the eraofwhathe simplycalled“liberalblahblah”inEuropewasoverandthatthecontinentwouldcomearoundtohis

“Christianandnational”visionofpolitics.14“Illiberalism”hereappearstomeanbothopposingunfetteredcapitalism,wherethestrongarealwaysboundtowin,andcountering theextensionof rights tominorities suchashomosexuals. It isaboutrestrictionsinbothmarketsandmorals.Now, “illiberal democracy” is not necessarily a contradiction in terms.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many European ChristianDemocrats would have called themselves “illiberal”; in fact, they might havebeen offended if one questioned their staunch antiliberalism. But this did notmean that they failed to understand how important the rights of politicalminoritiesare inafunctioningdemocracy(afterall,minoritiescanbecomethemajorityinthenextelection);onthecontrary,theyknewfirsthandwhatitmightmean for minorities not to be protected from the powerful, as Catholics hadbecome the victims of aggressive cultural campaigns waged by secular states(think of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf in late-nineteenth-century Germany). Theyalso did not think that unelected institutions like courts were somehowundemocratic;onceagain,theythemselveshadsympathyfortheideaofchecksandbalancesbecausetheyhadexperiencedwhatunbridledpopularsovereigntycan mean for religious minorities. The reason, then, was simply that theyassociated“liberalism”withindividualism,materialismand,veryoften,atheism.(Think, for instance, of Jacques Maritain, the leading French CatholicphilosopherandoneoftheauthorsoftheUnitedNationsDeclarationofHumanRights. He argued that democracy could be endorsed on specifically Catholicgrounds, while liberalism had to be rejected.) For thinkers like this, being“antiliberal” did notmean lack of respect for basic political rights, but it didsignalacritiqueofcapitalism—evenifChristianDemocratsdidnotquestionthelegitimacyofprivatepropertyassuch—aswellasanemphasisonatraditional,patriarchalunderstandingofthefamily.Therecanbenonliberalphilosophicalunderpinningsofdemocracy,as inthe

case of Maritain. And there can be traditional societies in which rights toabortionandmarriagearehighlyrestricted.Ibelievethatforgoodreasonsoneshould oppose the latter, but it would be peculiar to argue that such rightsrestrictions demonstrate a serious lack of democracy. If anything, one mightwant to talk about relatively intolerant—in that sense, illiberal—societies, butthat is different from illiberal democracy. We have to distinguish illiberalsocietiesfromplaceswherefreedomofspeechandassembly,mediapluralism,and theprotectionofminoritiesareunderattack.Thesepolitical rightsarenotjustaboutliberalism(ortheruleoflaw);theyareconstitutiveofdemocracyassuch.Forinstance,evenifballotsarenotstuffedbytherulingpartyontheday

oftheelection,avotecanbeundemocraticiftheoppositioncannevermakeitscase properly and journalists are prevented from reporting a government’sfailures.Evenforthemostminimaldefinitionsofdemocracy—asamechanismtoensurepeacefulturnoversinpowerafteraprocessofpopularwill-formation—it is crucial that citizens be well informed about politics; otherwise,governmentscanhardlybeheldaccountable.Itisnotanaccidentthatmanynewdemocraciesafter1989establishedconstitutionalcourtstoprotectbasicpoliticalrightsandpreservepluralisminpoliticsandsociety.Suchcourts,thejustificationwent, ultimately helped the flourishing of democracy itself (and not justliberalism).Ifcriticskeepinvoking“illiberaldemocracy,”leaderslikeOrbánwillsimply

say, “Thank you verymuch.” The supposed criticism confirms theHungarianprimeministerasexactlywhathewantstobe:anopponentofliberalism.Atthesame time, he, Kaczyński, and all other populist leaders get to keep“democracy,” which, for all the disappointments over the last quarter-century,remainsthemostimportanttickettorecognitionontheglobalstage.Evenbetterfrom the point of view of such leaders, the expression “illiberal democracy”confirmsanormativedivisionof labor,wherethenation-statedoesdemocracy,andanentity like theEuropeanUnion(EU)gets tobe inchargeof liberalism.The EU then can then be made to look even more like an agent of rampantcapitalism and libertarian morality (as in “Gayropa,” the charge promoted bymany homophobic enemies of the EU in Russia). Populist governments,meanwhile, can present themselves as resisting a hegemonic liberalism in thenameofdiversityandevenminorityrights,asiftosay,“WeHungarians,Poles,andsoon,areaminorityintheEUwhobelieveintraditionalmoralsanddonotsubmit to the one-size-must-fit-all liberal universalism promoted by Westernliberalelites.”JustthinkofPolishforeignministerWitoldWaszczykowski,inaninterviewwithaGermantabloidinJanuary2016,railingagainstthevisionof“anewmixingofculturesandraces,aworldofbicyclistsandvegetarians,who...fight every form of religion.” Here a vulnerable or perhaps even persecutedminorityappears tobedefending itself—when in fact, theminister isspeakingforagovernmentthathasamajorityinparliament.All of this means we should stop the thoughtless invocation of “illiberal

democracy.”Populists damagedemocracy as such, and the fact that theyhavewon elections does not give their projects automatic democratic legitimacy(especially because they usually haven’tmentioned far-reaching constitutionalchanges in the campaigns that brought them to power).While theymay havewon an initial election fair and square, they quickly start tampering with the

institutionalmachineryofdemocracyinthenameoftheso-calledrealpeople(asopposed to their political opponents,who are automatically deemed traitors tothe nation). This people is assumed to be a homogeneous whole that can beauthentically represented only by populists. In Carl Schmitt’s terms, symbolicsubstancewins overmere numbers (of votes) that can be ascertained bywhatSchmitt called the statistical apparatus; the supposed authentic national willtrumps procedures and delegitimizes all opposition—or, as a PiS member ofparliamentputit,“Abovethelawstandsthegoodofthenation.”Inshort,populismdistortsthedemocraticprocess.Andifthegoverningparty

hasasufficientmajority,itcanenactanewconstitutionjustifiedasanefforttoappropriate the state for the “real Hungarians” or “real Poles,” as opposed topost-Communist or liberal elites that supposedly rob the people of their owncountry.Of course, it helps that these former elitesoften simultaneously standfor economic liberalism, a pluralistic and tolerant “open society,” and theprotectionoffundamentalrights(includingtherightsconstitutiveofdemocracy).Orbáncan thencriticize theopensocietybysaying that“there isnohomelandanymore,onlyaninvestmentsite.”InPoland,Germaneconomicinterests, thesupposedlyevil“genderideology,”andthecivilsocietyorganizationsdefendingthe constitution can all be conflated and attacked at the same time. In short,anticapitalism, cultural nationalism, and authoritarian politics becomeinextricablylinked.Havingsaidthat,justasanoverlyinclusivenotionofdemocracyisunhelpful

in understanding the political reality we face, defining the concept ofauthoritarianism too broadly can be problematic and produce unintendedpoliticalconsequences.Inthefirstcase,theHungarianandPolishgovernmentscan rejoice that they are still democracies; in the second, highly repressiveregimeswillbepleasediftheyfindthemselvesinthesamecategoryasHungaryand Poland. In the latter, it remains perfectly possible to demonstrate on thestreets, publish critical blogposts, or foundnewpolitical parties.Thegame isbeing rigged,but it isnot impossible—yet—towinanelectionon thebasisofcriticizing the populists in power. Perhaps, then, a designation like “defectivedemocracy”wouldbemoreappropriate.15Democracyhasbeendamagedandisinneedofseriousrepair,butitwouldbemisleadingandprematuretospeakofdictatorship.It is also important for the EU to be clear about what it is doing when it

engagessupposed“illiberaldemocracies”likeHungaryandPoland.Mostofitsactivities have been framed as “protecting the rule of law.” The EuropeanCommission’s new approach, unveiled in 2014, is known as the “rule of law

mechanism.”Itseeksinitiallytoestablishadialogueabouttheruleoflawwithamemberstate that is suspectedofbreaching thevaluescodified inArticle2oftheTreatyonEuropeanUnion(theruleoflawisamongthesevalues).Thehopeisthatthroughdialogue—andnotsanctions—amemberstatewillmenditsways.Inmanyofitspublications,thecommissionhasinsistedthattheruleoflawanddemocracy are interconnected: one cannot be had without the other. Yet thevirtually exclusive emphasis on rule of law in public discourse has, arguably,reinforced the sense thatEuropeonlycares about liberalism,while thenation-statedoesdemocracy.Europeanofficialsshouldemphasizethattheirconcernisasmuchwithdemocracyaswithprotectingtheruleoflaw.CriticsofdevelopmentsinHungaryandPoland,moreover,shouldfaceupto

thefactthat“liberalism”hasoftenbeenexperiencednotjustascutthroatmarketcompetition but as powerful (Western European) interests getting their way.WhiletherealityinHungaryhasbeensavagecutstothewelfarestate,Orbán’sself-presentationasa strong leader ready tonationalizecompaniesanduse thestate to protect ordinary folk from multinationals has been highly effective.Beforehesettledontheideologyofthe“illiberalstate,”hewaxedlyricalabouta“plebeiandemocracy.”Thisispropaganda,butitresonatesbecauseofthewayaseeming convergence of political, economic, and moral liberalism wasexperienced after 1989. If something called liberalism can look like it’s onlygood for winners, liberals have to rethink their commitments. As the formerHungariandissidentG.M.Tamásputitin2009,“We,thefrothatthetopofit,werecelebratingthetriumphoffreedomandopennessandpluralityandfantasyandpleasureandallthat.Thatwasfrivolous,andIamdeeplyashamed.”Thosedefendingdemocracyagainstpopulismalsohavetobehonestaboutthe

factthatallisnotwellwithexistingdemocraciesinWesternEuropeandNorthAmerica.Tobesure, thesearenotmere“façadedemocracies,”as theGermansocial scientist Wolfgang Streeck has put it recently. They have not beencaptured by single parties trying to remold the entire political system in theirfavor,ashasbeenthecaseinHungary.Buttheyareincreasinglysufferingfromthedefect thatweaker socioeconomicgroupsdonotparticipate in thepoliticalprocessanddonothave their interests representedeffectively.Again, itwouldbewrongsimply toequate thisproblemwith theconsciouscurtailingof rightsconstitutive of democracy and the exclusionof oppositional forces that I haveclaimedarecharacteristicofpopulistregimes.Therecanbemeaningfulchangesinpower,unlikeinthesituationforwhichFideszandPiSareevidentlystriving.Butwhile the contrasts amongcontestants forpower amount tomore than thedifferencesbetweenCokeandPepsi,criticslikeMouffehaveapointthatneeds

tobeanswered.AsDavidOsthasput itstarkly inananalysisof the2015PiSvictory, “Theproblem . . . isnot thatpeople arenot committed todemocracy.Yes, plenty of people today aren’t committed to democracy but they’re notcommittedtoitbecausetheyfeelthatdemocracy,packedinneoliberalwrapping,isnot committed to them.”Adefenseofdemocracy todayhas tograpplewiththis challenge no less than the task of exposing the phony justifications of“plebeiandemocracy”andthe“illiberalstate.”

PopulistConstitutions:AContradictioninTerms?

Despite the great divergence of approaches to understanding populism, it isstriking that many observers appear to agree on one point—namely, thatwhatever else it is, populism is inherently hostile to the mechanisms and,ultimately, the values commonly associatedwith constitutionalism: constraintsonthewillofthemajority,checksandbalances,protectionsforminorities,andeven fundamental rights.16 Populists are supposedly impatientwithprocedures;they are even said to be “against institutions as such,” preferring a direct,unmediatedrelationshipbetweenthepersonalleaderandthepeople.Relatedtothis supposed anti-institutionalism is the charge that populists dislikerepresentation and opt instead for direct democracy (as exemplified byreferenda)—achargewealreadyencounteredand tosomedegreedismissed inchapter 1. Hence also the impression—widespread among both politicalphilosophers and social scientists—that populism, despite some serious flaws,mightundersomecircumstancesserveasa“corrective”toaliberaldemocracythathasbecometooremotefromthepeople.Thishopeismisplaced,butonecanseehowitarosewhenoneconsidersthe

ways inwhich the debate about liberal constitutionalism and populism suffersfrom several unfortunate characteristics. First, the discussion often becomesconflated with the controversy about the merits of majoritarianism (and,conversely, judicial review). Second, there is no clear or even discernibledistinction between popular constitutionalism on the one hand and populistconstitutionalismontheother.17Andthirdandmostimportant,“populism”servesasaveryimpreciseplaceholderfor“civicparticipation”or“socialmobilization”(and,conversely,weakeningthepowerofjudgesandotherelites).18Quiteapartfromthevaguenessofthenotionsused(orperhapsbecauseofthisvagueness),there’s the additional fact that debates about populismand constitutionalism—especially in the United States—quickly turn emotional, with accusations ofelitism or “demophobia” flying about and theorists accused of having bad

“attitudes toward the political energy of ordinary people” or of promoting“ochlocracy.”19

