Populism: Its Meaning and National Characteristics

While populism is a hotly debated topic around the world, most scholarship suffers from conceptual confusion and regional singularity. This paper compares European and Latin American populism, on the basis of a clear minimum definition, along three dimensions that dominate the scholarly literature on the topic: 1) economy vs. identity; 2) left-wing vs. rightwing; and 3) inclusion vs. exclusion. Empirically, our particular focus is on four prototypical cases of the predominant type of populism in these regions in the 1990–2010 period: Jorg Haider and the Freitheitliche Partei Osterreichs (Austrian Freedom Party, FPO) and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the French Front National (National Front, FN) in Europe, and Bolivian President Evo Morales and his Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism, MAS) and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Movimiento V [Quinta] Republica (Fifth Republic Movement, MVR) in Latin America. While our findings confirm some generally held beliefs, they also challenge and clarify some others. Among the more notable conclusions are: 1) populism in Latin America is more ethnic than populism in Europe; 2) the difference between “right-wing” populists in Europe and “left-wing” populists in Latin American is mainly a consequence of their affiliated ideologies, not their populism; 3) in material, political, and symbolic terms European populism is primarily exclusionary, while Latin American populism is predominantly inclusionary; and 4) populism is more important in Latin America than in Europe in electoral, political, and ideological terms.

Since the 1980s, the world's governments have decreased state welfare and thus increased the number of unprotected 'informal' or 'precarious' workers. As a result, more and more workers do not receive secure wages or benefits from either employers or the state. This book offers a fresh and provocative look into the alternative social movements informal workers in India are launching. It also offers a unique analysis of the conditions under which these movements succeed or fail. Drawing from 300 interviews with informal workers, government officials and union leaders, Rina Agarwala argues that Indian informal workers are using their power as voters to demand welfare benefits from the state, rather than demanding traditional work benefits from employers. In addition, they are organizing at the neighborhood level, rather than the shop floor, and appealing to 'citizenship', rather than labor rights.

The inauguration of the Jacob Zuma government was met with considerable popular approval and initially generated a great deal of euphoria, hope and encouragement, (as well as dread and contempt on the other hand). While this paper attempts to move behind these emotions to the character of the phenomenon, I have no contempt towards the outpouring of joy and hope invested in what is claimed to be a new beginning, albeit not always for the same reasons.

Democracy rests upon a rich and complex ambiguity. Because of the numerous and often discordant ways in which this word and idea have been interpreted, no such prototype exists, only variations of all kinds. Ralph Dahrendorf was right when, in addressing the people of Eastern Europe, he advocated the single, Popperian principle of „the open society“. „Within the constitution of liberty,“ wrote Dahrendorf, „a hundred paths lead forward and all are likely to mix elements of economic, political and social reforms in ways which offend the jurist. The key to progress is therefore not a complete alternative conception, a detailed master plan of freedom. Such plans are contradictions in terms and more likely to lead back to the closed society“ (Dahrendorf, 1990, p. 150). So, if we want to try to answer the central question of this meeting we have to introduce many qualifications into the debate. In other words, we must avoid falling into the trap of naivete to which the true believers and zealots of democracy are prone. Their enthusiasm is somewhat comparable to the doctrinaire mind-sets of the former socialist countries. Looking at the experience of the recent democratisation process in these countries and the views expressed by the media, politicians and sometimes academics, I get the feeling that many Westerners were paraphrasing the famous Leninist definition of communism: socialism + electricity. After the fall of the Berlin wall, many observers also expressed a reductionist view, whereby democracy was simply considered to be: the market + elections.

In the November 1933 provincial election in British Columbia (BC) the newly formed Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (ccf) captured almost one-third of the popular vote, a sharp increase in left-of-centre support from previous elections when a variety of labour and socialist parties had spread many fewer votes over several organizations. Since then the ccf and its successor, the New Democratic Party (ndp), have formed the largest or second largest group in the BC legislature in every election but one since 1933. The persistence in the political culture of a substantial party of the left in turn has structured BC politics into a pattern of polarization marked by the ccf or ndp on the left and a series of coalitions – four different ones from the early 1940s to the present – on the right.1 Yet the 1933 election has received only the most cursory attention from historians, with analysts drawn either to the disintegration of the preceding Simon Fraser Tolmie-led Conservative government – this was the last time in BC history that the Conservative Party formed a majority government – or to the rise of the Thomas Duff Pattullo-led Liberal Party and the implementation of Pattullo’s “Little New Deal.” To the extent that the election marked the emergence of a province-wide party of the left in British Columbia scholars have mostly emphasized the fact that the ccf in BC was more radical than elsewhere in Canada. Thus, in his recently published book Militant Minority, Ben Isitt talks of the “explicitly socialist doctrine” of

