Populism, Past and Present

Aug 10, 2016 Shlomo Ben-Ami

It seems that practically no Western democracy nowadays is immune to right-wing populism. While populist rhetoric seems to be reaching fever pitch, with far-reaching consequences, the reality is that the strain of nativism that it represents has long bedeviled democratic politics.

MADRID – It seems that practically no Western democracy nowadays is immune to right-wing populism. While populist rhetoric seems to be reaching fever pitch, with far-reaching consequences – most notably the United Kingdom’s vote to “Brexit” the European Union – the reality is that the strain of nativism that it represents has long bedeviled democratic politics.

Populist movements tend to focus on blame. Father Charles Coughlin, the 1930s-era Roman Catholic priest from Detroit who promoted a fascist agenda for America, consistently sought to root out the culprits for society’s problems. Likewise, today’s right-wing populists have eagerly turned on the “establishment” and the “elites.”

In Europe, this has meant blaming the EU for everything that goes wrong. Addressing the complex roots of current economic and social challenges – the UK and France, for example, suffer substantially from hereditary privilege and frozen class systems – is a lot harder than decrying the EU as a villainous behemoth.

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Europe’s Dangerous Nostalgia

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Javier Solana warns that rising nationalism threatens to leave Europeans more at risk in a globalized world.

19
Little England and Not-so-Great Britain
NurPhoto/Getty Images

Little England and Not-so-Great Britain

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The Case for Constructive Populism
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Kemal Derviş rejects recent calls for "responsible nationalism" as a way to counter the likes of Donald Trump.

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Ricardo Hausmann asks why so many UK citizens are happier rooting for a weaker team.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 33 in all 33 Comments on this article

Marc Torras Aug 15, 2016

The key point is that populists talk about problems tat a lot of people feel theirs. The most important, inequality. And today's media and social media make everybody much more informed than before (not better informed, just more informed). When you read about the bonuses that high execs get, and how they walk free after killing a company, you get the feeling something is not fair. A Trump or LePen or Farage can easily exploit these feelings, and once people feels this guys think like them, they don't listen anymore.
If Hillary wins, she must make profound changes in the system to make it more equal and, most importantly, to make people feel it's more equal. Otherwise, she will win the election but, in 4 years, a populist (left or right, does not matter) will get the whitehouse
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Jeff Rutledge Aug 14, 2016

Classic innuendo argument implying ANYONE standing for something like preserving local government power and over centralized government takeover must also also be a bigot. A page right out of Joseph McCarthy's book. I guess the 10th Amendment is effectively dead anyway, as it was very inconvenient to the Feds anyway.
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rachid mepi Aug 13, 2016

good piece of art
So face to this new phenomenon of irrationality that enhances the insecurity that influential the hole globe we can just go toward a new thinking face to this emergent situation that block the prosperity of the incoming days so for this only the education system fortunately is the key to ensure our future cause the generation that will demolish this infrastructure not that we lived with but the one that will came soon
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Hamid Rizvi Aug 11, 2016

Good read as always! To me populism is the fuel that drives the engine of politics. However, accurately gaging and harnessing populism is what sets the winners apart from the losers. Delivery also plays a key role in how the popular sentiment is regurgitated back to the aggrieved which is the populace.
Populism these days is the fatigue people feel with the establishment politician and the general malaise tied to a general lack of consumer confidence about their individual wellbeing. However, the pundit platoon is stepping on each other eager to jump on the globalization bandwagon. To me it’s the Migrant fatigue brought about because of the reasons stated earlier. Brexit is the living or dead example of these fears.
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david b Aug 11, 2016

The nicer left wing version of populism was crushed in multiple places leaving only the more damaging right wing populists as an option. Having made such warnings since the financial crisis I find it interesting that so many commentators think theis came out of nowhere. In fact it's a direct result of the elites and their continued failures to both reform and hold themselves accountable.

Valid movments such as occupy wall street were crushed, necessary reform of the structure of the financial system never happened, and monetary policy that starved main street and helped the markets has continued. Bad economics.