Ashopefully has become clear bynow, populists are not generally “againstinstitutions,”andtheyarenotdestinedtoself-destructonceinpower.Theyonlyoppose those institutions that, in their view, fail to produce the morally (asopposedtoempirically)correctpoliticaloutcomes.Andthathappensonlywhentheyareinopposition.Populistsinpowerarefinewithinstitutions—whichistosay,theirinstitutions.Thosepopulistswhohaveenoughpowerwillseektoestablishanewpopulist

constitution—inboththesenseofanewsociopoliticalsettlementandanewsetof rules for the political game (what some scholars of constitutionalism havecalled the“operatingmanual”ofpolitics). It is tempting to think thatwith thelatter,theywillseekasystemthatallowsfortheexpressionofanunconstrainedpopular will or somehow reinforce the direct, institutionally unmediatedrelationshipbetweenaleaderandtheproperpueblo.Populistsare,afterall,oftendeemedtobeheirsoftheJacobins.Yet here again, things are not so simple. The claim for an unconstrained

popularwillisplausibleforpopulistswhentheyareinopposition;afterall,theyaim to pit an authentic expression of the populus as uninstitutionalized,nonproceduralized corpus mysticum against the actual results of an existingpoliticalsystem.Insuchcircumstances, it isalsoplausibleforthemtosaythatthevoxpopuliisone—andthatchecksandbalances,divisionsofpower,andsoon,cannotallow thesingular,homogeneouswillof thesingular,homogeneouspeopletoemergeclearly.Yet when in power, populists tend to be much less skeptical about

constitutionalismasameansofcreatingconstraintsonwhattheyinterprettobethe popular will—except that the popular will (never given empirically, butalways construed morally) has first to be ascertained by populists, and thenappropriately constitutionalized. Or, picking up a distinction developed byMartin Loughlin, positive, or constructive, constitutionalism is followed bynegative, or restraining, constitutionalism.20 Populists will seek to perpetuatewhat they regard as the proper image of themorally pure people (the properconstitutional identity, if you will) and then constitutionalize policies thatsupposedly conform to their image of the people. Hence populistconstitutionalism will not necessarily privilege popular participation, nor willpopulists always try somehow to “constitutionalize the charisma”of apopularleaderinthewaythatBruceAckermanhassuggested.21

Apart fromthese features—whichareexplainedyetagainby theunderlying

moral claims of populism—there is a more mundane goal that constitutionsmightachieveforpopulists:theycanhelptokeeppopulistsinpower.Ofcourse,one might say that even this goal still has a moral dimension related to theunderlying populist imagination: as the only legitimate representatives of thepeople, populists should perpetually be in office. And if the perpetuation ofpowerbecomestheaim,thenthereisalsothepossibilitythatpopulistswilltreattheconstitutionasamere façade,whileoperatingquitedifferentlybehind thatfaçade.22 Perhaps theywill even sacrifice their ownconstitution if it no longerserves that purpose. Here the Jacobins really are the appropriate example. AsDanEdelsteinhasshown,theirconcernwasmuchlesswithafaithfulexpressionofthegeneralwillthanhistorianshavetendedtoassume.23TheJacobinsworriedabout corruptionsof thegeneralwill andput theirhope in the realizationof aform of natural right altogether independent of people’s actual wills (andattendantfrailties).Whentheirownconstitution—andtheelectionsitenabled—threatenedtoremovetheJacobinsfrompower,theydidnothesitateeffectivelytosuspendtheconstitutionandunleashterroragainstthosedeemedhorslaloi.Not all examples of populist constitutionalism are as dramatic (let alone

terroristic) as this. A recent example is the constitution—officially named the“Fundamental Law”—ofHungary,which came into effect at the beginning of2012. The constitution had been preceded by a nonbinding “nationalconsultation” to which, according to the government, about 920,000 citizensresponded.24Theoutcomeofthatconsultationcouldbefreelyinterpretedbytheconstitutionmakers to fit their general conception that the 2010parliamentaryelections had resulted in what the winning party called a “revolution at thevotingbooths”becauseithadreceivedatwo-thirdsmajorityinparliament(butonly 53 percent of the actual vote, which meant 2.7 million voters out of 8millioneligibleones).This “revolution”had supposedlyyieldedan imperativemandate to establishwhat the government termed a new “National System ofCooperation” as well as a new constitution. Victor Orbán explained, “Thepeople . . .gavegoodadvice,goodcommand to theHungarianParliament [inadoptingthebasiclaw],whichitcarriedout.Inthissense,whentheHungarianconstitution is criticized . . . it is not meant for the government but for theHungarian people . . . It is not the government the European Union has aproblem with, much as they want us to believe . . . the truth is they attackHungary.”25 These equations—whoever attacks the government attacks theHungarianpeople—arebreathtaking.Theyarealsopedagogicallyquitehelpful,fortheydemonstratethelogicofpopulismwithrarepurity.The preamble of the new constitution, or “National Creed,” ended up

constitutionalizingaveryparticular imageof theHungarianpeopleasanationcommitted to survival in a hostileworld, as goodChristians, and as an ethnicgroup that could be clearly distinguished from minorities “living with” theproper Hungarians. In the construction of the more technical constitutionalmachinery, the perpetuation of populists in power was clearly the goal.26 Agelimitations and qualifications for judges were introduced so as to removeprofessionalsnotinlinewiththegoverningpopulistparty,thecompetencesandstructureoftheconstitutionalcourt(acrucialcheckongovernmentpowerbeforethe introductionof theFundamentalLaw)were reengineered,and the termsofofficeholders chosen by the governing party were made unusually long (nineyears in many cases), with a view, apparently, toward constraining futuregovernments.TheHungariangovernment,then,essentiallydesignedwhataformerjudgeon

the German constitutional court, Dieter Grimm, has called an “exclusiveconstitution,” or what one might also term a partisan constitution: theconstitutionsetsanumberofhighlyspecificpolicypreferences instone,whendebateaboutsuchpreferenceswouldhavebeenthestuffofday-to-daypoliticalstruggle innonpopulistdemocracies.27Moreover, it excludedoppositionpartiesinadoublesense: theydidnot takepart inwritingorpassing theconstitution,and theirpoliticalgoalscannotbe realized in the future, since the constitutionhighlyconstrainsroomforpolicychoices.Inotherwords,underthenewregime,theconstitutionmakerscanperpetuatetheirpowerevenafterlosinganelection.The Hungarian Fundamental Law, while supposedly inspired by the views

expressed in the national consultation, was never put to a referendum. Bycontrast,anumberofnewconstitutionsinLatinAmericahavebeencreatedbyelected constituent assemblies andwere eventuallymade subject to a popularvote: Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia are the well-known examples.28 Olderconstitutionswereeffectivelybypassed in theprocessof formingaconstituentassemblyandthenreplacedbydocumentsthatweresupposedtoperpetuatethefounding “popularwill.” That foundingwillwas always decisively shaped bypopulists. Chávez, for instance, controlled theway “his” constituent assemblywaselectedandensuredthatamajorityof60percentforhispartyat thepollstranslatedintomorethan90percentoftheseatsintheconstituentassembly.Effectively,thepopulistidealbecamerealityintheformofstrengtheningthe

executivewhile diminishing thepowerof the judiciary and/or staffing judicialofficeswithpartisanactors.Thusthenewconstitutionshelpeddecisivelyinthepopulist project of “occupying the state,” as the shift to a new constitutionjustified the replacementof existingofficeholders.29 Ingeneral, electionswere

made less free and fair, and the media became more easily controlled byexecutives.AsinthecaseofHungary,then,thenuevoconstitucionalismousedconstitutions to setupconditions for theperpetuationofpopulistpower, all inthe name of the idea that they and only they represented la voluntadconstituyente—thesingleconstitutionalizingwill.Now,noneofthismeansthatpopulistconstitutionswillalwaysworkprecisely

as intended. They are designed to disable pluralism, but as long as populistregimesholdelectionswithsomechanceofoppositionswinning,pluralismwillnot entirely disappear. However, such populist constitutions are then likely toresultinsevereconstitutionalconflicts.ThinkofthesituationinVenezuelaafterthe opposition alliance Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) emergedvictorious from the December 2015 elections, gaining nothing less than amajority to change the constitution. President Maduro initially threatened togovern without parliament (but with the military); he also did everything tocontestthelegitimacyofthreeelectedoppositiondeputies(soastopreventtheoppositionfromreachingthethresholdrequiredtochangetheconstitution).Thepower of the executive—already strengthened enormously byChávez in “his”constitution—was enlarged yet again so thatMaduro could appoint or deposedirectors of the central bank as he saw fit without any involvement ofparliament.30But thatwas not enough:Maduro also sought to create a kindofcounterparliament in the form of a “Parliament of Communes.” (A similarproject of generating legitimacy parallel to the official parliament through theformationofso-calledBolivariancircleswasfirst triedbyChávezhimselfandhadlargelyfailed.)31MUDinturniscommittedtoholdareferenduminordertobringdownMaduro.The point is this: Populist constitutions are designed to limit the power of

nonpopulists,evenwhenthelatterformthegovernment.Conflictthenbecomesinevitable.Theconstitutionceasestobeaframeworkforpoliticsandinsteadistreatedasapurelypartisaninstrumenttocapturethepolity.

CanthePeopleNeverSay“WethePeople”?

Itmight seem that the implications of the analysis so farmust be profoundlyconservative: politics should be confined to an interaction of official politicalinstitutions,whatever these institutionsproducebywayof empiricaloutcomesmustbelegitimate,andclaimsabout,for,letalonebythepeopleareprohibited.But thiswould be amisunderstanding. In a democracy, anybody can launch a

representativeclaimandseewhetheraparticularconstituencyisresponsivetoit—or, for thatmatter,whetheranyconstituencywill identifywith the symbolicrenderingofagroupidentityofwhichcitizenshadn’tbeenconsciousatall. Infact,onemightevensaythatdemocracyispreciselydesignedtomultiplysuchclaims: the conduct of official representatives should be contestable, and thecontestationmayinvolve theargument that therepresentativesfail torepresent—whichmaymean that theyfail toact for theirconstituentsor that theyevenviolatethesymbolicself-understandingofthepoliticalcommunity.32

Street protest, online petitions, and so on—these all have genuinelydemocratic meaning, but they lack proper democratic form, and they cannotyieldakindofdemocratictrumpcardagainstrepresentativeinstitutions.33Inanycase, such contestation is different from attempts to speak in the name of thepeople as a whole—and efforts to morally delegitimize all those who in turncontestthatclaim.But what about those struggling in the name of “people power” in various

parts of the world? To take a recent example, the demonstrators against theMubarak regime inTahrirSquareused expressions such as “Onehand,” “Onesociety,” and “One demand.” (Therewere alsomore creative slogans, such as“The people want a president who does not dye his hair!”)34 Should they belectured and told that, unfortunately, they had failed properly to understanddemocracyandwerefatedtomisconstrueconstitutionalism?Theanalysispresentedinthisbookdoesnotinanywayexcludeclaimsabout

exclusions,sotospeak.Anyonecancriticizeexistingprocedures,faultthemformoralblindspots,andproposecriteriaandmeansforfurtherinclusion.Whatisproblematicisnottheclaimthatpresentarrangementshavefailedbuttheclaimthatthecriticandonlythecriticcanspeakfor“thepeople.”Whatisproblematicis also the assumption—prevalent but neither empirically nor normativelyjustified—bymanyself-declaredradicaldemocratictheoriststhatonly theparspro toto claim can achieve anything truly worthwhile for the previouslyexcluded, and that everything else will amount to mere administration orcooptationintoexistingpoliticalandsocialarrangements.35Thisperspectivefailstosee thataclaimof“weandonlywerepresent thepeople”mightsometimeshelppoliticalactorsgainpowerbutthenmakesecuringthelong-termstabilityofa polity all the more difficult. Once the stakes are raised to the level ofnonnegotiableidentityclaims,continuousconflictappearslikely.Itisalmostaclichétopointoutthatmanyconstitutionshaveevolvedbecause

of struggles for inclusion and because ordinary “citizen interpreters” of theconstitutionhavesoughttoredeempreviouslyunrealizedmoralclaimscontained

in a founding document.36 The not-so-trivial point is that those fighting forinclusionhaverarelyclaimed“Weandonlywearethepeople.”Onthecontrary,they have usually claimed “We arealso the people” (with attendant claims of“we also represent the people” by various leaders). Constitutions withdemocratic principles allow for an open-ended contestation of what thoseprinciplesmightmeaninanygivenperiod;theyallownewpublicstocomeintobeingonthebasisofanovelclaimtorepresentation.Citizenswhoneverthoughtofthemselvesashavingmuchincommoncanrespondtoanunsuspectedappealtobeingrepresentedandallofasuddenseethemselvesasacollectiveactor—asindividualscapableofacting inconcert (to invokeanexpressionmadefamousbyHannahArendt).Think,forinstance,ofthe“FordNation”thatwasbroughtinto being by Toronto’s idiosyncratic mayor Rob Ford. Or think of TrumpsupporterswhoinsistthattheyarenottheTrumpenproletariat,assneeringelitecriticshaveclaimed,butagroupofpeoplewithlegitimategrievancesandidealsthattheRepublicanPartyhasfailedtotakeseriously.ThethoughthereissimilartoJohnDewey’sinsightthatpublicsdon’tjustexist“outthere”butarecreated(onemight also remember theMarxist notion that a class needs to become aclassforitself—conscious,thatis,ofbeingacollectivepoliticalactor).Awell-functioning democracy should be designed to multiply, but also in the endempirically to test, claims to representation.37 Of course, there is no guaranteethatsuchcontestationwillactuallyhappenorthatstrugglesforinclusionwillbesuccessful.(Or,forthatmatter,thatstruggleswillbeaboutinclusioninthefirstplace,asopposed tostrugglesagainst theconstitutionalorderassuch.And,ofcourse,thestrugglesmightalsoinvolveclaimstoexclusion.)Constitutions can ideally facilitate what one might call a “chain of claim-

making for inclusion.” An initial “We the People” neither entirely disappearsinsidetheregularpoliticalprocessnorstaysasanactual,empirical,unifiedagent—akindofmacrosubject—outsidetheconstitutedorder.Instead,towhom“WethePeople”refersremainsanopenquestion,onethatdemocracyinmanywaysisabout.AsClaudeLefortputit,“Democracyinauguratestheexperienceofanungraspable, uncontrollable society in which the people will be said to besovereign, of course, but whose identity will constantly be open to question,whoseidentitywillremainforeverlatent.”38

That also means that “the people” is a volatile, risky, maybe outrightdangerous expression. Some of the French and American Revolutionariescertainly thought so. Adrien Duquesnoy, in the 1791 edition of L’Ami despatriotes, recommended strictly regulating the uses of “people” by citizens.39And John Adams made little effort to hide his anxieties about the possible

consequencesofanuncontrolledusageof“thepeople”:“ItisdangeroustoopensofruitfulaSourceofControversyandAltercation...TherewouldbenoEndof it.NewClaimswill arise.WomenwilldemandaVote.Lads from12 to21will think theirRights not enough attended to, and everyMan,whohas not afarthing, will demand an Equal Voice, with any other in All Acts of State. Ittends to confoundanddestroy allDistinctions, andprostrate allRanks, toonecommonlevel.”40