THE OCTOBER 1999 ELECTIONS HAVE RESULTED IN THE SECOND CHANGE ever from one political party to another since the inception of mass politics in Argentina in 1916. The first such change came in 1989 when the Peronist Carlos Menem took over from Radical Raúl Alfonsín.

Research on populism often appears to be opaque due to the fact that populism is a label attributed to a variety of phenomena. However, failures to build a theory of populism are not just mere consequences of a blurred object of study – they also result from ontological and epistemological clashes between the dominating research paradigms precisely because debates do not consider the limits inherent to analytical strategies. This paper shows which paradigms structure the field of populism research and evaluates the resulting approaches considering their outcomes and impasses. Furthermore, it enunciates suggestions on the issue of how some additional value can be obtained from this. As a result, this paper’s contribution is an attempt to systematize a highly fragmented debate whereas it does not point at content-related discussions but rather at the pragmatic handling of research paradigms.

(1981). The predominance and dilemmas of theocratic populism in contemporary Iran. Iranian Studies: Vol. 14, No. 3-4, pp. 189-213.

This essay is part of a collective, multinational effort that seeks to describe some of the plural sources involved in the construction of national identities. In our case, we have raised a number of questions to guide and limit our discussion: What is the university identity? What is national identity? In the case of Mexico, what has been the contribution of the National Autonomous University of Mexico to national identity? How are relations between nation-state college and reformulated in the conditions imposed by neoliberal globalization? To answer these questions we have chosen to present a brief overview of the concepts of identity that have been used in the social sciences and we have relied on previous research we have conducted on Mexican national identity. In a first step, a psychosocial approach and more recently from the horizon that offers the Latin American critical thought, and the sciences of complexity and chaos was used. We conclude with a comparative exercise, noting the similarities and differences between university identity and national identity. With this we hope to indicate some potentially conflicting nodes Games identity and institutional policies can be designed to prevent and solve them.

This paper reflects on populism in the context of contemporary liberal democracies. This model can be understood through theories of democratic elitism in the 20th-century (Schumpeter 1984) which, in practice, had an influence on the model of representative democracies, or polyarchies (Dahl 1997). The article begins with two introductory elements on populism, within the context of representative democracy. In particular, attention is given to what is understood to be its essence; namely, populism as a political discourse which sets the public antagonistically against the political elite. The paper then considers the populist reasoning of Ernesto Laclau which, in spite of revisions and critiques of his work, has demonstrated the most sophisticated approach to the topic. Finally, the central idea of the populist phenomenon is discussed, based on the triad democracy-institution-populism.

Populism is a discourse made up of a specific signs, techniques, strategies, and truth claims that set in motion certain ways of talking about ( laos ). This discourse has served to regulate Greek culture for nearly a century. It offers the story of an indigenous organic community struggling to express itself authentically and to survive against outside threats. The populist investment in the ancient past happened in two successive stages. First, demoticists (like Psiharis) appropriated all aspects of the national past, including classical Hellas, for a Romeic present. Then modernists (like Elytis) incorporated ancient images and texts into a high modern idiom as transubstantiations of the everyday. Both demoticists and modernists depicted the Neohellenic people as the true bearers of the classical heritage, of which foreign powers were seeking to deprive them. In this manichean order, power perpetually evades people, while freedom becomes a question of aesthetic deposition rather than political practice.

Left-populism is a phenomenon attracting much attention, particularly in Latin America, but also increasingly in Europe. It is not a wholly new phenomenon; indeed it is a longstanding tradition shadowing more orthodox socialist approaches. However, the decline of traditional Marxism allows contemporary left-populism to adopt a specific post-Cold War form with some parallels and key differences between Europe and Latin America. This new left-populism has the potential to become a major feature of contemporary (left) politics, albeit one often still in the shadow of traditional socialist approaches. Like so many other forms of populism, left-populism has both a progressive and an illiberal ‘dark side’ that depends very much on context and the nature of the populist actor, but it should not be seen as inevitably inimical to democracy.