Author: Emina Frljak (Sarajevo, BiH)
Populism is a word that we could often hear in the public discourse in the last few years. It is a word that is widely used by academics, journalists, political analysts, activists, and common people as well. Often people use this word without knowing its actual meaning. Nowadays people tend to label many things as populism and many different political figures as populists. But is there a difference among these “populists” and their approach?
Simple Google search shows 22 200 000 results for the word “populism” and many articles that pop up have titles like: What is populism, and what does the term mean? (BBC) or What actually is populism? And why does it have a bad reputation? (The Conversation) or Does anyone know what “populism” means? (The Atlantic). These are just few titles that come among the first ones when one “googles” term populism.
Populism is a term that is still not clearly defined within academia and there is no universal and comprehensive definition of it. The nature of populism is highly contested and there is no consensus is populism an ideology, discourse, political strategy, style, morality, or a mode of expression. Some authors like Gideon and Bonikowsky (2013) and Oxford Handbook of Populism (2017) define populism as a variant of nationalism and national identity.
Nationalism is also a term that is not so easy to define and academics also disagree about this phenomenon and its definition. According to Hans Kohn nationalism can be defined as “ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests” (Kohn, 2020). On the other hand, K.A. Cerulo notes that three critical points are met in most of definitions of nationalism. First, the rise of nationalism is historically specific. Nationalism emerged in the late eighteenth century, appearing first in Europe, then in North and South America. Second, nationalism exemplifies an ideological movement, promoting the autonomy, unity, and sovereignty of those gathered in a single territory. Finally, nationalism evokes a strong collective sentiment. While ruling elites may sow the first seeds of this fervor, it is argued that all citizens come to experience a shared collective identity and to embrace a common national purpose (Cerulo, 2001).
In this article we will focus on defining populism, shortly reflecting on history and origins of populism and rise of populism in the 21st century and its connections with nationalism, with special emphasis on Europe. We will also try to make a distinction between left-wing and right-wing populism and see why populism has a bad reputation.
WHAT IS POPULISM ACTUALLY?
The word populism comes from the Latin language and according to Pappas (2020) this term has been around since Ancient Rome and has its roots in the word populus which means people. He also notes that “since then the term has been used to describe dozens of political movements, often with counterintuitive and contradictory goals. Populist movements have rebelled against monarchies, monopolies, and a wide variety of powerful institutions” (Pappas, 2020: 1:42). One of the most famous is Populist Movement1 that give rise to the Populist or People’s Party in United States in the year 1892. Munro writes that “many of the party’s demands were later adopted as laws or constitutional amendments (e.g., a progressive tax system). The populist demand for direct democracy through popular initiatives and referenda also become a reality in a number of U.S. states” (Munro, 2020).
As stated in the introduction there is no universally accepted definition of the populism, but here we will try to identify what are the similar points of different definitions of populism.
There are three key figures present in most of the definitions of populism: the people, the elites, the general will. Some authors quote Mudde’s definition as the most comprehensive and straight to the point one. Mudde (2004) defines populism as “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (Deiwiks, 2009:2). Other authors include either all, either some of the above mentioned factors (the people, the elites, the general will) in their definitions as well. For example, Taggart (2000) stresses importance of people and antagonism towards constructed “other”. Meny and Surel (2000; 2002) highlight the people, but also the fact that the people were betrayed by the elites who are corrupted, who abuse power and thus need to be replaced by new leaders (i.e. the populists who claim to represent the people and know what the people want).
These definitions and concepts seem very clear and self-explanatory, but there are few unanswered questions: Who are “the people”? Who are the elites? What is exactly the will of the people? What kind of the ideology is populism, is it left-wing oriented, is right-wing oriented? And here we come to the question is populism related to nationalism and how?
When we speak about “the people”, we can say that the term depends on the context. This term can refer to the whole population of the country or to some groups inside the population. For example “the people” were peasants in Russia, in Latin America “the people” were working class as opposed to industrialists (peronism), while in Italy Lega Norde party was referring to the people of the North, as opposed to the people from South. Nowadays “the people” are more and more referred as those who are connected by blood, religion, ethnicity etc. This is especially case of Europe and can be connected to the rise of far-right parties in countries such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, or Hungary. Another question that arises is who are the so called “other” and what is their relationship with “the people”? The “other” can be certain government representatives, can be the whole political elite, big businesses, and even immigrants and foreign workers. This additionally complicates understanding the populism and its core figures. Betz (2002) notes that “a variety of entities may be the target of ressentiments; right-wing populists probably target an immigrant community or any minority group that is perceived to enjoy unwarranted preferential treatment; left-wing populists’ ressentiments may concern international corporations and capitalists generally” (Deiwiks, 2009: 3).