What do you think was going to happen when economic policy made the majority worse off and help the top %. Note, I'm not going to provide the extensive links to prove this, but there are their. By now it should be considered fact, yet the establishment continues with polices that enrich itself at the expense of the majority
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M M Aug 11, 2016

The irony of it all is that no one in the media has even questioned the funds and funding of The Clintons and of the Clintons Foundation post and during this Presidential campaign. There must be no place for corruption, money laundering or cronyism in politics, full stop. If this is going to require a Trump to put a stop to it, albeit….
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Zsolt Hermann Aug 11, 2016

If we wanted to play with words we could even say it is "populist" to blame "populists" for what is happening all around the world.
The people riding the wave, "feasting" on the general discontent are simply the symptoms.

The main problem is that democracy, and everything it promised does not work and people are fed up.
And to be fair to those leading the "establishment" these days it is not even their fault.

It does not matter what social, governing or economic ideology, system we apply until the "user", the human being is corrupt.
And in this respect we are all guilty since we are all born with an instinctively self-serving, self-justifying and greedy nature.

This is not "evil" or a "sin" since we have no free choice about the nature we are born with.
On the other hand now that we started revealing that our instinctive nature is not compatible with a global, fully integrated and interdependent system - which is not man-made but an evolutionary condition - we have a free choice in correcting it.
After all what differentiates human beings from animals is the ability to rise above instincts, to use our unique analytic, critical mind for self-assessment and adjustments if necessary.

Thus instead of trying to simplify, ignore the problem - like saying the Germans should not worry about millions of immigrants who are unlikely to integrate into the country just because unemployment is minimal - we would need to start thinking how it is possible to integrate the instinctively selfish, egoistic and greedy human being into a globally interconnected and interdependent system without coercion or misleading trickery.
- Daniel Esmond Aug 11, 2016
  
  I kind of agree and disagree. It is true that we have seen so much of the ugly side of us recently and that it has been legitimised to resort to pretty base instincts (and one might wonder whether this is somehow the result of the Neo-Darwinism at the root of the neo-liberal economics?). However, we do have free will and are able to change as many examples in the past have demonstrated it – progressive social and political agendas have succeeded, from abolition of slavery, separation of state and church to social democracy and redistribution in the welfare state, anti-racism and gender equality and so on. What is needed is a strong and confident vantage point for articulating a progressive agenda again. It should be a new(ish), updated and relevant agenda, promoted by credible and courageous people.
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- yw yap Aug 11, 2016
  
  YES! Guess we need to acknowledge the selfish, egoistic & greedy thingy as real & find way to interconnect as we go forward. Sweeping them under the carpet or ignoring them will ultimately make matters worse. There are no short cuts.....
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j. von Hettlingen Aug 10, 2016

Shlomo Ben-Ami points out the climate that nurtures populism, without elaborating the political structure that allows it to thrive. The reason why "no Western democracy nowadays is immune to right-wing populism" is that the "volonté générale (general will) of the people has been hijacked by demagogues for - often - nefarious ends, which have "long bedeviled democratic politics." Right-wing populism has a history of xenophobia, which focuses on nostalgia and blame, allowing its politicians to combine it with other ideologies, such as nativism.
In Europe, the EU has become a convenient bogeyman for "everything that goes wrong" politically - democratic deficit, the inability to react to crises and to act accordingly etc. For Britain's leading Eurosceptics, like Nigel Farage, "the borderless world that the EU, with its commitment to globalization, represents is destroying the nation-state, which better protected their interests," by withdrawing from Europe. Workers resent EU immigrants' eagerness to work for lower wages and the elderly "recalled a past when jobs were secure, neighbors were familiar, and security was assured."
In America, Donald Trump has adopted a similar playbook. He has been successful in selling his slogan "America First." Yet his other campaign pledge - "Make America Great Again" - may just be snake oil. His intention to "withdraw the US from international arrangements" reveals his ignorance in US history and his inconsistency of his reasoning. On the one hand he would increase military spending, on the other, he would "dispense with NATO."
That Farage and Trump had been able to rise to prominence has much the paranoid style of politics to thank for. Populism actually constitutes the essence of democratic politics, which - per se - is good for democracy, but it is illiberalism that is the real problem. In theory populism is positive, because it brings to the fore issues that large parts of the population care about, but that the political elites neglect, or want to avoid discussing - immigration for the right or austerity for the left. But populism can also turn bad and ugly, if opportunists hijack these issues to win attention and garner popular support for personal gains. On both sides of the Atlantic populism has become an illiberal democratic response to undemocratic liberalism. Both Britain and the US have been held ransom by a bunch of bigots, who seek to impose their black and white views on a majoritarian mainstream and their uncompromising stance towards the - in their eyes undemocratic - establishment, polarising their countries.
Indeed, the Brexit vote and Trump's presidential nomination should be a wakeup call for the political establishment that only a democratic process will bring peace to a country. Ordinary citizens feel excluded if their government put independent, technocratic institutions in charge, that they think don't have their best interests at heart. But then, courts, central banks and other government organisations do require experts and specialists, which sometimes leave no space for democratic opposition. No doubt political leaders are well advised to educate their citizens and inform them of what the government does. Better understanding of politics help promote the social contract between citizens and their leaders.
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dan baur Aug 10, 2016