Theconceptofthepeoplecouldevenbedeployedtotheirownadvantagebythevery traditionalelites that“peoplepower”wassupposed tosweepaway indemocratic revolutions. Bismarck declared in the Reichstag in 1873, “We allbelongtothepeople,Ihavepopularrights[Volksrechte],too,tothepeoplealsobelongshisMajestytheEmperor;weallarethepeople,notjustthegentlemenwhoaremakingcertainoldclaimsthataretraditionallycalledliberalbutarenotalways liberal. I take exception to themmonopolizing the nameof the peopleandtoexcludemefromthepeople!”41

Democracymakesitpossiblealwaystoreopenandeventoposewithentirelynewtermsthequestionofthepeople,justasitisalwayspossibletocriticizetherealities of a given democracy in the name of democratic ideals. As SheldonWolinonceputit,“Democracywasandistheonlypoliticalidealthatcondemnsitsowndenialofequalityandinclusion.”42Inthatsense,onemightalsosaythatdemocracy suffers from a permanent crisis of representation.43 And it isimportanttonotethatthecrisismightnotbejustaboutwhogetsrepresentedbutalsohowcitizensgetrepresented,justasthedemandforinclusionmightturnoutto requireachange inpoliticalandsocialstructuresasawhole (asopposed tojust including ever more groups into structures that remain essentiallyunchanged).44 Democracy as a whole, then, might plausibly have the motto,“Evertried.Everfailed.Nomatter.Tryagain.Failagain.Failbetter.”Itisactuallypopulistswhobreakoffthechainofclaim-makingbyasserting

that the people can now be firmly and conclusively identified—and that thepeople is now actual and no longer latent. It is a kind of final claim. In thatsense, populists de facto want a kind of closure (including and especiallyconstitutionalclosure),quiteunlikethosewho,byarguingforinclusion,shouldbecommittedtotheideaoffurtherinclusion—oracontinuationofthechainofclaim-making.Arguably, theTeaParty is a prime example for advocating thiskindofconstitutionalclosure.What about the shouts heard in Tahrir Square—or, going back roughly a

quartercentury,theemphaticchantingof“WearethePeople”onthestreetsofEastGermanyinthefallof1989?Thissloganisentirelylegitimateinthefaceof

a regime thatclaimsexclusively to represent thepeoplebut in fact shuts largeparts of the people out politically. One could go further and argue that whatprimafaciemightseemlikeanarch-populistsloganwasinfactanantipopulistclaim: the regime pretends exclusively to represent the people and theirwell-considered,long-terminterest(orsoastandardjustificationofthe“leadingrole”ofstatesocialistpartieswent)—butinfact,dasVolkaresomethingelseandwantsomething else. In nondemocracies, “We are the People” is a justifiedrevolutionaryclaim; it ispreciselynotapopulistone.And inpopulist regimesthat stretch the limitsof representativedemocracybut still retain some respectforprocedure(andempiricalreality),evenaseeminglysmallcontestationoftheregimecanhaveenormousrepercussions.Thinkofthesingle“standingman”onIstanbul’s Taksim Square in the wake of the crackdown on the Gezi Parkprotesters. Demonstrations had been prohibited. But a single man was notdemonstrating;hewasjuststandingthere,alone—asilentwitness,areminderofAtatürk’srepublicanvalues(hestoodfacingAtatürk’sstatue)—butalsoaliving,literally standing reproach against the government’s claim to represent allupright Turkswithout remainder.Hewas eventually joined bymany standingmenandwomen,noneofwhomsaidanythingandnoneofwhomheldupanymessages.Erdoğaninturnremainedfaithfultooneofthegoverningtechniquesanalyzed earlier in this chapter. His government tried to prove that ErdemGündüz—thatwas the name of the “standingman”—was a foreign agent.AsGündüzreportedinaninterviewwithaGermannewspaper,“Ajournalistcloseto thegovernment,who laterbecameaconsultant forErdoğan,accusedmeofbeinganagentormemberofOtpor,theSerbiancivicmovement,whichinitiatedthe fall ofMilosevic. And Egemen Bagis, theMinister for European Affairs,tweetedthatbeforemyperformanceIspentthreedaysintheGermanEmbassy.Infact,IhaveneverbeentotheGermanEmbassy.”45

Now,whetheraparticularclaimisdemocraticorpopulistwillnotalwaysbeaclear-cut,obviousmatter.Forinstance,inEgypt,therewasaperiodbetweentheinitial protests on Tahrir Square and the fraught constitution-making processwhere it was not always easy to discern which was which. (One cannot tellsimplybycheckingwhether“thepeople”aresomehowbeinginvoked.)Yetthefact remains that during 2012 and 2013, it became clear that the MuslimBrotherhoodwastryingtocreateapopulist,partisanconstitutionthatdefineditsimageofthepurepeopleandputinplaceconstraintsinspiredbytheirparticularunderstandingofwhatconstitutesagoodEgyptian.46Confrontationthusbecamehardtoavoid.47

Chapter3

HowtoDealwithPopulists

Atthisstageonemightwonder,Whywouldanyoneeversupportpopulistsifthelatteraresoobviouslyalwaysprotoauthoritarianslikelytodoseriousdamagetodemocraticsystems?Isthefactthatpopulistleadershavemillionsofsupportersinmany countries evidence that thesemillions have authoritarian personalities(toreturntooneofthepsychologicaldiagnosesdiscussedinchapter1)?Aresomanyofourfellowcitizenspotentiallyreadytoexcludeus, if in theireyeswedon’tconformtotheirconceptionof“realAmericans”?Inthischapter,Iwanttomakelifea littlebitmoredifficult for liberaldemocratswhobynowmightbetemptedsimplytodismisspopulismasanykindofchallengeatthelevelofideas(as opposed to an empirical problem that has to be dealt with one way oranother).IshallpointtothewaysinwhichtheappealofpopulismridesonwhattheItaliandemocratictheoristNorbertoBobbiousedtocallthebrokenpromisesofdemocracy. Ialsowant toshowhowpopulismseems tosolveaproblemtowhich liberal democracy has no real answer—namely, the problem of whatshouldconstitutetheboundariesof“thepeople”inthefirstplace.Andlastly,Ishall try toexplain thatparticularhistoricalcircumstances in theUnitedStatesandEuropehavefacilitatedanupsurgeofpopulisminourday.Iconcludewithsome suggestions as to how one might best talkwith—and not just about—populistswithouttherebyendinguptalkinglikethem.

PopulismandtheBrokenPromisesofDemocracy

What explains the attractiveness of populism? Of course, the beneficiaries ofclientelismanddiscriminatorylegalismwillfindthingsinittolike.ButIwouldalso suggest that the successofpopulismcanbeconnected towhatonemightcall promises of democracy that have not been fulfilled and that in a certainsense simply can’t be fulfilled in our societies. Nobody ever officially issuedthesepromises.Theyaremorelikewhatissometimescalledthe“folktheoryofdemocracy”1—or intuitions that explain not only democracy’s attraction in themodernwordbutalsoitsperiodicfailures.Thecrucialpromise,simplyput,isthatthepeoplecanrule.Atleastintheory,

populistsclaimthatthepeopleasawholenotonlyhaveacommonandcoherent

willbutalsocan rule in thesense that the right representativescan implementwhat the people have demanded in the form of an imperativemandate.Manyinitial intuitions about democracy can be translated into such a picture:democracyisself-government,andwhocanruleideallyisnotjustamajoritybutthewhole.Even indemocraticAthens, this storywasnot thewhole story, butAthens came as close as one can imagine to democracy in the sense ofcultivating a sense of collective capacity and actually engaging in collectiveaction(but,crucially,ontheunderstandingthatcitizenswouldruleandberuledin turn—there is no democracywithout proper rotation into and out of publicoffice).2Onehastoberatherobtusenottoseetheattractionofsuchanotionofcollectively mastering one’s fate, and one might be forgiven for melancholyfeelingsgivenitslossinpractice.Now,populistsspeakas if suchpromisescouldbefulfilled.Theyspeakand

actasifthepeoplecoulddevelopasingularjudgment,asingularwill,andhenceasingular,unambiguousmandate.Theyspeakandactasifthepeoplewereone—withanyopposition,ifitsexistenceisacknowledgedatall,soontodisappear.Theyspeakas if the people, if only they empowered the right representatives,could fullymaster their fate. To be sure, they do not talk about the collectivecapacity of the people as such, and they do not pretend that the people couldactually themselves occupy the offices of the state. As I’ve been stressing,populismisonlythinkableinthecontextofrepresentativedemocracy.Themajordifferencesbetweendemocracyandpopulismshouldhavebecome

clearbynow:oneenablesmajoritiestoauthorizerepresentativeswhoseactionsmayormaynotturnouttoconformtowhatamajorityofcitizensexpectedorwould have wished for; the other pretends that no action of a populistgovernmentcanbequestioned,because“thepeople”havewilleditso.Theoneassumes fallible, contestable judgments by changing majorities; the otherimaginesahomogeneousentityoutsideallinstitutionswhoseidentityandideascanbefullyrepresented.Theoneassumes,ifanything,apeopleofindividuals,sothatintheendonlynumbers(inelections)count;theothertakesforgrantedamore or less mysterious “substance” and the fact that even large numbers ofindividuals(evenmajorities)canfailtoexpressthatsubstanceproperly.Theonepresumes that decisionsmade after democraticprocedureshavebeen followedarenot“moral” insuchawaythatalloppositionmustbeconsideredimmoral;theotherpostulatesoneproperlymoraldecisionevenincircumstancesofdeepdisagreement aboutmorality (andpolicy).Finally—andmost importantly—theonetakesitthat“thepeople”canneverappearinanoninstitutionalizedmannerand,inparticular,acceptsthatamajority(andevenan“overwhelmingmajority,”

abelovedtermofVladimirPutin)inparliamentisnot“thepeople”andcannotspeakinthenameofthepeople;theotherpresumespreciselytheopposite.Itmight seem then that representative democracy canmake dowithout any

appealsto“thepeople.”Butisthattrue?Isanythingmissingatallfromsuchapicture? Or can all legitimate democratic concerns—about increasedparticipation, or better deliberation, ormajorities not getting a rawdeal in theconditions of contemporary finance capitalism in the West—be rephrased insuchawayastoeliminatetheneedfor“thepeople”entirely?Ithinkthatsuchconcernscanindeedberephrased—buttheymightfailtoget

tractionnotbecause“thepeople”havedisappearedbutbecausesomethingelseis disappearing before our very eyes: party democracy.3 Parties oncemediatedbetween a pluralist society and a political system that sooner or later had toproduce authoritative decisions thatwould not please everyone. Even “losers”wouldneedtogivetheirconsent,albeitsecureintheknowledgethattherewasareasonable chance that they’d win at some time in the future. Put simply,democracy isa systemwhereyouknowyou can lose, but you alsoknow thatyou will not always lose. Parties formed governments and legitimateoppositions; their very existence as legitimate “parts” (as opposed to “thewhole”)hadanantipopulistmeaning.Thiswastrueevenofthelarge“catch-all”parties that called themselves “people’s parties,” orVolksparteien; despite thepopulist-soundingname,theyneverclaimedexclusivelytorepresentthepeopleas a whole. Rather, they offered two or more competing conceptions ofpeoplehood, dramatized the differences between them, but also recognized theother sideas legitimate. (This approachwasparticularlyattractive incountriesthathadundergoneacivilwarbutwheretheneedforcoexistencewaseventuallyrecognized.ThinkofAustria,wheresocialist“Reds”andconservativeCatholic“Blacks”hadtofindfairtermsoflivingtogetherinthesamepoliticalspace.)Inshort,partiesrepresenteddiversity;partysystemssymbolizedunity.Today,many indicators suggest that neither parties nor party systems fulfill

their respective functions any longer. Scholars have shown that populism isstrong in places with weak party systems. Where previously coherent andentrenchedparty systemsbroke down, chances for populists clearly increased:justthinkofhowtheimplosionofthepartysysteminpostwarItalyintheearly1990s eventually produced Silvio Berlusconi. If Kelsen was right thatdemocracyundermodern conditions canonlymeanpartydemocracy, then theslowdisintegrationofpartiesandpartysystemsisnotatinyempiricaldetail.Itaffects the viability of democracy as such, including whatever remains of anidealofdemocracyasprovidingpoliticalcommunitieswithasenseofunityand

collectiveagency.

