The difficulty of defining populism is well-known. As populism lacks a fully articulated ideological foundation, it tends to assume different shapes according to context. Due to this ideological inarticulation, some scholars have rejected the so-called ideational approach to populism. They instead propose its conceptualization as a political style or discourse. This paper advances an alternative approach. We reject the opposition between stylistic and ideational approaches to populism and develop the idea that the form and the content of populism are intrinsically related. We argue that the forms populism adopts cannot be understood in merely strategic or stylistic terms: they presuppose and entail specific ideological contents. Only by tracing the relationship between populist form and content can we make sense of populism as a distinctive phenomenon and explain its ambiguous relationship with liberal democracy.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Abts, K. and S. Rummens. “Populism versus Democracy.” Political Studies, 55(2) (2007), 405–424.
Arditi, B. Politics on the Edges of Liberalism: Difference, Populism, Revolution, Agitation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007).
Aslanidis, P. “Is Populism an Ideology? A Refutation and a New Perspective.” Political Studies, 64(1) (2016): 88–104.
Aslanidis, P. “Populism as a Collective Action Master Frame for Transnational Mobilization.” Sociological Forum, 33(2) (2018), 443–464.
Ballacci, G. Political Theory between Philosophy and Rhetoric: Politics as Transcendence and Contingency (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
Block, E. and R. Negrine. “The Populist Communication Style: Toward a Critical Framework.” International Journal of Communication, 11 (2017), 178–197.
Brito Vieira, M. and F. Carreira. “Populism and the Politics of Redemption.” Thesis Eleven, 149(1) (2018), 10–30.
Canovan, M. “‘Trust the People!’ Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy.” Political Studies, 47(1) (1999), 2–16.
Canovan, M. “Taking Politics to the People: Populism as the Ideology of Democracy.” In: Democracies and the Populist Challenge, eds. Y. Mény, Y. and Y. Surel, Y. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 25–44.
Cicero. On the Ideal Orator [De oratore], trans. James M. May and Jakob Wisse. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Cossarini, P. and F. Vallespín, eds. Populism and Passions: Democratic Legitimacy after Austerity (London: Routledge, 2019).
Disch, L. “The ‘Constructivist Turn’ in Democratic Representation: A Normative Dead-end?” Constellations 22(4) (2015), 487–499.
Eklundh, E. “Excluding Emotions: The Performative Function of Populism.” Partecipazione e conflitto, 13(1) (2020), 107–131.
Ferrara, A. “Can Political Liberalism Help Us Rescue ‘the People’ from Populism?” Philosophy and Social Criticism, 44(4) (2018), 463–477.
Finlayson, A. “Ideology and Political Rhetoric.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, eds. M. Freeden, L.T. Sargent, and M. Stears (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 197–213.
Freeden, M. “The Morphological Analysis of Ideology,” In: The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, eds. M. Freeden, L.T. Sargent, and M. Stears (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 115–137.
Freeden, M. “After the Brexit Referendum: Revisiting Populism as an Ideology.” Journal of Political Ideologies, 22(1) (2017), 1–11.
Freeden, M. Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Goodman, R. Words on Fire: Eloquence and Its Conditions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Katsambekis, G. “Constructing ‘the People’ of Populism: A Critique of the Ideational Approach from a Discursive Perspective.” Journal of Political Ideologies, 27(1) (2022), 53–74.
Kreis, R. “The ‘Tweet Politics’ of President Trump.” Journal of Language and Politics, 16(4) (2017), 607–618.
Laclau, E. “Why Constructing a People is the Main Task of Radical Politics.” Critical Inquiry, 32(4) (2006), 646–680.
Laclau, E. and C. Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (London: Verso, 2001).
Laclau, E. On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005).
Lefort, C. Democracy and Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988).
Moffitt B. and S. Tormey. “Rethinking Populism: Politics, Mediatisation and Political Style.” Political Studies, 62(2) (2014), 381–397.
Moffitt, B. The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2016).
Moffitt, B. Populism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020).
Mouffe, C. For a Left Populism (London: Verso, 2018).
Mudde, C. “Populism: An Ideational Approach.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Populism, eds. C. Rovira Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. Ochoa Espejo, and P. Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 27–47.