Tell us something about left wing populists.
Tell us about FDR being in the same vein as Hitler and Stalin:
- never leaving power,
- extending the depression through failed policies,
- stoking the war and then sending millions to die in the imperialistic war,
- selling half of Europe in communist slavery,
- etc. etc.
- dan baur Aug 11, 2016
  
  @Michael Public
  Sometimes, not all people sent to die end up dead. Is that bothering you?
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- dan baur Aug 11, 2016
  
  @Michael Public
  You think other than Americans are subhumans and shouldn't be counted?
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- Steve Hurst Aug 10, 2016
  
  @Micheal
  I have to say its a very sobering figure
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- Michael Public Aug 10, 2016
  
  I normally don't bother replying to your posts but 416 000 Americans died in Ww2 - not millions.
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Peter Schneider Aug 10, 2016

To force the German/Dutch/Finnish/Slovakian people to pay for a Mediterranean New Deal against their will would certainly not correct the "EU"'s yawning democratic deficit.
- Peter Schneider Aug 19, 2016
  
  Last year, the Greek bailout cost us .25*90 billions plus x. We had payments to the "ES"M to keep excessively overendebted states in the monetary union. The interest rates are manipulated to allow excessively overendebted states access to the capital market which massively reduces the net present value of our savings. And so on.
  
  Actually, it costs us a lot when dubious Club Med politicians try to take care of their clientel.
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- David Olsen Aug 16, 2016
  
  The French and Italian govts are currently ignoring the 3% deficit limit due to their fears about upcoming elections. Their economies are improving due to this spending.
  
  Is the ability to increase demand in this way actually costing the German voters anything?
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TR Barnes Aug 10, 2016

The term “populism”—never mind if it is right-wing or left-wing—is an easy piece of bogus rhetoric, an accurate definition of the term being that the person who uses it disagrees with those who don’t agree with him or herself. In the case at hand, if there were widespread, grassroots support by the unwashed masses for everything the author believes in then the author would of course not think the term applicable.
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Curtis Carpenter Aug 10, 2016

I suspect that "... the EU’s yawning democratic deficit..." is of fundamental importance to the union's current troubles -- and to the rise of far-right populism in the West in general. Rather than more anti-populist rhetoric, which is fundamentally anti-democratic, we need a turn toward a discussion of re-enfranchising the people -- addressing that deficit.
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Daniel Esmond Aug 10, 2016

Two points:
1. I find it increasingly problematic to accept a simple, straightforward causal link between the rise of populists and the economic and social changes taking place in many countries as a result of neoliberal economic policies. Morally, this is problematic because it justifies the racist, xenophobic, islamophobic etc. attitudes amongst the people who suffer the economic and social consequences of current changes. If there is a need for a protest vote/movement, why not embrace the radical left (socialist, communist, anarchist, environmentalist) route? Some do (see Syriza or Bernie Sanders or Momentum), but most don’t and prefer the darker side of the far right. The far right (and present day fascists) have legitimised previously taboo or marginal discourses and beliefs and their appeal cannot be considered outside a moral framework that would condemn both them and their followers. Hence my unease regarding the justifications and accommodation that is provided by the economic determinism that abolishes any moral responsibility (let’s not forget, all current generations have learned about the history of WWII and the Nazis).
2. During the Cold War period there was a sense of solidarity among Western countries as they fought off the threat of the Communist bloc. This was manifest in both the welfare provisions and redistribution that were meant to avoid large scale discontent and possible electoral victory for the far left, but also a relegation of nationalism to the margins. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the whole Eastern bloc, everything changed. This moment also coincided with the rise (triumphalism) of neoliberal economic policies which have eliminated most welfare provisions and have impacted on the public perceptions for the need of welfare and social cohesion. And at the same time nationalisms in the West have started becoming stronger as some fringe politicians as well as some from the mainstream right felt that nativist/nationalist arguments can be used again in the absence of an existential threat (USSR) to the West. Again, this was a moral choice made by some politicians (and the media) and not the result of immutable causalities (globalisation). Largely for electoral reasons (or for selling tabloids), nationalist discourses have become common currency in the West and have changed both the political culture as well as the identity practices of many social groups.
- Steve Hurst Aug 10, 2016
  