TheLiberalDemocraticCritiqueofPopulism:ThreeProblems

So far, I have assumed and even taken for granted that populists gowrong inextracting“therealpeople”fromtheempiricaltotalityofthepeoplelivinginastateand thenexcluding thosecitizenswhodissent fromthepopulist line.JustthinkbacktoGeorgeWallace’sincessanttalkof“realAmericans”ortheclaimby right-wingers that Barack Obama is an “un-American” or even “anti-American” president. Yet to reproach populists with these exclusions raises acrucialquestion:Whatorwhodecidesmembershipinthepeople,otherthanthehistoricalaccidentofwhoisborninaparticularplaceorwhohappenstobetheson or daughter of particular parents?Put simply, the charge against populiststhattheyareexclusionaryisanormativeone,butliberaldemocrats—unlesstheyadvocate for a world state with one single, equal citizenship status—alsoeffectively condone exclusions of all those not part of a particular state. Thischallenge isknown inpolitical theoryas the“boundaryproblem.” It famouslyhas no obvious democratic solution: to say that the people should decidepresumes that we already know who the people are—but that is the veryquestionthatdemandsananswer.In fact,we seehereacurious reversal.Populists alwaysdistinguishmorally

between those who properly belong and those who don’t (even if that moralcriterion might ultimately be nothing more than a form of identity politics).4Liberaldemocratsseemonlytobeabletoappealtothebrutefactsor,phrasedabitdifferently,tohistoricalaccidents.Theycansaythatdefactocertainpeopleare also “realAmericans” since, after all, theyholdAmerican citizenship. Butthat is indeed just a fact; it does not in and of itself amount to much of anormativeclaim.How might we do better here? I suggest two answers. For one thing,

criticizing thepopulists for excludingpartsof thepeopledoesnot require thatwedefinitivelyestablishwhoisandwhoisnotamemberofthepolity.Nobodyhas authorized the massive disenfranchisement toward which, at leastsymbolically, populists gesture. This is not to say that 51 percent of votersofficially eliminating the vote of the remaining 49 percent could ever bejustified; it is just to point out thatmany citizens,when confrontedwithwhatpopulistsimply,maywellrespondbysaying,“Icancriticizecertainpeopleinallkinds ofwayswithout actuallywanting to deny their status as free and equal

fellowcitizens.”Second,andmore important, theboundaryproblemisnot thekindofproblemthatanypoliticaltheorydehautenbascansolveonceandforall. Addressing it is a process in which both existing members and aspiringmemberscanhaveasay;itshouldbeamatterofdemocraticdebate,notaonce-and-for-all decisionbasedonunchangeable criteria.5 Itwould be amistake, ofcourse,tothinkthatthisprocesswillnecessarilymeanprogressinthesenseofmore inclusiveness; perhaps, at the end of a genuine democratic debate,definitionsofapeoplewillbemorerestrictivethanatthebeginning.This is not where the problems end for the liberal democratic critique of

populism, though. So far, we have also taken for granted that being anantipluralist is in and of itself undemocratic. Is it? Pluralism—just like itsparticularvariant,multiculturalism—isoftenpresentedsimultaneouslyasafactandasavalue.Just like theboundaryproblem,we’re leftwith thequestionofwhyasimplefactshouldautomaticallyhaveanymoralweight.Thenthereistheissue that pluralism and diversity are not first-order values as is, for example,freedom. Nobody could plausibly say that more pluralismmust automaticallyalwaysbe good.While pluralismand liberalismhaveoften been associated inliberal thought, many philosophers have also rightly insisted that, on closerinspection, it is actually very difficult to get from the presence of pluralism(especiallyapluralismofvaluesand lifestyles) toaprincipledendorsementofliberty.6 So we need to be much more precise about what’s wrong withantipluralism.Wemightwanttosaythattherealproblemwithpopulismisthatitsdenialofdiversityeffectivelyamountstodenyingthestatusofcertaincitizensasfreeandequal.Thesecitizensmightnotbeexcludedofficially,butthepubliclegitimacyoftheirindividualvalues,ideasofwhatmakesforthegoodlife,andevenmaterialinterestsareeffectivelycalledintoquestionandevendeclarednottocount.AsJohnRawlsargued,acceptingpluralismisnotarecognitionoftheempirical fact that we live in diverse societies; rather, it amounts to acommitment to try to find fair terms of sharing the same political spacewithotherswhomwe respect as free and equal but also as irreducibly different intheiridentitiesandinterests.Denyingpluralisminthissenseamountstosaying,“Icanonly live inapoliticalworldwheremyconceptionof thepolity,ormypersonal view of who is a real American, gets to trump all others.”7 This issimplynotademocraticperspectiveonpolitics.Finally,there’saconcernwithhowdemocratssometimesrespondtopopulist

leadersandparties.Inanumberofcountries,thereactionofnonpopulistparties—aswellasoccasionallythepublicmedia—hasbeentoerectacordonsanitairearoundpopulists:nocooperationwiththem,certainlynopoliticalcoalitionswith

them,nodebatesonTV,andnoconcessionsonanyoftheirpolicydemands.Insomecases, theproblemswith such strategiesof exclusionhavebeenobviousfrom the start. Nicolas Sarkozy, for instance, kept claiming that the FrontNational(FN)doesnotreallysharebasicFrenchrepublicanvalues;atthesametime,hewascopying theFN’spolicieson immigration,makinghisownpartyintosomethinglikean“FNlite.”Theevidenthypocrisywasboundtoundermineanyanti-FNstrategy.Lessobviously,thefactthatallpoliticalactorsotherthanthepopulistscolludetoexcludethelatterimmediatelystrengthensthecredibilityof populists in claiming that the established parties are forming a “cartel”;populists delight in pointing out that their competitors are ultimately all thesame, despite their professed ideological differences—hence the tendency tofuseeventhenamesoftheestablishedpartiestoreinforcethesensethatonlythepopulists offer a genuine alternative. (In France, for instance,Marine Le Penusedtospeakofthe“UMPS,”fusingtheacronymofSarkozy’sright-wingpartywiththatofthesocialists.)Apart from these more practical challenges—which are more about

calculating political effects as to what might actually succeed in restrainingpopulist passions—there remains a principled worry. I have insisted that theproblemwithpopulists is that theyexclude.Sowhatarewesupposed todo inreturn? Exclude them! I have also repeatedly pointed out that populists arecommittedantipluralists.Sowhatdowedobyexcludingthem?Reduceoverallpluralism. Something seems not right here. One is reminded of what gaveWallace’scounterpunchesagainstliberalssuchforceinhisday:hecouldclaimwithsomeplausibilitythat“thebiggestbigotsintheworldare...theoneswhocallothersbigots.”8

I suggest that, as long as populists stay within the law—and don’t inciteviolence, for instance—other political actors (andmembers of the media) areunder some obligation to engage them. When they enter parliaments, theyrepresentconstituents;simplytoignorethepopulistsisboundtoreinforcethoseconstituents’ sense that “existing elites” have abandoned them or never caredabouttheminthefirstplace.Yettalkingtopopulistsisnotthesameastalkinglikepopulists.Onecantaketheirpoliticalclaimsseriouslywithouttakingthemat face value. In particular, one does not have to accept the ways in whichpopulists frame certain problems. To return to an earlier example, were therereallymillionsofunemployedinFranceinthe1980s?Yes.Hadeverysinglejobbeen taken by an “immigrant,” as the FrontNationalwanted the electorate tobelieve?Ofcoursenot.The point here is not that proper argument and evidence are guaranteed to

defeatpopulistsinparliaments,inpublicdebate,andultimatelyatthepolls.Ifitis true that populists ultimately appeal to a certain symbolic rendering of the“truepeople,”theappealofthatimagewillnotvanishautomaticallywhenvotersarepresentedwith some set of correct statistics about aparticularpolicy area.But this doesn’t mean that proper argument and evidence cannot make adifference. A significant part of Wallace’s support in his 1968 presidentialcampaign disappeared, for instance, after unions started to bombard theirmemberswithinformationaboutboththeactualsituationof“theworkingman”inAlabamaandhowlittleWallacehaddoneasgovernortoimproveit.9

Moreimportantstill,onecanalsoengagewithpopulistsonasymboliclevel.This can take the shape of arguing about what a polity’s foundationalcommitments really mean. But it might also come down to the symbolicaffirmation of parts of the population that had previously been excluded. Asshouldhavebecomeclear,figureslikeEvoMoralesorErdoğanarenotjustevilauthoritarianswhoemergedoutofnowhere;Moraleswasjustifiedinadvocatingfor the indigenous peoples of Bolivia who had been largely kept out of thepolitical process, and Erdoğan was doing something democratic when heassertedthepresenceofwhathadoftenbeendismissedas“blackTurks”—thatisto say, the poor and devout Anatolian masses—against the one-sidedWesternized image of the Turkish Republic celebrated by the Kemalists. Thequest for inclusiondidnothave to take the formof theparspro toto populistclaim;arguably,someofthedamagetodemocracymighthavebeenavertedhadexisting elites been willing to take steps toward both practical and symbolicinclusion.

ACrisisofRepresentation?TheAmericanScene

Oneoftheresultsoftheanalysispresentedsofar—counterintuitiveasitmightseem—isthattheonepartyinUShistorythatexplicitlycalleditself“populist”wasinfactnotpopulist.Populism,asiswellknown,wasamovementprimarilyof farmers in the 1890s. It briefly threatened the hold of Democrats andRepublicansontheUSpoliticalsystem.Tobesure,itisnotthefirstinstanceofwhathistorianshaveseenaspopulisminAmericanhistory.Ontheonehand,theFounding Fathers themselves were obviously wary of unconstrained popularsovereignty. They precisely tried to avoid a situation where an imaginedcollectivewholecouldbeplayedoffagainstthenewpoliticalinstitutions.ThisisthemeaningofthefamouswordsinFederalist63:“Itisclearthattheprincipleofrepresentationwasneitherunknowntotheancientsnorwhollyoverlookedin

theirpoliticalconstitutions.ThetruedistinctionbetweentheseandtheAmericangovernments,liesINTHETOTALEXCLUSIONOFTHEPEOPLE,INTHEIRCOLLECTIVE CAPACITY, from any share in the LATTER, and not in theTOTALEXCLUSIONOFTHEREPRESENTATIVESOFTHEPEOPLEfromthe administration of the FORMER” (emphasis in original). Still, the Framersalso invoked the“geniusof thepeople,”10and theConstitutioncontainedmany“popular” elements, from juries to militias.11 Thomas Jefferson from the startprovidedarepublicanandproduceristlanguagethatwouldberevivedbymanypoliticalrhetoriciansdefendingtherightsofthehardworkingmajority;virtuallyall strands of Protestantismperpetuated the notion that the people themselves,unaided by clergy, could find spiritual truth; Andrew Jackson, central to the“Ageof theCommonMan,”withhiscampaignagainst the“moneypower,” isvariously presented as a force for deepening democracy or as a “populist”—called“KingMob”forareason—whocreatedawholenewstyleofpolitics inwhich public figures used references to the “log cabin” and “hard cider” todemonstratethattheystoodwithandforthe“plainpeople.”Inthe1850stherewas the nativist (in particular, anti-Catholic)KnowNothingmovement. It hadinitially been called the “NativeAmericanParty” before it became simply the“American Party” (raising a claim to exclusive representation with its veryname).MembershipwasonlyopentoProtestantmenandtheorganizationwasbuilt on secrecy (hence, when questioned, its adherents were supposed todeclare,“Iknownothingbutmycountry”).Theyear1892sawtheformationofthe People’s Party, whose adherents were first simply called “Pops”—and,eventually, “Populists.” Like so many political labels, this one was initiallymeanttobederogatory(with“Populites”beinganothercontenderforanegativedesignation)andonlylatercametobedefiantlyadoptedandcelebratedbythosewhomthenamehadbeenmeanttodenigrate.(Thewordneoconservativehadasimilarcareerinthe1970s.)12

The self-declared Populists emerged frommovements of farmers no longercontenttoraisecornbutdeterminedtoraisehellpolitically.Theirexperienceofdebt and dependency—and the economic downturn of the early 1890s inparticular—inspiredthemtoorganizeforarangeofdemandsthatvariouslysetthemagainstboththeDemocratsandtheRepublicans.Inparticular,asfarmers,they needed cheap credit and transportation to get their produce to the East.Hence they felt increasingly at the mercy of banks and railroad owners.Eventually,theirconfrontationwithwhatwasusuallyjustcalled“theinterests”gave rise to two demands that largely came to define Populism’s politicalprogram:on theonehand, the creationof a subtreasury—the freeingof silver

(againstwhatthe“Goldbugs”advocated)—and,ontheother,thenationalizationoftherailroads.13

ThePopulists formulated theirdemands inpolitical language thatclearlyset“thepeople”against self-servingelites.MaryElizabethLease famouslystated,“WallStreetownsthecountry.Itisnolongeragovernmentofthepeople,bythepeople,andforthepeople,butagovernmentofWallStreet,byWallStreet,andfor Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, andmonopolyisthemaster.”14Populistdiscoursewassuffusedwithnone-too-subtlemoralclaims;therewastalkof“theplutocrats,thearistocrats,andalltheotherrats”;andsomeoftheslogans(andpoetry)arereminiscentofthecentraltropesof the Occupy Wall Street Movement (for example, the “ninety and nine inhovelsbare,theoneinapalacewithrichesrare”).15

Assaidabove,historiansaswellaspoliticalandsocialtheoristsofthe1950sand 1960s often described the Populists as driven by anger and resentment,prone to conspiracy theories, and guilty—not least—of racism. RichardHofstadter famously spoke of the “paranoid style in American politics.”16

Evidence isnothard to find.GeorgiaPopulist leaderTomWatsononceasked,“Did[Jefferson]dreamthatin100yearsorlesshispartywouldbeprostitutedtothe vilest purposes of monopoly; that red-eyed Jewish millionaires would bechiefs of that Party, and that the liberty and prosperity of the country wouldbe . . . constantly and corruptly sacrificed toPlutocratic greed in the nameofJeffersonian democracy?”17 Yet in retrospect, it seems clear that theColdWarliberal historians and political theoristswere talkingmore aboutMcCarthyismand the riseof the radicalconservativemovement (including itsoutright racistfactionssuchastheJohnBirchSociety)thantheactualPopulistsofthe1890s.ThePopulistswereanexampleofadvocacyforthecommonpeople—without,

I think, pretending to represent the people as awhole. To be sure, thereweresometimes ambiguities or (perhaps conscious) slippages, even in the famousOmahaPlatform,withwhichthePeople’sPartyhadconstituteditself:

We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century thestrugglesofthetwogreatpoliticalpartiesforpowerandplunder,while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the sufferingpeople.Wechargethatthecontrollinginfluencesdominatingboththese parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions todevelopwithoutseriousefforttopreventorrestrainthem.Neitherdotheynowpromiseusanysubstantialreform.Theyhaveagreedtogethertoignore,inthecomingcampaign,everyissuebutone.