Mudde, C. “The Populist Zeitgeist.” Government & Opposition, 39(4) (2004), 541–563.
Mudde, C. and C. Rovira Kaltwasser. Populism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
Müller, J.-W. What Is Populism? (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).
Ostiguy, P. “Populism: A Socio-Cultural Approach.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Populism, eds. C. Rovira Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. Ochoa Espejo, and P. Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 73–97.
Ostiguy, P. and B. Moffitt, “Who Would Identify with an ‘Empty Signifier’? The Relational, Performative Approach to Populism.” In: Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach, eds. P. Ostiguy, F. Panizza, and B. Moffitt 47–72.
Ostiguy, P., F. Panizza, and B. Moffitt, “Introduction.” In: Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach, eds. P. Ostiguy, F. Panizza, and B. Moffitt (New York: Routledge, 2021), 1–18.
Pappas, T.S. “Modern Populism: Research Advances, Conceptual and Methodological Pitfalls, and the Minimal Definition.” In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, ed. W.R. Thompson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Rosanvallon, P. Democracy Past and Future. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Rosanvallon, P. Le peuple introuvable: Histoire de la représentation démocratique en France (Paris: Gallimard, 1998).
Rosenblum, N.L. On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
Rovira Kaltwasser, C. “The Ambivalence of Populism: Threat and Corrective for Democracy.” Democratization, 9(2) (2012), 184–208.
Stanley, B. “The Thin Ideology of Populism.” Journal of Political Ideologies, 13(1) (2008), 95–110.
Stavrakakis, Y. and A. Jäger. “Accomplishments and Limitations of the ‘New’ Mainstream in Contemporary Populism Studies.” European Journal of Social Theory, 21(4) (2018), 547–565.
Stavrakakis, Y. and G. Katsambekis. “Left-wing Populism in the European Periphery: The Case of SYRIZA.” Journal of Political Ideologies, 19(2) (2014), 119−42.
Stavrakakis, Y. “Discourse Theory in Populism Research.” Journal of Language and Politics, 16 (2017), 523–534.
Stavrakakis, Y., A. Kioupkiolis, G. Katsambekis, N. Nikisianis, and T. Siomos. “Contemporary Left-Wing Populism in Latin America: Leadership, Horizontalism, and Postdemocracy in Chávez’s Venezuela.” Latin American Politics and Society, 58(3) (2016), 51–76.
Sutherland, M. “Populism and Spectacle.” Cultural Studies, 26 (2012), 330–345.
Taguieff, P.-A. L’illusion populiste. Essai sur les démagogies de l’âge démocratique (Paris: Flammarion, 2007).
Urbinati, N. “Populism and the Principle of Majority.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Populism, eds. C. Rovira Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. Ochoa Espejo, and P. Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 571–589.
Urbinati, N. Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth, and the People (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014).
Urbinati, N. Me the People: How Populism Transforms Democracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019).
Vergara, C. “Populism as Plebeian Politics: Inequality, Domination, and Popular Empowerment.” Journal of Political Philosophy, 28(2) (2020), 222−46.
Weyland, K. “Populism: A Political-Strategic Approach.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Populism, eds. C. Rovira Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. Ochoa Espejo, and P. Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 48–72.
Wolkenstein, F. “Populism, Liberal Democracy and the Ethics of Peoplehood.” European Journal of Political Theory, 18(3) (2019), 330–348.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 767 | 324 | 15 |
Full Text Views | 188 | 21 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 539 | 54 | 0 |
The difficulty of defining populism is well-known. As populism lacks a fully articulated ideological foundation, it tends to assume different shapes according to context. Due to this ideological inarticulation, some scholars have rejected the so-called ideational approach to populism. They instead propose its conceptualization as a political style or discourse. This paper advances an alternative approach. We reject the opposition between stylistic and ideational approaches to populism and develop the idea that the form and the content of populism are intrinsically related. We argue that the forms populism adopts cannot be understood in merely strategic or stylistic terms: they presuppose and entail specific ideological contents. Only by tracing the relationship between populist form and content can we make sense of populism as a distinctive phenomenon and explain its ambiguous relationship with liberal democracy.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 767 | 324 | 15 |
Full Text Views | 188 | 21 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 539 | 54 | 0 |