Abstract
This article offers a brief critical summary of our Populism(s) project to date, and introduces Thesis Eleven readers to the articles edited in this Special Issue. We comment on significant recent developments on populism scholarship, and reflect about the most recent developments currently taking place and their (potential) impact on current populism research.
Over two years have passed since we penned the introductory essay to Populism(s), the first part of a double special issue published in this journal, focused on populism in theoretical and comparative perspectives (Casanueva Baptista and Sanchez Urribarri, 2018). Back then, our main goal was to compile a select number of essays from different disciplines, locations and theoretical stances. We joined efforts to help overcome the claim that populism is an ‘essentially contested concept’ (Weyland, 2001; Rooduijn, 2019) and thus push the debate towards greater conceptual clarity (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017).
As we highlighted, populism as an idea has a long academic tradition and has been used (and abused) for years by different scholarly approaches. The concept experienced a dramatic renaissance in connection to the arrival in power of anti-establishment right-wing leaders and parties across the world – including most famously Donald Trump, Viktor Orban and the Law and Justice Party in Poland, among others; the United Kingdom’s decision to abandon the European Union (Brexit); the relative success of other nationalist right-wing political parties in Europe; and an overall climate of rising authoritarianism and democratic deterioration worldwide, often seen or assessed as mainly ‘pan-European and trans-Atlantic’ (Brubaker, 2017). Overall, the concern about ‘authoritarian populism’ (Norris and Inglehart, 2019) across different contexts ushered in this scholarly boom and has largely shaped the agenda until today.
It is 2021, and while ‘populism studies’ continues to mushroom, much has happened to open up new avenues for research. On one hand, there is a growing consensus on the key approaches to populism as a concept: ideational, strategic and discursive-performative (Moffitt, 2020). Yet, there is also a recognition of the pitfalls of reductionism and the need to be mindful of the theoretical and contextual diversity of the phenomenon (De la Torre and Mazzoleni, 2019). As populist experiences continue changing and leading to different trajectories and outcomes, there has been a greater attention to context and a growing recognition of the need for nuance and rigorous analysis. Studies of populism must be sensitive to the particular environments where the specific phenomena under scrutiny are taking place and, in the case of the surge of movements, leaders and projects variedly described as populist(s) in the West, ‘[an] awareness of the historicity and context specificity of what we call liberal democracy, a term that has become synonymous with democracy’, but is not (Urbinati, 2019).
Recent scholarship also includes influential works that seek to demarcate conceptual boundaries or examine their relevance for varied debates, such as the relevance of populism for leftist politics (Mouffe, 2018) or the efforts to distinguish populism from fascism (Finchelstein, 2019). Additionally, the range of topics discussed in edited volumes, special journal collections, articles, chapters and beyond is wide and varied, including the relationship between populism and different types of elites (Bull and Sánchez, 2020); the relevance of the constitutional dimension to understand populist politics (Blokker et al., 2019; Czarnota et al., 2021; Mudde, 2021); the politicization of high courts under populist administrations (Prendergast, 2019); the persistent need to distinguish populism from nationalism (Brubaker, 2020), and the prospects of the rule of law under populism (Lacey, 2019) – just to name a few topics linked to some of the debates that are put forward in this special issue.
This proliferation of populism scholarship presents not only a challenge but also an opportunity: it has potential for fruitful discussion across fields; for bridging the traditional gaps and inequities that exist in the knowledge production system around the concept; and for integrating the views of researchers located across the world – including in many countries where populist processes have taken place in recent times or are currently unfolding. The recent defeat of Donald J. Trump in his re-election bid for the US presidency and the ongoing troubles faced by populist leaders, parties and movements in different parts of the world have made clear that populism and its effects are far from being a one-way street. Instead, these new phenomena should be assessed against the backdrop of broader and more complex political processes, taking into account the specific contexts where they take place; that they are not linear (and often hard to predict); and the fact that they are often ambiguous processes – where both desirable and questionable traits can coexist. Moreover, in the uncertain times we experience today, it is precisely this kind of open, expansive – yet principled – approach that we feel is most needed. As we discuss next, we think this ethos is also found in the contributions published in this issue.
From Paulista Avenue to intellectual crossroads: The special issue’s contributions
The contributions in this special issue take heed of the opportunity to expand our interdisciplinary knowledge on this topic by reflecting the diversity of subjects and scholarly perspectives cited above, in connection with the latest debates. Quite often, these articles reflect common preoccupations, even in significantly different settings. For instance, Victor Albert’s article on Paulista Avenue in Brazil and Angélica Bernal’s article on indigenous resistance against resource extraction in Ecuador share more than just their broad geographical location in the South American continent or the limits and challenges of democratic institutions in the Latin American region. Both authors sought to demonstrate the blindness of populist regimes to the demands of grassroots activism, which entail a divorce of ‘the people’ from the disenfranchised. Furthermore, both articles are quite enlightening about common challenges in populism beyond ideological labels or orientations, specifically the difficulties of reining in populist administrations and the risks of polarization in weakly institutionalized democracies.