  @Daniel
  
  Since I have posted that I think the main driver in politics is the economy situation I will respond
  
  If a voter is fustrated at their position they have two options - to revolt, ie vote against the incumbents or to vote for somebody who says they will do something. They are unlikely to vote for more of the same unless it somehow benefits them. As economic policy, if it is even implemented has typically a 3 year lag on uplift politics can move faster than policy. The game is lost before the ballot box showdown. We have now had nearly a decade of decline/flatlining and bank supplication and projections are not good. It is inevitable quiet riots enter at some point. If the right wing are not incumbents the outcome is they benefit
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george jonisch Aug 10, 2016

This article is the closest "intellectual" acknowledgment that the prince desperately needs to trade places with the pauper, at least for a while. If the emperor could see that he had no clothes we wouldn't be in this global mess. One solution is character building during the educational years. Any others? History says "no".
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Peter Lintner Aug 10, 2016

So, to the author, anyone who wants to protect his culture, identity, customs and traditions is a populist and solution to debt is even more debt. And then he is surprised then voters are turning away from elites and establishment. That´s because you are out of touch with reality, totally.
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Odyssios Redux Aug 10, 2016

'Coughlins and others were overshadowed by President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. And a new deal – one that corrects the EU’s yawning democratic deficit and puts an end to self-defeating austerity policies – is precisely what will save Europe today. '

It might - if it were on offer. It isn't. Nor do I see anyone remotely on the horizon with the vision, charisma and political savvy of an FDR. Angela Merkel had one shining moment last Summer when she tried to make a compassionate, and economically positive, argument for admitting refugees. You saw how fast that was shot down. Unfortunately, as of now, there are more Coughlins and Mussolinis on the rise, than FDRs.

|Just possibly, if the Brexit imbroglio goes as bad, as fast, as it may, sufficient European heads may be turned to consider FDR-like options. Right now, I couldn't bet a single currency unit of any kind, on this happening This is going to get much worse before it gets better. Note too that on the timescale of a couple of decades - roughly twice the time since '2008', massive refugee flows and other effects of climate change will muddy the political waters. Food production and distribution, for instance. Right now, we're in the long twilight of a golden age (1945 - 75). Enjoy.
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Bernhard Kopp Aug 10, 2016

Right-wing populists may not have serious solutions, they do have some answers in principle that are far better that the non-answers, for soeme 20 years, of the left-leaning liberals in most European contries, and the US as well, although 'liberal' has there a somewhat different meaning than traditionally in Europe. It is not sufficient to praise the long-term, macro-economic benefits of globalization and at the same time neglect and/or mismanage the effects on the level of the real economy and real people. It is not sufficient to praise the benefits of multiculturalism and ignore, that the inconvenient truth is that people from different cultural backgrounds are in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and elsewhere, disproportionally not or very poorly integrated, are proportionally more welfare reciepients and clients of the criminal justice system and the prison population. If churches, labor unions and political parties have substantially lost appeal over the past 20-30 years, then this is not the fault of the general population, but the incompetence and self-serving demagogery of the elites. Right-wing populist are a valve for protest.
- Steve Hurst Aug 10, 2016
  
  @Bernard
  
  This 'populist' tag is meaningless. The majority of voters in the UK again and again have been identified as centrist, which is why at one stage both main UK parties become virtually indistingishable as they both sought the centre ground. It is only since the abject failure of the Labour Party at the last GE that it has swerved left capitulating all centre ground to the Conservative Party and thereby committing forthcoming electoral Seppuku. The Brexit vote is repeatedly caricatured as populist but it was the majority vote of a electorate identified as centrist. That alone should wave a warning flag that policy has gone way off line. It is not Right wing protest or focus, it is centrist protest and as such is far more worrying and pulp fiction like this article that tries to portray it as aberrant behaviour does nothing to assist addressing the issues. Unless issues are addressed the EU centrist ground will migrate to so-called 'populist'. Furthermore this article tries to present populist movement as anti EU when it clearly is anti incumbent local guvnts as well as the EU - 'In Europe, this has meant blaming the EU for everything that goes wrong.'
  