Theypropose to drown the outcries of a plundered peoplewiththe uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that capitalists,corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, thedemonetizationofsilverand theoppressionsof theusurersmayall be lost sight of. They propose to sacrifice our homes, lives,andchildrenonthealtarofmammon;todestroythemultitudeinordertosecurecorruptionfundsfromthemillionaires.Assembledontheanniversaryofthebirthdayofthenation,and

filled with the spirit of the grand general and chief whoestablishedourindependence,weseektorestorethegovernmentof theRepublic to the hands of “the plain people,”withwhichclassitoriginated.Weassertourpurposestobeidenticalwiththepurposes of the National Constitution; to form a more perfectunion and establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provideforthecommondefence,promotethegeneralwelfare,andsecuretheblessingsoflibertyforourselvesandourposterity.

The Populists advocated democratic reforms such as the direct election ofsenatorsaswellasthesecretballot—andtheysoughtgraduatedtaxationandthecreationofwhattodaywouldbecalledaregulatorystate.Buttheydidsowithreference to the “plain people.” Implementing their ideal of a “cooperativecommonwealth” may well have resulted in something that elsewhere in theworld would have been called “Social Democracy.”18 As the Omaha Platformmadeabundantlyclear,theyrespectedtheConstitution,althoughinanAmericancontext—unlikeinaEuropeanone—anticonstitutionalismwillhardlyserveasausefulcriterionforidentifyingpopulistsinthesensedefendedinthisbook.Afterall,theConstitutionwasandremainsreveredbyvirtuallyeveryone.The Populists rarely ever claimed to be the people as such—although they

unitedmenandwomen,andwhitesandblackstoadegreethatarguablynoneofthe other major parties did at the time. They might have been much moresuccessful had they not been viciously attacked by Southern Democrats inparticular: voting fraud andbriberywere common, aswas violence.Had theirdemandsnotbeenco-optedbybothDemocrats andRepublicans;had theynotcommitted both strategic and tactical errors (over which historians, in anormatively loaded debate, continue to argue today); and had the “DemoPop”ticketofWilliamJenningsBryan,the“theGreatCommoner,”succeededin1896—if all these things had turned out differently,US political historymay havetakenaverydifferentturn.19YetthePopulistmovementwasnotentirelywithout

consequences.Afterthemid-1890ssomePopulistswentintotheSocialistParty;at least some of the main demands of the Populists were realized during theheyday of Progressivism; and, as C. Vann Woodward, in his attack on themisreadingofpopulismbyColdWarliberalsinthe1950spointedout,eventheNewDealofthe1930scouldbesaidtobeaformof“neo-Populism.”20

None of this is to say that twentieth-centuryAmerican history has not seeninstances of populism in my sense of the term: McCarthyism is an obviouscandidate,aswouldbeGeorgeWallaceandhisfollowers.JimmyCarterclaimedthelabel“populist”forhimself,butheclearlymeanttoalludetothePopulistsofthelatenineteenthcentury(aswellasthe“populist”associationsofevangelicalProtestantism and rural and republican—in one word, Jeffersonian—understandingsofdemocracy).Inonesenseatleast,Wallacehadpavedthewayfor him: it became imaginable to look to a Southern governor as a source ofmoralrenewalfortheUnitedStates.(BillClintonarguablystillbenefittedfromthislegacyofassociationsnearlytwodecadeslater.)ItiswiththeriseoftheTeaPartyandDonaldTrump’sastoundingsuccessin

2015–16 thatpopulismasunderstood in thisbookhas reallybecomeofmajorimportanceinAmericanpolitics.Clearly,“anger”hasplayedarole,butasnotedearlier,“anger”isnotbyitselfmuchofanexplanationofanything.Thereasonsfor that anger have something to dowith a sense that the country is changingculturally in ways deeply objectionable to a certain percentage of Americancitizens:21 there is the increasing influence of, broadly speaking, social-sexualliberal values (same-sex marriage, etc.) and also concerns about the UnitedStates becoming a “majority-minority country,” inwhich traditional images of“the real people”—white Protestants, that is—have less and less purchase onsocialreality.Inadditiontotheseculturalissues,therearetheveryrealmaterialgrievancesand,not least, the sense that theeconomic interestsofa significantnumber ofAmericans are unrepresented inWashington—an impression that isactuallyverymuchconfirmedbyhardsocialscientificdata.22

AsHanspeterKriesihasargued,Westerncountrieshaveseenanewconflictline emerge in recent decades—what political scientists call a “cleavage”betweencitizenswhofavormoreopennessandthosewhoprefersomeformofclosure.23Thisconflictcanplayoutprimarily ineconomic terms,or itcan turnintomostlyaculturalissue.Whenidentitypoliticspredominates,populistswillprosper. The problem is not an economy that less and less fits capitalist self-justificationsintermsofcompetitionandheroicentrepreneurshipbenefitingall.(EvenTheEconomist,notexactlyaMarxisantpublication,hasbeguntocriticizemonopolypowerintheUnitedStates.)InsteadtheissueissaidtobeMexicans

stealingjobs(andsupposedlydoingvariousotherthings).Now,oneshouldnotpretend that all identity issues can seamlessly be translated into questions ofmaterialinterests;oneneedstotakeindividuals’valuecommitmentsseriously.Itis necessary, however, to remember one important difference between culturaland economic changes:many of the former do not, in the end, directly affectmanyindividuals.Peoplemightnot likethewaythecountryisgoing,butwhoother thanwedding photographerswith very traditional beliefs aboutmarriagereally feel touched in their everyday lives by the legalization of same-sexmarriage?Itwouldnotbe thefirst timethat theUnitedStateshasdevelopedamore inclusive, tolerant, and generous self-conception as a nation over theobjectionsofasmallbutpassionatefactionofvoters.Asimilarlyhopefulstorycannotbetoldaboutthemaleswithnomorethanahighschooldiplomawhoseskills,ifany,aresimplynotneededintheAmericaneconomytoday.TheUnited States today requires deep structural reform in this respect, and

someonelikeBernieSandersclearlyisrighttodrawattentiontosuchaneed.Asshouldhavebecomeclearbynow,Sandersisnotaleft-wingpopulist,ifoneisatallpersuadedbythecriteriadevelopedinthisbook.Thereasonisnotthattherecan’tbesuchathingasleft-wingpopulismbydefinition,assomeleftistsoutsidethe United States sometimes say. Populism isn’t about policy content; it’sirrelevant that on one level Sanders can sound like Huey Long with hisimperative to“ShareOurWealth.”Populismisaboutmakingacertainkindofmoralclaim,andthecontentneededtospecifythatclaimmaywellcomefrom,forinstance,socialistdoctrine(Chávezistheobviousexample).

EuropebetweenPopulismandTechnocracy

OneimplicationoftheanalysispresentedinthisbookisthatNationalSocialismandItalianFascismneedtobeunderstoodaspopulistmovements—eventhough,Ihastentoadd,theywerenotjustpopulistmovementsbutalsoexhibitedtraitsthat arenot inevitableelementsofpopulismas such: racism,aglorificationofviolence,anda radical“leadershipprinciple.”Now, inWesternEurope,oneofthepeculiaritiesof theaftermathof thehighpointof totalitarianpolitics in the1930sand1940swasthefollowing:bothpostwarpoliticalthoughtandpostwarpolitical institutions were deeply imprinted with antitotalitarianism. Politicalleaders, aswell as jurists andphilosophers, sought tobuild anorderdesigned,aboveall,topreventareturntothetotalitarianpast.Theyreliedonanimageofthepastasachaoticeracharacterizedbylimitlesspoliticaldynamism,unbound“masses,”andattempts to forgeacompletelyunconstrainedpolitical subject—

suchasthepurifiedGermanVolksgemeinschaftor the“SovietPeople”(createdinStalin’simageandratifiedasrealinthe“StalinConstitution”of1936).As a consequence, the whole direction of political development in postwar

Europehasbeentowardfragmentingpoliticalpower(inthesenseofchecksandbalances, or even a mixed constitution) as well as empowering unelectedinstitutionsorinstitutionsbeyondelectoralaccountability,suchasconstitutionalcourts,allinthenameofstrengtheningdemocracyitself.24ThatdevelopmentwasbasedonspecificlessonsthatEuropeanelites—rightlyorwrongly—drewfromthe political catastrophes ofmidcentury: the architects of the postwarWesternEuropean order viewed the ideal of popular sovereignty with a great deal ofdistrust;afterall,howcouldonetrustpeoplewhohadbroughtfasciststopoweror extensively collaborated with fascist occupiers? Less obviously, elites alsohad deep reservations about the idea of parliamentary sovereignty and, moreparticularly,theideaofpoliticalactorsclaimingtospeakandactforthepeopleas a whole being empowered by parliaments (and thereby subscribing to themetapolitical illusion Kelsen had criticized). After all, had not legitimaterepresentativeassemblieshandedallpowerovertoHitlerandtoMarshalPétain,theleaderofVichyFrance,in1933and1940,respectively?Henceparliamentsin postwar Europe were systematically weakened, checks and balancesstrengthened, and institutions without electoral accountability (again,constitutional courts serving as the prime example) tasked not just withdefending individual rightsbutwithsecuringdemocracyasawhole.25 Inshort,distrust of unrestrained popular sovereignty, or even unconstrainedparliamentary sovereignty (what a German constitutional lawyer once called“parliamentary absolutism”) are, so to speak, built into the DNA of postwarEuropeanpolitics.TheseunderlyingprinciplesofwhatIhaveelsewherecalled“constraineddemocracy”werealmostalwaysadoptedwhencountrieswereableto shakeoffdictatorshipsand turn to liberaldemocracy in the last thirdof thetwentiethcentury—firstontheIberianpeninsulainthe1970sandtheninCentralandEasternEuropeafter1989.European integration, itneeds tobeemphasized,waspartandparcelof this

comprehensive attempt to constrain the popular will: it added supranationalconstraints tonationalones.26 (Which is not to say that this entire processwasmasterminded by anyone, or came about seamlessly. Of course, the outcomeswere contingent and had to do with who prevailed in particular politicalstruggles—a point that is particularly clear in the case of individual rightsprotection, a role forwhich national courts and theEuropeanCourt of Justicecompeted.) This logic was more evident initially with institutions like the

Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights. But thedesireto“lockin”liberal-democraticcommitmentsbecamemorepronouncedinthespecificcaseoftheEuropeanUnion(EU;or,asitwasknownuntil1993,theEuropean Economic Community [EEC]) context with the transitions todemocracyinSouthernEuropeinthe1970s.Now,theupshotofthisbriefhistoricalexcursusisthatapoliticalorderbuilt

on a distrust of popular sovereignty—an explicitly antitotalitarian and, if youlike, implicitly antipopulist order—will always be particularly vulnerable topoliticalactorsspeakinginthenameofthepeopleasawholeagainstasystemthatappearsdesignedtominimizepopularparticipation.Asshouldhavebecomeclearfromthediscussioninthisbook,populismisactuallynotreallyacryformorepoliticalparticipation,letalonefortherealizationofdirectdemocracy.Butitcanresemblemovementsmakingsuchcriesandhence,primafacie,gainsomelegitimacyonthegroundsthatthepostwarEuropeanorderreallyisbasedontheideaofkeeping“thepeople”atadistance.Why might Europe have become particularly vulnerable to populist actors

sincethemid-1970sorso,andinrecentyearsinparticular?Someanswersmightseemobvious:aretrenchmentofthewelfarestate,immigration,and,aboveallinrecent years, the Eurocrisis. But a crisis—whether economic, social, orultimatelyalsopolitical—doesnotautomaticallyproducepopulisminthesensedefended in this book (except, possibly, when old party systems aredisintegrating).On the contrary, democracies can be said perpetually to createcrises and, at the same time, to have the resources and mechanisms for self-correction.27Rather,atleastasfarasthecurrentwaveofpopulisminEuropeisconcerned, I would say that it is the particular approach to addressing theEurocrisis—for shorthand, technocracy—that is crucial for understanding thepresent-dayriseofpopulism.Inacuriousway, the twomirroreachother.Technocracyholds that there is

onlyonecorrectpolicysolution;populismclaimsthatthereisonlyoneauthenticwill of the people.28 Most recently, they have also been trading attributes:technocracyhasbecomemoralized(“youGreeks,andsoon,mustatoneforyoursins!”—that is, profligacy in the past), whereas populism has becomebusinesslike(thinkofBerlusconiand,intheCzechRepublic,Babiš’promisetorunthestatelikeoneofhiscompanies).Forneithertechnocratsnorpopulistsisthereanyneed fordemocraticdebate. Ina sense,botharecuriouslyapolitical.Hence it is plausible to assume that one might pave the way for the other,becauseeachlegitimizes thebelief that there isnorealroomfordisagreement.Afterall,eachholdsthatthereisonlyonecorrectpolicysolutionandonlyone

authenticpopularwillrespectively.Noting thisparallelallowsus toseeabitmoreclearlywhat reallyseparates

populistpartiesandmovementsontheonehandfromactorswho,ontheotherhand, might oppose, say, austerity measures and libertarian economicprescriptionswhilenotresemblingpopulistsinanyothersense.InFinland,thethingthatmakesthepartyof“TrueFinns”(and,morerecently,just“TheFinns”)apopulistpartyisnotthattheycriticizetheEUbutthattheyclaimexclusivelytorepresenttrueFinns.InItaly,itisnotBeppeGrillo’scomplaintsaboutItaly’slacastathatshouldleadonetoworryabouthimasapopulistbuthisassertionthathismovementwants(anddeserves)nothinglessthan100percentoftheseatsinparliament, because all other contenders are supposedly corrupt and immoral.Accordingtothislogic,thegrilliniultimatelyarethepureItalianpeople—whichthen also justifies the kind of dictatorship of virtue inside the Five StarMovementthatItouchedonearlier.Identifyingactualpopulistsanddistinguishingthemfrompoliticalactorswho

criticizeelitesbutdonotemployaparsprototologic(suchastheindignadosinSpain) is a prime task for a theory of populism in Europe today.What someobservershavecalled“democraticactivists”—asopposedtopopulists—firstofalladvanceparticularpolicies,buttotheextentthattheyusepeople-talkatall,theirclaimisnot“We,andonlywe,arethepeople”;itisrather“Wearealsothepeople.”29