In her article, Angélica Bernal explains how the leftist government of Rafael Correa (2007–17) nationalized extractive industries with the purpose of accelerating Ecuador’s development, under the premise that this would be a transitory stage towards a post-industrial future – a promise that had motivated developmentalist approaches across the Global South in the past. The former president’s rhetoric was accompanied by legislative recognition and affordances that symbolically included non-human beings into the constitution to gain the favour of the indigenous peoples of Ecuador. What followed, however, was an intensification of mining and drilling practices in previously protected biodiverse areas where many of the indigenous nations make their lives. In response, Bernal argues, the indigenous resistance has enabled the emergence of bottom-up political demands that clash directly with the more traditional populist approach of the left-wing regime. Bernal refers to these interlinked dynamics as dual populisms, with potential relevance to understand other political phenomena in the Ecuadorian context (including the results of the recent 2021 general election), alongside other countries where pro-development imperatives have clashed with grassroots interests (for example, Bolivia under Evo Morales and Venezuela in recent times).
Victor Albert, on the other hand, offers an ethnographic study of his experience chronicling the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) in Brazil in 2015–16. More specifically, his article revolves around the protests that took place when former president Dilma Rousseff was in the process of being impeached, which conditioned place-making activities in important public spaces to the logics of increasing polarization experienced at that time. Then, the emergent right-wing populism of wealthy citizens in São Paulo clashed with the defenders of Rousseff – but also with anyone who was deemed as left-of-center. In this increasingly conflictive public realm, the MTST became particularly vulnerable to the negative perceptions of a large part of the population yet remained a critical actor. Albert’s paper is even more significant when we take into account the trajectory of Brazilian politics in the following years under Jair Bolsonaro, the figure that ended up capitalizing on (and contributing to) the atmosphere of divisiveness in the present day.
The ‘populist tales’ from contemporary Latin America are best understood if we consider the connections (and tensions) between the populist projects of today and the political traditions that prevailed in Latin America post-independence. In this respect, Chaguaceda and Camero provide our readers with a historical journey that explains the ideational tenets of republicanism, liberalism and populism, with special reference to the region. Their analysis reveals a stark contrast between populism and the other two traditions, thus questioning other novel approaches that seek to provide alternative republican interpretations of populism (see Vergara, 2020). We are confident that this debate, framed in terms of ideology versus institutions, will continue to unfold.
Rogers Brubaker refers us to the United States with his account of populism during the COVID-19 pandemic (in what eventually was the last year of Trump’s mandate). Rather than being concerned with exploring populist regimes or traditional forms of the term, Brubaker offers a novel definition that pays particular attention to the language of politics. Through the analysis of populist ‘tropes, gestures, and stances’, he highlights a number of paradoxes emerging in the resistance of North American society to COVID-19 restrictions – relating populism’s discursive style to the distrust of expertise, antipathy to government regulation, and scepticism towards elite overprotectiveness following the onset of the pandemic.
The present special issue is also bound together by three articles that engage philosophically with different aspects of the key concepts or ‘building blocks’ of populism. Emilia Palonen, for instance, proposes that ‘the people’ has often been misconstrued as a demographic subject or ‘sedimented category’. Instead, she argues, this collective subject has the potential to present itself (and be understood) as a performative process of ‘becoming’ the people, ‘not just as a representation […] but as debate that enables articulation of their demands, wishes and obstacles’. Palonen invites us to place our gaze on collective action in populist processes and their ability to articulate multiple demands, as opposed to the representation of a fixed democratic group.
Joseph Grim Feinberg’s contribution also focuses on ‘the people’. Yet, his argument is that we must explain the social constitution of the people as a subject if we wish to understand their presentation in the theatre of politics, where they exist as a ‘readymade’ entity with already crafted demands. Feinberg’s statement that the classed people has taken central stage in political theory once more elicits a well-justified curiosity for its existence in the extra-political, ‘forcing politics to expand into neglected areas as “the people” brings what had previously been excluded into the political sphere’.
Finally, Brian Singer has contributed a masterful explanation of the ‘torsion’ in the separation between power and knowledge expressed in populist politics. Through a close interpretation of the works of Claude Lefort and Ernesto Laclau, Singer demonstrates that the unity between power and knowledge, existent in pre-democratic regimes such as the monarchy, has been lost. In an effort to present an immanent source of truth in politics, democracy erected the figure of the people. Yet, in populist politics, the people seeks to assert its own truth in order to transform it – a frail but dangerous performance that puts at risk democratic politics and institutions. The risks and pitfalls of that premise have been well documented and remain a great concern across the world, especially in today’s volatile times.
Beyond populism(s)
How will populism research evolve in the coming years? Whilst the field has expanded dramatically and – as this issue shows – there remains substantial room for theoretical and empirical contributions, it is also true that forthcoming scholarship will need to grapple with less predictable events and trajectories. The articles that follow this introduction already suggest a few of these changes, from the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has tested populist ideology to the reconsiderations of the category ‘the people’ into more heterogeneous and fragmentary subjectivities. The increasing relevance of disinformation and ‘post-truth’ discourses, the (un)expected changes to global, national, and local economies, the reaffirmed importance of the state as an actor in times of emergency – these are some of the situations that will modify our thinking about the boundaries and horizons of a populist style of doing politics. Our ultimate goal is that Thesis Eleven is part of this ongoing conversation.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.