Balibar (2017) notes that “contemporary phenomenon of populism in Europe is a ‘demagogic nationalist discourse’ arising as ‘a direct consequence or collateral damage of the collapse of the European project as credible political and cultural trajectory’, while at the global level, he draws an important distinction between right-wing populist parties and left-wing populist movements, describing these two poles as ‘either a xenophobic nationalism (which tends to be combined with protectionism, through the lens of migratory politics and the ‘closing’ of borders), or a quest for the ‘missing people’, a new synthesis of resistance and democratic hopes involving a plurality of cultures and social forces” (Balibar, 2017, as cited in Repovac Nikšić, Savić Bojanić, 2019: 292). This difference between right and left-wing populism could indicate certain connections of this phenomenon with nationalism. Besides the difference that Balibar mentions between these two, we find interesting the explanation by Deiwiks. In her article she writes that “left-wing populists usually define the ‘people’ as consisting of the working class, the ‘other’ being capitalism and capitalists, along with their side-kicks in government” (Deiwiks, 2009: 7). In the right-wing populism so called “other” is find in groups different that homogeneous group that the populists are appealing to. Here “the other” can be immigrants, refugees, foreign workers, those who benefit from the state help etc. But how do populists appeal to people and who they are? According to Munro populist politics revolves around a charismatic leader who appeals to and claims to embody the will of the people in order to consolidate his own power. In this personalized form of politics, political parties lose their importance, and elections serve to confirm the leader’s authority rather than to reflect the different allegiances of the people. Deiwiks (2009) lists Silvio Berlusconi, Jean- Marie LePen and Jörg Haider as contemporary examples of populist in Europe and suggests that often one single person is the driving force of a populist movement. Besides these populist leaders we need to mention Donald Trump, as one of the most famous and prominent populists. But he is not the only populist in US, for example his opponent Bernie Sanders is as well. Both used populist approach and tackled the issues that were appealing to people. Of course, there are differences in their approaches and in defining “the other”, but without any doubt both used populist rhetoric (History, 2019). All of this complicates understanding of populism and putting it into certain value categories.
Considering what was already written, we can say that populism can be tightly connected to nationalism and can use nationalistic sentiments to appeal to people. This is visible in European countries that are faced with migrant crisis and where far-right movements are rising. Francis Fukuyama speaks about populist nationalism and especially notes the case of Viktor Orban and his concept of Hungarian national identity based on ethnicity. Hungary is not the only European country that is “under the attack” of populist nationalism. Here we can certainly mention Dutch politician Geert Wilders, above mentioned French politician Jean-Marie LePen, Italian politician Matteo Salvini and so on. What do all these people have in common and why we should consider them as populist nationalists?
They all appeal to “the people” as imagined community that is bonded by their ethnicity, common culture, identity etc. They also consider the EU and ruling establishment as incapable of understanding and fulfilling the needs of the people and there is also the rhetoric of fear which they use to intimidate people and scare them with the stories how migrant crisis is the project to replace “native” Europeans with cheap labour force. Besides this they all sound very similar in their discourse and use phrases such as: “European Union is a horror show” (LePen), “Today’s disorderly Europe is incapable of finding solutions” (Orban), or “We are going to Europe in order to overturn this Europe” (Salvini) (The Economist, 2019). All of them consider that Europe is under invasion and Europeans need to be saved. These populists consider themselves as those who will save Europe from immigrations, but also from EU dictatorship and mainstream leaders.
These are just some of the cases and examples of so called populist nationalism in Europe, but it is also worth to mention another kind of populism called ethno-nationalist populism, which Repovac Nikšić and Savić Bojanić identify within the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country already overwhelmed with ethnic nationalism for the last 25 years since the war in BiH ended. Since we are limited with number of pages, we won’t go deeper in exploring ethno- nationalist populism, but we consider it as worth of mentioning, since probably BiH is not the only country exposed to this kind of populism.
In our conclusion we want to highlight that this article serves as an endeavour to understand populism better and to understand how it is connected to nationalism. Also, we wanted to explore a bit more populist movements in Europe and we primarily focused on right-wing populism, since we see much more connection with nationalism and populism in this type of populism. We haven’t tackled the left-wing populism thoroughly, but certainly this kind of populism is present in Europe as well. After our short inquiry into existing resources we can certainly say that populism and nationalism have many common points and that this field needs to be researched much more to fully understand this connection. The very fact that the term populism is still highly contested and there is no universal definition and agreement among academics what does it really mean shows that this field also needs further research so that one universal and comprehensive definition could be found. With our article we just scratched the surface and opened up more questions about this phenomenon and its connection with other similar phenomena.
1 - Because of the length of the article we cannot go into more details about this movement but more about it and its history can be found here: History (2019, January 8). What is populism? [Video file]. Retrieved from: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uA1GBzXzr4&ab_channel=HISTORY.
References:
1. Cerulo, K.A. (2001). Nationalism and Expressive Forms. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. Pages 10328-10332
2. Deiwiks, C. (2009). Populism. Living Reviews in Democracy. Pages 1-9
3. Savić Bojanić, M. Repovac Nikšić, V. (2019). How do we understand populism? Popular reponses to populist politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sociological problems. Vol 51. Pages 291-311.
4. History (2019, January 8). What is populism? [Video file]. Retrieved from: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uA1GBzXzr4&ab_channel=HISTORY.
5. The Economist (2019, May 21). Why Europe’s nationalist parties all sound alike? [Video file]. Retrieved from: www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5HTIgddH68&ab_channel=TheEconomist
6. Kohn, H. (2020, February 19). Nationalism. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/nationalism
7. Munro, A. (2020, May 29). Populism. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/populism
8. Papas, T.S. (2020, August 20). The rise of modern populism [Video file]. Retrieved from: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMNwUh0X5eI&t=131s&ab_channel=TED-Ed