Itisalsoimportanttosowsomedoubtaboutleft-wingstrategiesthatattemptselectivelytodrawonthepopulistimaginarytoopposeaneoliberalhegemony.Thepointisnotthatcritiqueofthelatterissomehowinandofitselfpopulist(inlinewiththeunderstandingofpopulismasamatterof“irresponsiblepolicies”).Rather, the trouble iswith schemes—verymuch inspired, it seems,byErnestoLaclau’s maxim that “constructing a people is the main task of radicalpolitics”—thataimtoportraytoday’smainpoliticalconflictasonebetweenthepeople(the“governed”)ontheonehandandthe“marketpeople,”thedefactogovernors in the form of investment managers, on the other.30 Will such anoppositionactuallymobilize“thepeople”?Unlikely.Willitimporttheproblemsofagenuinelypopulistconceptionofpolitics?Possibly.Hence the demand for a specific “left-wing populism” to oppose austerity

policies(or,forthatmatter,tocountertheriseofright-wingpopulism)inmanypartsofEurope iseitherredundantordangerous. It is redundant if thepoint issimply to offer a credible left-wing alternative or a reinvented SocialDemocracy.Whynottalkaboutbuildingnewmajoritiesinsteadofgesturingatthe “construction of a people”? What people exactly? However, if left-wing

populismreallymeanspopulisminthesensedefinedanddefendedinthisbook,itisclearlydangerous.What is the alternative?An approach that seeks to bring in those currently

excluded—whatsomesociologistssometimescall“thesuperfluous”—whilealsokeeping theverywealthyandpowerful fromoptingoutof the system.This isreallyjustanotherwayofsayingthatsomesortofnewsocialcontractisneeded.Broad-based support is required for such a new social contract in SouthernEuropean countries, and that support can only be built through an appeal tofairness,notjustfiscalrectitude.Tobesure,loftyappealsarenotenough;therehastobeamechanismtoauthorizesuchanewsettlement.Itmightcomeintheshape of a grand coalition actually empowered at election time.Alternatively,societies could officially renegotiate their very constitutional settlements, asIcelandand,inamuchlessdramaticway,Irelandhavebeentryingtodo,albeitwithoutmuchsuccess.

Conclusion

SevenThesesonPopulism1.Populismisneithertheauthenticpartofmoderndemocraticpoliticsnor a kind of pathology caused by irrational citizens. It is thepermanent shadow of representative politics. There is always thepossibilityforanactortospeakinthenameofthe“realpeople”asawayofcontestingcurrentlypowerfulelites.Therewasnopopulisminancient Athens; demagoguery perhaps, but no populism, since thelatter exists only in representative systems. Populists are not againsttheprincipleofpoliticalrepresentation; theyjust insist thatonlytheythemselvesarelegitimaterepresentatives.

2.Noteveryonewhocriticizeselitesisapopulist.Inadditiontobeingantielitist, populists are antipluralist. They claim that they and theyalone represent the people. All other political competitors areessentiallyillegitimate,andanyonewhodoesnotsupportthemisnotproperly part of the people. When in opposition, populists willnecessarily insist that elites are immoral, whereas the people are amoral,homogeneousentitywhosewillcannoterr.

3.Itcanoftenseemthatpopulistsclaimtorepresentthecommongoodaswilled by the people.On closer inspection, it turns out thatwhatmattersforpopulists is less theproductofagenuineprocessofwill-formation or a common good that anyone with common sense cangleanthanasymbolicrepresentationofthe“realpeople”fromwhichthecorrectpolicyisthendeduced.Thisrendersthepoliticalpositionofapopulist immune to empirical refutation.Populists canalwaysplayoff the “real people” or “silent majority” against electedrepresentativesandtheofficialoutcomeofavote.

4.Whilepopulistsoftencallforreferenda,suchexercisesarenotaboutinitiating open-ended processes of democratic will-formation amongcitizens. Populists simply wish to be confirmed in what they havealreadydeterminedthewilloftherealpeopletobe.Populismisnotapathtomoreparticipationinpolitics.

5.Populistscangovern,andtheyarelikelytodosoinlinewiththeirbasic commitment to the idea that only they represent the people.Concretely, theywillengage inoccupying thestate,massclientelismand corruption, and the suppression of anything like a critical civilsociety. These practices find an explicit moral justification in thepopulist political imagination and hence can be avowed openly.Populists can also write constitutions; these will be partisan or“exclusive” constitutions designed to keep populists in power in thename of perpetuating some supposed original and authentic popularwill.Theyare likelytoleadtoseriousconstitutionalconflictatsomepointorother.

6. Populists should be criticized forwhat they are—a real danger todemocracy(andnotjustto“liberalism”).Butthatdoesnotmeanthatoneshouldnotengagetheminpoliticaldebate.Talkingwithpopulistsis not the same as talking like populists.One can take the problemsthey raise seriouslywithout accepting theways inwhich they frametheseproblems.

7. Populism is not a corrective to liberal democracy in the sense ofbringing politics “closer to the people” or even reasserting popularsovereignty,asissometimesclaimed.Butitcanbeusefulinmakingitclearthatpartsofthepopulationreallyareunrepresented(thelackofrepresentationmightconcern interestsor identity,orboth).Thisdoesnot justify the populist claim that only their supporters are the realpeopleandthattheyarethesolelegitimaterepresentatives.Populism,then,shouldforcedefendersofliberaldemocracytothinkharderaboutwhat current failures of representationmight be. It should also pushthemtoaddressmoregeneralmoralquestions.Whatarethecriteriaforbelonging to the polity?Why exactly is pluralismworth preserving?Andhowcanoneaddress theconcernsofpopulistvotersunderstoodasfreeandequalcitizens,notaspathologicalcasesofmenandwomendriven by frustration, anger, and resentment? The hope is that thisbook has suggested at least some preliminary answers to thesequestions.

Notes

Introduction

1 Ivan Krastev, “The Populist Moment,” available at http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-09-18-krastev-en.html,accessedMarch1,2012.2DanielA.Bell,TheChinaModel:PoliticalMeritocracyandtheLimitsofDemocracy(Princeton,NJ:

PrincetonUniversityPress,2015).

Chapter1

1GhitaIonescuandErnestGellner,“Introduction,”inGhitaIonescuandErnestGellner(eds.),Populism:ItsMeaningandNationalCharacter(London:Weidenfeld&Nicolson,1969),1–5;here1.2Forasystematictreatmentofthedilemmaforgovernmentstoberesponsibleorresponsive,seePeter

Mair,RulingtheVoid:TheHollowingofWesternDemocracy(NewYork:Verso,2013).3CasMuddeandCristóbalRoviraKaltwasser(eds.),PopulisminEuropeandtheAmericas:Threator

CorrectiveforDemocracy?(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,2013).4 BenjaminArditi, “Populism as an Internal Periphery of Democratic Politics,” in Francisco Panizza

(ed.),PopulismandtheMirrorofDemocracy(London:Verso,2005),72–98.5Tobe sure, acertainkindofpopulism in thenameof liberalvalueshasbecomeprominent in some

Europeancountriesinrecentyears.ThinkofPimFortuynandGeertWildersintheNetherlands.Butthisisstill populism that employs “freedom” and “tolerance” as markers of moral difference to distinguish aproperpeoplefromotherswhodonotbelong;itisnotliberalism.6Whichisnottosaythatallisrelative.Democracyisahighlycontestedconceptaswell,butthatisno

reasontogiveupondoingdemocratictheory.7Technicallyspeaking,IamtryingtoconstructanidealtypeinthesensesuggestedbyMaxWeber.The

purpose of doing so is partly to bring out what I consider crucial differences between populism anddemocracy.Theobviousdangerhere isoneofcircularity:onebuildscharacteristicsone findspolitically,morally,orevenaestheticallydistasteful intoone’sdefinitionofpopulismonly to find thatpopulismanddemocracy are different—an operation made easier if one can pretend that democracy is not itself acontestedconceptbuthasameaningonwhichallmustagree.Putdifferently,thereistheperilofgettingaveryclear-cutnormativepictureonlybypaintingcontrastsinahighlypartisanway.Whichisnotthesameworryas thatof scholars incomparativepoliticsworkingonpopulism; theirprimeanxiety is conceptualstretching.SeeGiovanniSartori, “ConceptMisformation inComparativePolitics,” inAmericanPoliticalScienceReview,vol.64(1970),1033–53.8Ishareaconcernaboutwhatonemightcall“theorytheory”—thekindofpoliticaltheorythatismainly

concernedwithrespondingtoothertheories,asopposedtoanengagementwithcontemporaryhistoryinallitscomplexityand,often,sheeropaqueness.ButIdonotthinkthatsuchaconcernisbestexpressedthroughhistrioniccallsfor“realism,”whichcanonlygiverisetomoretheorytheory,justthistimeaboutareified“realism.”Ratherthandebatingwhether“Whatistobedone?”isalegitimatequestion,theoristsshoulddosomething.9RalfDahrendorf,“AchtAnmerkungenzumPopulismus,”inTransit:EuropäischeRevue,no.25(2003),

156–63.10There is the separate issue that neoliberal policy content andpopulism—as a logicof claims—can

perfectly well go together. See Kurt Weyland, “Neopopulism and Neoliberalism in Latin America:UnexpectedAffinities,” inStudies inComparative InternationalDevelopment, vol. 31 (1996), 3–31; andCristóbalRoviraKaltwasser,“FromRightPopulisminthe1990stoLeftPopulisminthe2000s—AndBackAgain?,”inJuanPabloLunaandCristóbalRoviraKaltwasser(eds.),TheResilienceoftheLatinAmericanRight(Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,2014),143–66.11AquestionanyresponsiblereaderofMaxWeberwouldsurelyaskimmediately.12KarinPriester,RechterundlinkerPopulismus:AnnäherunganeinChamäleon (FrankfurtamMain:

Campus,2012),17.13 On this “gender gap,” see Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, “Populism,” in Michael

Freedenet al. (eds.),TheOxfordHandbookofPolitical Ideologies (NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2013),S.493–512.

14 Vanessa Williamson, Theda Skocpol, and John Coggin, “The Tea Party and the Remaking ofRepublicanConservatism,”inPerspectivesonPolitics,vol.9(2011),25–43;here33.15MarkElchardusandBramSpruyt,“Populism,PersistentRepublicanismandDeclinism:AnEmpirical

AnalysisofPopulismasaThinIdeology,”inGovernmentandOpposition,vol.51(2016),111–33.16 RoyKemmers, Jeroen van derWaal, and Stef Aupers, “Becoming Politically Discontented: Anti-

Establishment Careers of Dutch Nonvoters and PVV Voters,” in Current Sociology,http://csi.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/11/15/0011392115609651.full.pdf+html.17It isworthpointingout thatonecannotberesentfulandangryat thesametime:angerwillexpress

itselfimmediately;resentmentwill“fester”asalongingforrevengegrowsovertime.18MaxScheler,Ressentiment,ed.LewisA.Coser,trans.WilliamW.Holdheim(NewYork:FreePress,

1961).19 Bert N. Bakker, Matthijs Rooduijn, and Gijs Schumacher, “The Psychological Roots of Populist

Voting:EvidencefromtheUnitedStates,theNetherlandsandGermany,”inEuropeanJournalofPoliticalResearch,vol.55(2016),302–20.Theauthorsofthisstudyconcludeunashamedly:“PopulistslikeMarinLePen,GeertWilders,SarahPalinandNigelFaragehavemasteredtheskillofactivatingvoterswithlowagreeable personalities. That is what unites them across political contexts, what separates them fromexistingpartieswithinpoliticalcontexts,andwhatunderliestheirperhapsunexpectedsuccess”(317).20Foranaccountofhowemotionshave“cognitiveantecedents,”seeJonElster,AlchemiesoftheMind:

RationalityandtheEmotions(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1999).21Itdoesnotfollow,however,thateveryonecriticizedas“populist”todayisnormativelyvalidatedasa

properradicaldemocrat,asMarcoD’Eramoseemstothink.Seehis“PopulismandtheNewOligarchy,”inNewLeftReview,no.82(July–August2013),5–28.22SeymourM.Lipset,PoliticalMan:TheSocialBasesofPolitics(GardenCity,NY:Doubleday,1963),

178.23VictorC.Ferkiss, “Populist Influences onAmericanFascism,” inTheWesternPoliticalQuarterly,

vol.10(1957),350–73;here352.24ForanattempttogobeyondsimplisticdiagnosesofresentmentinthecaseoftheTeaParty,seeLisa

Disch, “The Tea Party: A ‘White CitizenshipMovement?,’” in Lawrence Rosenthal and Christine Trost(eds.),Steep:ThePrecipitousRiseoftheTeaParty(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,2012),133–51.25HelmutDubiel,“DasGespenstdesPopulismus,”inHelmutDubiel(ed.),PopulismusundAufklärung

(FrankfurtamMain:Suhrkamp.1986),33–50;here35.26AsIshallarguelater,populistsarenotagainstrepresentation—henceIdisagreewithanalysesthatpit

“populistdemocracy”against“representativedemocracy”;forexample,seetheotherwiseexcellentarticlebyKoenAbtsandStefanRummens, “PopulismversusDemocracy,” inPolitical Studies, vol. 55 (2007),405–24.27Thereissomeempiricalevidencethatvotersofpopulistpartiesalsoespousedistinctlyintolerantand

antipluralistviews.SeeAgnesAkkerman,CasMudde,andAndrejZaslove,“HowPopulistArethePeople?MeasuringPopulistAttitudesinVoters,”inComparativePoliticalStudies(2013),1–30.28ClaudeLefort,DemocracyandPoliticalTheory,trans.DavidMacey(Cambridge,UK:Polity,1988),

79.29 Nancy L. Rosenblum, On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship

(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,2008).30SeealsoC.VannWoodward,“ThePopulistHeritageandtheIntellectual,”inTheAmericanScholar,

vol.29(1959–60),55–72.31AndrewArato,“PoliticalTheologyandPopulism,”inSocialResearch,vol.80(2013),143–72.32“TheInauguralAddressofGovernorGeorgeC.Wallace,January14,1963,Montgomery,Alabama,”

availableathttp://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/ref/collection/voices/id/2952,accessedApril28,2016.