  'The fact that nearly all of the regions in Britain that voted for Brexit received massive EU subsidies supports this interpretation'. This is more nonsense, the UK makes up 15% of the EU budget and it is obvious some budget will be returned. What is more pertinent is the fact that a considerable number of EU members make a negative contribution to the EU but block any reform
  
  I could go on but this article is so full of riddle-me-this-riddle me that it would take too long. So I will close by asking - Does anybody think more debt will solve Italys problems
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- Odyssios Redux Aug 10, 2016
  
  'Right-wing populist are a valve for protest. '
  
  Or a focus. If the situation for those who feel marginalized doesn't improve, protest will morph into support for political parties of a distinctly unhelpful nature - even to those in whose name they get started. Agreed, there are large numbers of people with urgent, and legitimate, difficulties. Which will not be met even by the parties which claim to speak for them. They'll remain marginalized - and increasingly unemployable - no matter what. Newer industries will simply find their skills irrelevant. Are these people on the 'scrap-heap of history?' Hellishly for them, yes. And any insurrection against a highly militarized police/security organization, will have results reminiscent of present Syria.
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stephan Edwards Aug 10, 2016

It's always nice to meet an optimist. These people are not afraid of being dispossessed they are being dispossessed. As to the so called establishment and elites you folks did it to yourselves. Bluntly if you said the sky was blue I and many others would go look The so called Elites have made themselves that untrustworthy. Every treaty every agreement benefits the few disproportionately or exclusively! Why would anybody trust you to represent a commoners interests, YOU DON'T!
Expert became a slur because so called Experts mad it a slur by claiming Neutrality while pushing a contributors agenda It always turns out the policy recommended is the policy that benefits the contributors direct and indirect. Expert has become another word for Lobbyist and whoever heard of a neutral lobbyist. So called Experts have become hired mouthpieces for special interests and about has trustworthy has a used car salesman.

Mr Ben-Ami anybody who can read this article without moving their lips knows their will be NO policy changes. Democracy is basically in ICU and soon likely to be deader then the Dodo. Every time the policies and agreements carried out are those that benefit the Donor class and their parasites the political class, The middle class and the working class are not helped because those 2 classes exclude all interests but theirs. They have their "Experts" proclaim how wonderful it will be for everyone but it always turns out oops! our experts were wrong so sorry but it's to late to change it. Tough Luck.
Frankly a great number of people would not urinate on the establishment or the experts if they were of fire why should they? They never act in our interests.
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Steve Hurst Aug 10, 2016

Waffle about 'populists' with begrudging acknowledgement that populists, whatever they are, would not exist without real unaddressed problems; then a plead for debt. Debt is the answer, not addressing naff policy and governance. Who would have thought it

'...that corrects the EU’s yawning democratic deficit'. At this point I get confused. Democratic outcomes that are the result of public disquiet are a democratic deficit not a policy deficit. How else are the public to convey disquiet to incumbent politicans who have offended them?

BTW you have to have a right wing to have a left wing or are you suggesting everybody should be centrist and a one party state. Movement left or right usually follow policy failure by the opposing wing. It follows that the problem lies with failing incumbent policy. Your focus therefore needs to be on educating the incumbents but that looks to be a harder job than educating the voters because as the good ship 'Incumbent' sinks they still believe they are within reach of the shore and a quick repair utilising a bucket of debt will sort things out, nothing wrong with the policy. More of the same that got us here is needed
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Michael Public Aug 10, 2016

Populist and elitist are two labels that need to leave the political debate.

Populist is used to mean 'The people voted for something and they really have no clue about it - they are stupid' while elitist essentially means 'corrupt and comprised educated people have sold the working man down river and can never be trusted'.

Once we get past using these labels we can start getting closer to compromise - before then we are just creating a new type of identity politics between people 'too stupid to capable of ruling' and 'people too clever to be trusted to rule'.
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jonathan Story Aug 10, 2016

It is remarkable that the UK's decision on Leave in defence of its parliamentary tradition is portrayed as populist.
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