33WallacemadethisequationoftherealUnitedStateswith“Southland”veryexplicitwhenheargued:“HearmeSoutherners!Yousonsanddaughterswhohavemovednorthandwestthroughoutthisnation...wecallonyou fromyournative soil to joinwithus innational support andvote . . . andweknow . . .whereveryouare...awayfromtheheartsofSouthland...thatyouwillrespond,forthoughyoumayliveinthefartherestreachesofthisvastcountry...yourhearthasneverleftDixieland.”Seeibid.34Ibid.35 I amgrateful toDamonLinker forpointingme to thisquote.See“CBSWeekendNews,” Internet

Archive, May 7, 2016,https://archive.org/details/KPIX_20160508_003000_CBS_Weekend_News#start/540/end/600.36MargaretCanovan,ThePeople(Cambridge,UK:Polity,2005).37 Producerism cannot be purely economic—it is amoral concept valorizing the producers. Think of

GeorgesSorel’spoliticalthoughtasaprimaryexample.38MichaelKazin,ThePopulistPersuasion:AnAmericanHistory(Ithaca,NY:CornellUniversityPress,

1998).39Weknowhave thebenefitofawholeacademic literatureon themeaningof“natural-borncitizen.”

See,forinstance,PaulClementandNealKatyal,“OntheMeaningof‘NaturalBornCitizen,’”inHarvardLawReview,March11,2016,http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/03/on-the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen.40IamgratefultoIvanKrastevandZsoltEnyediinthiscontext.41Herepopulistscanallofasuddensoundlikedefendersofepistemicconceptionsofdemocracy.42CasMuddeandCristóbalRoviraKaltwasser,“Populism,”inMichaelFreedenetal.(eds.),TheOxford

HandbookofPoliticalIdeologies(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2013),493–512.43 Pierre Rosanvallon has argued that populism involves a triple simplification: first, a political-

sociological simplification along the lines of homogeneous people versus corrupt elites; second, aprocedural and institutional simplification directed against themessyworld of intermediary powers; andthird, a simplificationof the social bond that is reduced to being amatter of homogeneous identity.SeePierre Rosanvallon, “Penser le populisme,” in La Vie des idées, September 27, 2011, available athttp://www.laviedesidees.fr/Penser-le-populisme.html,accessedFebruary18,2016.44QuotedinZsoltEnyedi,“Plebeians,CitoyensandAristocrats,orWhereIstheBottomoftheBottom-

up? The Case of Hungary,” in Hanspeter Kriesi and Takis S. Pappas (eds.),European Populism in theShadowoftheGreatRecession(Colchester,UK:ECPRPress,2015),235–50;here239–40.45AsJillLeporehaspointedout,thetermusedtobeaeuphemismforthedead,untilNixonuseditto

refer toasupposedmajoritysupportingtheVietnamWar.JillLepore,TheWhitesofTheirEyes:TheTeaParty’sRevolutionandtheBattleoverAmericanHistory(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,2010),4–5.46See, for instance,GiovanniGentile,“ThePhilosophicBasisofFascism,” inForeignAffairs, vol. 6

(1927–28),290–304.47HansKelsen,VomWesenundWertderDemokratie (1929;repr.,Aalen:Scientia,1981),22.Kelsen

alsoconcludedthatmoderndemocracyinevitablyhadtobepartydemocracy.48Thepopulistsymbolicimageofthepeopleisnotsomethingentirelynovel.Amedievaltheoristlike

Baldusheldaconception,analogoustothetheoryoftheking’stwobodies,accordingtowhichtherewasthe empirical, ever-changing people as a group of individuals on the one hand—and, on the other, theeternalpopulus as a corpus mysticum. See Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study inMedievalPoliticalTheology(1957;repr.,Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,1997),209.Thecorpusmysticumhadcorporationalcharactersignifyingafictitiousorjuristic(collective)person;henceitwasusedsynonymously with corpus fictum, corpus imaginatum, and corpus repraesentatum. Just as there wasalwaysapossibilityofdistinguishingthekingbodypoliticfromthekingbodynatural,sothepeoplebodypolitic (whatBalduscalledhominumcollection inunumcorpusmysticum) and thepeople as representedandmediatedviainstitutionscouldbeseparated.Andjustasitwasnotaparadox,then,fortheopponentsofCharles I to “fight the king to defend the king,” populists claim to fight democratically elected elites to

defendthetruepeopleandthusdemocracy.Theking’stwobodiesappearaliveandwellwhenafollowerofChávezexplains,“TotellusChavistasthatChávezisdeadisliketellingChristiansthatChristisdead.”SeeCarl Moses, “Bildersturm in Caracas,” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 8, 2016,http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/amerika/venezuela-bildersturm-in-caracas-14004250-p2.html?printPagedArticle=true#pageIndex_2,accessedJanuary15,2016.49PierreRosanvallon,“RevolutionaryDemocracy,”inPierreRosanvallon,DemocracyPastandFuture,

ed.SamuelMoyn(NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2006),79–97;here79–82.JohnQuincyAdamsobservedonce:“Democracyhasnomonuments.Itstrikesnomedals.Itbearstheheadofnomanonacoin.Itsveryessenceis iconoclastic.”QuotedinJasonFrank,“TheLivingImageof thePeople,” inTheory&Event,vol.18,no.1(2015),athttps://muse.jhu.edu/article/566086.Infact,therewerestatuesofdemocracyin predemocratic times, often in plain clothes and holding snakes (symbolizing that the people wereconfined to the ground—and, one would think, potentially poisonous). See Uwe Fleckner et al. (eds.),PolitischeIkonographie:EinHandbuch(Munich:C.H.Beck,2011).50 See, for instance, the SVP’s “contract,” available at

http://www.svp.ch/de/assets/File/positionen/vertrag/Vertrag.pdf,accessedFebruary13,2015.51ChristopherH.AchenandLarryM.Bartels,DemocracyforRealists:WhyElectionsDoNotProduce

ResponsiveGovernment(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,2016).52QuotedinPaulaDiehl,“ThePopulistTwist,”manuscriptonfilewithauthor.53KathleenBruhn,“‘ToHellwithYourCorruptInstitutions!’:AMLOandPopulisminMexico,”inCas

MuddeandCristóbalRoviraKaltwasser(eds.),PopulisminEuropeandtheAmericas:ThreatorCorrectiveforDemocracy?(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,2012),88–112.54MarkMeckler and JennyBethMartin,TeaPartyPatriots:TheSecondAmericanRevolution (New

York:Holt,2012),14.55 BernardManin, The Principles of Representative Government (New York: Cambridge University

Press,1997).56Ibid.57 Ibid. “Identity” actually was the promise of a movement like National Socialism, legally

operationalizedbyCarlSchmitt toemphasize thecrucial roleofArtgleichheit, the racialhomogeneityoridentitybetweentheFührerandthepeople.SeeCarlSchmitt,Staat,Bewegung,Volk:DieDreigliederungderpolitischenEinheit(Hamburg:HanseatischeVerlagsgesellschaft,1935).58NadiaUrbinati,“ARevoltagainst IntermediaryBodies,” inConstellations,vol.22(2015),477–86;

andNadiaUrbinati,“ZwischenallgemeinerAnerkennungundMisstrauen,”inTransit:EuropäischeRevue,no.44(2013).59QuotedinDiehl,“PopulistTwist.”60 Beppe Grillo, Gianroberto Casaleggio, and Dario Fo, 5 Sterne: Über Demokratie, Italien und die

ZukunftEuropas, trans.ChristineAmmann,AntjePeter,andWalterKögler (Stuttgart:Klett-Cotta,2013),107.61 JonathanWhite and Lea Ypi, “On Partisan Political Justification,” in American Political Science

Review,vol.105(2011),381–96.62PaulLucardieandGerritVoerman,“GeertWildersandthePartyforFreedomintheNetherlands:A

Political Entrepreneur in the Polder,” in Karsten Grabow and Florian Hartleb (eds.), Exposing theDemagogues: Right-Wing and National Populist Parties in Europe, 187–203,http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_35420-544-2-30.pdf?140519123322,accessedJanuary15,2016.Tobesure,Wilders’s complete control also had pragmatic reasons: he hadwitnessed how the party of PimFortuyncompletely disintegrated after Fortuyn had been assassinated inMay 2002. See Sarah L. de Lange andDavidArt,“FortuynversusWilders:AnAgency-BasedApproachtoRadicalRightPartyBuilding,”inWestEuropeanPolitics,vol.34(2011),1229–49.63DeLangeandArt,“FortuynversusWilders,”1229–49.64Diehl,“PopulistTwist.”

65 In actual fact, the LegaNordwas organized like a clan,while the FrontNationalwas led by onefamily(Jean-MarieLePenwassucceededbyhisdaughterMarine;MarinenowinturnisbuildinguphernieceMarion.Currently,sixmembersoftheLePenfamilyserveaspartycandidates).SeeUlrikeGuérot,“MarineLePenunddieMetmorphosederfranzösischenRepublik,”inLeviathan,vol.43(2015),139–74.66MichaelSaward,“TheRepresentativeClaim,”inContemporaryPoliticalTheory,vol.5(2006),297–

318.67Ibid.,298.68PaulinaOchoa-Espejo,“PowertoWhom?ThePeoplebetweenProcedureandPopulism,”inCarlosde

laTorre (ed.),ThePromiseandPerilsofPopulism:GlobalPerspectives (Lexington:UniversityPressofKentucky,2015),59–90.69Rosenblum,OntheSideoftheAngels.70 Jürgen Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung: Beiträge zur Diskustheorie des Rechts und des

demokratischenRechtsstaats(FrankfurtamMain:Suhrkamp,1994),607.71 BenjaminMoffitt and Simon Tormey, “Rethinking Populism: Politics, Mediatisation and Political

Style,”inPoliticalStudies,vol.62(2014),381–97.72RobertS.Jansen,“PopulistMobilization:ANewTheoreticalApproachtoPopulism,”inSociological

Theory,vol.29(2011),75–96.73SeeKeithHawkins,“IsChávezPopulist?MeasuringPopulistDiscourseinComparativePerspective,”

inComparativePoliticalStudies,vol.42(2009),1040–67;andmorebroadlytheworkof“TeamPopulism,”availableathttps://populism.byu.edu/Pages/Home.aspx,accessedApril22,2016.

Chapter2

1 A useful exception is Daniele Albertazzi and DuncanMcDonnell,Populists in Power (New York:Routledge,2015).2 José Pedro Zúquete, “The Missionary Politics of Hugo Chávez,” in Latin American Politics and

Society,vol.50(2008),91–121;here105.3 BenjaminMoffitt, “How to Perform Crisis: AModel for Understanding the Key Role of Crisis in

ContemporaryPopulism,”inGovernmentandOpposition,vol.50(2015),189–217.4CarlosdelaTorre,PopulistSeductioninLatinAmerica(Athens:OhioUniversityPress,2010),188.5Whichisnottosaythatalltheseleadersareexactlythesameinstyleorsubstance.EspeciallyMorales

hasattemptedaninclusionaryapproach,notleastindraftinganewconstitutionforBolivia.His“committedconstitutionalism”offeredmanynewbasicrights(includingtherighttothegoodlifeandrightsfornatureitself); Morales also sought to recognize previously excluded minorities by declaring Bolivia a“plurinational”state.6BernardManin,ThePrinciplesofRepresentativeGovernment(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,

1997);andJeffreyEdwardGreen,TheEyesof thePeople:Democracy inanAgeof Spectatorship (NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2010).7 For the argument that mass clientelism was an early form of democracy, see Francis Fukuyama,

PoliticalOrderandPoliticalDecay(NewYork:FSG,2014).8SeeKurtWeyland,“TheThreatfromthePopulistLeft,”inJournalofDemocracy,vol.24(2013),18–

32.9For theVenezuelan case, seeSebastiánL.Mazzuca, “TheRise ofRentier Populism,” in Journal of

Democracy,vol.24(2013),108–22.10 See Yolanda Valery, “Boliburguesía: Nueva clase venezolana,”

http://www.bbc.com/mundo/economia/2009/12/091202_1045_venezuela_boliburguesia_wbm.shtml,accessedJanuary15,2016.11 Populist regimes constantly work on formatting societies in a particular image. Orbán created an

Orwellian-sounding“SystemofNationalCooperation”;ErdoğansteadilyadmonishesTurksthateveryonein society has to know their proper place (and their limits). See H. Ertuğ Tombuş, “Erdoğan’s Turkey:Beyond Legitimacy and Legality,” http://researchturkey.org/erdogans-turkey-beyond-legitimacy-and-legality,accessedJanuary15,2016.12KarinPriester,RechterundlinkerPopulismus:AnnäherunganeinChamäleon (FrankfurtamMain:

Campus,2012),20.13CarlSchmitt,TheCrisisofParliamentaryDemocracy, trans.EllenKennedy(Cambridge,MA:MIT

Press,1988),16–17.14See“ViktorOrbán’sSpeechat the14thKötcseCivilPicnic,”http://www.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-

minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/viktor-orban-s-speech-at-the-14th-kotcse-civil-picnic, accessedJanuary15,2016.15WolfgangMerkeletal.(eds.),DefekteDemokratien,2vols.(Opladen:Leske+Budrich,2003).16 An illuminating exception is the FLJS policy brief by Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwaser, Populism vs.

Constitutionalism?, http://www.fljs.org/sites/www.fljs.org/files/publications/Kaltwasser.pdf, accessed June16,2015.17 For this critique, see also: Corey Brettschneider, “Popular ConstitutionalismContra Populism,” in

ConstitutionalCommentary, vol. 30 (2015), 81–88. Themain reference point for debates about popularconstitutionalismintheUnitedStatesremainsLarryKramer’sThePeopleThemselves(NewYork:Oxford

UniversityPress,2004).18Witness, for instance,ElizabethBeaumontwriting, “I take the liberty of using the terms civic and

popular loosely and interchangeably as laymen’s terms meaning largely ordinary people, citizens, ornonofficial,” in The Civic Constitution: Civic Visions and Struggles in the Path toward ConstitutionalDemocracy(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,20114),4.OrthinkofTomDonnellyclaimingthatforalltheirdifferences,advocatesofpopularconstitutionalismsharea“populistsensibility”—whichcomesdowntonothingmorethan“acommonbeliefthattheAmericanpeople(andtheirelectedrepresentatives)shouldplayanongoing role in shapingcontemporaryconstitutionalmeaning.”TomDonnelly, “MakingPopularConstitutionalismWork,”inWisconsinLawReview(2012),159–94;here161–62.19 Richard D. Parker, “‘Here the People Rule’: A Constitutional Populist Manifesto,” in Valparaiso

UniversityLawReview,vol.27(1993),531–84;here532.20MartinLoughlin,“TheConstitutionalImagination,”inModernLawReview,vol.78(2015),1–25.21 Bruce Ackerman, “Three Paths to Constitutionalism—And the Crisis of the European Union,” in

BritishJournalofPoliticalScience,vol.45(2015),705–14.22 For the notion of a façade constitution, see Giovanni Sartori, “Constitutionalism: A Preliminary

Discussion,”inAmericanPoliticalScienceReview,vol.56(1962),853–64.23 Dan Edelstein, The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French

Revolution(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,2009).24 Renáta Uitz, “Can You Tell When an Illiberal Democracy Is in the Making? An Appeal to

Comparative Constitutional Scholarship fromHungary,” in International Journal of Constitutional Law,vol. 13 (2015), 279–300; here 286. On the newHungarian constitution, see also the special section onHungary’s illiberal turn in theJournalofDemocracy, vol. 23 (2012) and the collection editedbyGáborAttilaTóth,Constitution foraDisunitedNation:OnHungary’s2011FundamentalLaw (Budapest:CEUPress,2012).25QuotedinAgnesBatory,“PopulistsinGovernment?Hungary’s‘SystemofNationalCooperation,’”in

Democratization,vol.23(2016),283–303.26Uitz,“CanYouTellWhenanIlliberalDemocracyIsintheMaking?”27DieterGrimm, “Types ofConstitutions,” inMichelRosenfeld andAndrás Sajó (eds.),TheOxford

HandbookofComparativeConstitutionalLaw(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2012),98–132.28See,inparticular,theworksofRobertoVicianoPastorandRubénMartínezDalmau.Theearliercase

ofColombiaislessobviouslyacaseofwhatsympatheticobservershavecallednuevo constitucionalismolatinoamericano.29DavidLandau,“AbusiveConstitutionalism,”inUniversityofCaliforniaDavisLawReview,vol.47

(2013),189–260;here213.30 “Ein Schritt in Richtung Demokratie,” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 5, 2016,

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/amerika/parlament-in-venezuela-tritt-mit-oppositioneller-mehrheit-zusammen-13999306.html,accessed15January2016.31Ibid.32 Bryan Garsten, “Representative Government and Popular Sovereignty,” in Ian Shapiro, Susan C.

Stokes, Elisabeth Jean Wood, and Alexander S. Kirshner (eds.), Political Representation (New York:CambridgeUniversityPress,2009),90–110;here91.33ChristophMöllers,Demokratie:ZumutungenundVersprechen(Berlin:Wagenbach,2008),33–34.34GilbertAchcar,ThePeopleWant:ARadicalExplorationoftheArabUprising(Berkeley:University

ofCaliforniaPress,2013),1.35ErnestoLaclau,OnPopulistReason(London:Verso,2005).Laclauclaimsthat“itiseasy...tosee

thattheconditionofpossibilityofthepoliticalandtheconditionsofpossibilityofpopulismarethesame:theybothpresuppose socialdivision; inbothwe findanambiguousdemoswhich is, on theonehand, asection within the community (an underdog) and, on the other hand, an agent presenting itself, in

antagonisticway,asthewholecommunity.”Seehis“Populism:What’sinaName?,”inPopulismandtheMirrorofDemocracy(London:Verso,2005),32–49;here48.36Forthefollowing,seeJasonFrank,ConstituentMoments:Enacting thePeople inPostrevolutionary

America(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,2010).37Garsten,“RepresentativeGovernment.”38ClaudeLefort,ThePoliticalFormsofModernSociety:Bureaucracy,Democracy,Totalitarianism,ed.

JohnB.Thompson(Cambridge,MA:MITPress,1986),303–4.39PierreRosanvallon,“RevolutionaryDemocracy,”inPierreRosanvallon,DemocracyPastandFuture,

ed.SamuelMoyn(NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2006),83–84.40Quoted in Frank,ConstituentMoments, 2. The historian Daniel T. Rodgers rightly remarked: “To

follow thecareerof the termThePeople is towatchmen investawordwithextraordinarymeaningandthen,losingholdofittootherclaimants,scuttlefromtheconsequences.”Quotedinibid.,3.41 Quoted in Reinhart Koselleck, “Volk, Nation, Nationalismus, Masse,” in Geschichtliche

Grundbegriffe, vol. 7, eds.OttoBrunner,Werner Conze, andReinhartKoselleck (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta,1992), 141–431; here 148.AsKoselleck put it drily, “Bismarck formulated a form of ideology critiquewhichhewasableimmediatelytodeducefromtheconceptofthepeople.”42 Sheldon Wolin, “Transgression, Equality, Voice,” in Josiah Ober and Charles Hedrick (eds.),

Demokratia:AConversationonDemocracies,Ancient andModern (Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress,1996),63–90;here80.43Rosanvallon,“RevolutionaryDemocracy,”91.44Thinkofthedifferencebetweenfirst-waveandsecond-wavefeminism.45 “Mir geht es um Respekt,” inDie tageszeitung, September 7, 2013, http://www.taz.de/!5059703,

accessedJanuary2016.46 For a very illuminating comparison between the cases of Hungary and Egypt, seeGáborHalmai,

“GuyswithGunsversusGuyswithReports:EgyptianandHungarianComparisons,”Verfassungsblog,July15, 2013, http://www.verfassungsblog.de/de/egypt-hungary-halmai-constitution-coup, accessed November13,2013.47SomethingsimilaristrueofUkraine,oncetheMaidanprotestsbecameacontestofidentitarianclaims

aboutwhatUkrainereallyis.IamgratefultoBalázsTrencsényifordiscussionsinthiscontext.

Chapter3

1 Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels, Democracy for Realists (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress,2016).2 JosiahOber, “TheOriginalMeaning ofDemocracy,” inConstellations, vol. 15 (2008), 3–9. I don’t

needtoreiteratetheusualpointsabouttheexclusionofwomen,slaves,andmetics.3PeterMair,RulingtheVoid:TheHollowingofWesternDemocracy(NewYork:Verso,2013).4 Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, “The Responses of Populism to Dahl’s Democratic Dilemmas,” in

PoliticalStudies,vol.62(2014),470–87.5PaulinaOchoaEspejo,TheTimeofPopularSovereignty:ProcessandtheDemocraticState(University

Park:PennStateUniversityPress,2011).6See,for instance,RobertB.Talisse,“DoesValuePluralismEntailLiberalism?,” inJournalofMoral

Philosophy,vol.7(2010),302–20.7 I leave aside here the specifics of Rawls’s theory of public reasonwith its restriction of having to

recognize a reasonable pluralism. John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” in The Law ofPeoples(Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress,1999),129–80.8QuotedinMichaelKazin,ThePopulistPersuasion:AnAmericanHistory (Ithaca:CornellUniversity

Press,1998),233.9Kazin,PopulistPersuasion,241.10JohnKeane,TheLifeandDeathofDemocracy(NewYork:Norton,2009),277.11ThebookbyAkhilReedAmar,America’sConstitution:ABiography (NewYork:RandomHouse,

2006),stressesthesepopularelementsinparticular.12AccordingtoTimHouwen,“populistic”wascoinedin1896inanarticleinTheNationmagazine.See

TimHouwen, “TheNon-European Roots of the Concept of Populism” (working paper no. 120, SussexEuropeanInstitute,2011).13Keane,LifeandDeath,340.14QuotedinMargaretCanovan,Populism(NewYork:HarcourtBraceJovanovich,1981),33.15Ibid.,51,52.16RichardHofstadter,TheParanoidStyleinAmericanPolitics(NewYork:Vintage,2008).17QuotedinKazin,PopulistPersuasion,10.18CharlesPostel,ThePopulistVision(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007).19The book byBruceAckerman,We thePeople:Foundations (Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversity

Press,1993),speaksofafailedconstitutionalmoment(seepages83–84).20C.VannWoodward,“ThePopulistHeritageandtheIntellectual,” inTheAmericanScholar,vol.29

(1959–60),55.21 Pippa Norris, “It’s Not Just Trump,” Washington Post, March 11, 2016,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/11/its-not-just-trump-authoritarian-populism-is-rising-across-the-west-heres-why,accessedApril22,2016.22 Martin Gilens, Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America

(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,2014).23HanspeterKriesi,EdgarGrande,RomainLachat,MartinDolezal,SimonBornschier,andTimotheos

Frey, “Globalization and the Transformation of the National Political Space: Six European CountriesCompared,”inEuropeanJournalofPoliticalResearch,vol.45(2006),921–56.

24IhavemadethisargumentatgreaterlengthinContestingDemocracy:PoliticalIdeas inTwentieth-CenturyEurope(London:YaleUniversityPress,2011).25Onemightaddthatdignity—andnotfreedom—isthemastervalueofpostwarconstitutions.26 One might ask in what way, then, “constrained democracy” differs from “guided” or “defective”

democracy. The answer is that in the former, genuine changes in who holds power is possible and allconstraintsareultimatelyjustifiedwithregardtostrengtheningdemocracy.Inthelatter,norealchangeisallowed.27 Nadia Urbinati, “Zwischen allgemeiner Anerkennung und Misstrauen,” in Transit: Europäische

Revue,no.44(2013).28ChrisBickertonandCarloInvernizzi,“PopulismandTechnocracy:OppositesorComplements?,”in

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (2015),http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13698230.2014.995504,accessedApril28,2016.29See,for instance,CatherineFieschi,“APlagueonBothYourPopulisms!,”OpenDemocracy,April

19,2012,http://www.opendemocracy.net/catherine-fieschi/plague-on-both-your-populisms,accessedMarch13,2014.30WolfgangStreeck,GekaufteZeit(Berlin:Suhrkamp,2013).

Acknowledgments

IamgratefultotheInstituteofHumanSciences(InstitutfürdieWissenschaftenvomMenschen;IWM)inViennafortheinvitationtodelivertheIWMLecturesinNovember2013,onwhichthisbookisbased.KlausNellenandhiscolleaguesprovedwonderfulhosts,andIbenefitedgreatlyfromdiscussionswiththemandthe audienceduring those rainy fall evenings.Another stay at the IWM in thesummerof2014helpedmedevelopmyideasfurther.ThanksalsotothemembersoftheDepartmentofPoliticsinPrincetonaswell

as the staff at the Center for Human Values (its director Chuck Beitz inparticular),whoenabledmetohostaworkshoponpopulismin2012.I am grateful to all thosewho, during thatworkshop and after lectures and

seminars, talkedwithme about a topic that is of increasing concern tomanypeopleinEurope,theUnitedStates,andLatinAmericaatthebeginningofthetwenty-first century—even if one cannot always be sure whether one is eventalking about the same thing. (Richard Hofstadter once gave a talk with thetellingtitle“EveryoneIsTalkingaboutPopulism,butNoOneCanDefineIt”—astatementthatseemsnotimplausibletoday.)My thinking about democracy and populism, for better or for worse, took

shapeinconversationswiththefollowingfriendsandcolleagues(whichisnottosay that I could convince them ofmy theory):AndrewArato,DavidCiepley,Paula Diehl, Zsolt Enyedi, Gábor Halmai, Dick Howard, Carlo InvernizziAccetti, Turkuler Isiksel, Dan Kelemen, Seongcheol Kim, Alex Kirshner,Mattias Kumm, Cas Mudde, Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Ivan Krastev, RalfMichaels, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, Kim Lane Scheppele, and Nadia Urbinati.Special thanks to Cristóbal for an invitation to Santiago and discussions withhimandhiscolleaguesatDiegoPortales,andalsotoBalázsTrencsényiforveryhelpful conversations when completing the book in April 2016. I am alsogratefultoKoenVossenandRenéCuperusforinformationaboutDutchpolitics.This book draws on the following publications: “Populismus: Theorie und

Praxis”(Merkur,vol.69,2015),“ParsingPopulism:WhoIsandWhoIsNotaPopulist These Days?” (Juncture, vol. 22, 2015), “‘The People Must BeExtracted from within the People’: Reflections on Populism” (Constellations,vol.21,2014),“AnläufezueinerpolitischenTheoriedesPopulismus”(Transit,no.44,2013),“TowardsaPoliticalTheoryofPopulism”(NotiziediPoliteia,no.

107,2012),aswellasanumberofarticlesinDissent,TheNewYorkReviewofBooksDaily,TheGuardian,LeMonde,DieZeit,SüddeutscheZeitung,andNeueZürcherZeitung.Iamgratefultotwoeditors,bothforbeingpatientandforbeingfastwhenit

mattered: Heinrich Geiselberger, who helped with the German edition of thisbook,andDamonLinker,whoprovedanenthusiasticsupporteroftheAmericanone.Finally, I am indebted tomy family.Special thanks toHeidrunMüller,who

helpedinvariouswayswhenIwascompletingthebook.This essay is dedicated to my children, who are experiencing their first

presidential election campaign consciously and for whom various democraticvistasarewideopen.IcannotaspiretobelikeWhitman,butIcanperhapspayhomagebyhumblycopyingthededicationto“himorherwithinwhosethoughtrages the battle, advancing, retreating, between Democracy’s convictions,aspirations,andthePeople’scrudeness,vice,caprices.”