Populism

Discussion

Barry Hindess:

"By the beginning of the twentieth century, democracy, while still in some left-wing contexts retaining its earlier meaning of government by the people themselves, had also come to designate 'representative government', a complex system of government by networks of elected representatives and unelected public servants, operating through combinations of representative, vaguely consultative and hierarchical institutions.

When the World Bank, international development agencies, and western political leaders favour democracy promotion, it is usually this second understanding of democracy that they have in mind.

The longstanding western fear of the people is central to this second sense of democracy, which generally involves institutional arrangements – a free press, rule of law with a moderately independent judiciary, representative government with a system of 'responsible' political parties – expected to both promote popular participation and keep its impact under control. Grahame Thompson (oD, 22 November 2016) describes these 'four institutional manifestations of a civilized democratic life' as the principal targets of populist rhetoric. When the World Bank, international development agencies, and western political leaders favour democracy promotion, it is usually this second understanding of democracy that they have in mind.

What does all this have to do with the contemporary discussion of populism? My sense in reading as much as I can bear of this discussion, is that the term 'populism' is used to condemn any appeal to the people that seeks to circumvent the institutional arrangements noted above, whose role is to contain the impact of the people on the actual work of government.

Where Thompson identifies these institutional arrangements as the central focus of populist rhetoric, my point is almost the obverse: that political organisations or programs that attack these institutions get to be labelled populist – that this labelling is what much discussion of populism is all about. Populism is thus seen in: British, American and Australian attacks on the press and on what passes in these countries as an independent judiciary; Australian Governments' efforts to undermine the Human Rights Commission and, in New South Wales, the Independent Commission Against Corruption; Donald Trump's occasional threats during the 2016 Presidential campaign to rapidly (without due process) incarcerate or expel millions of Hispanic migrants, to send his opponent to jail and not to accept the election result; the British LEAVE campaign's pretence that a favourable referendum result could trump, no pun intended, the sovereignty of parliament; President Duterte (Harry!) of the Philippines encouraging police to hunt down and kill drug traffickers.

All that unites these different populisms is that they are labelled as such by critics. While it is not always possible to choose the terms in which public debate is conducted, we should recognise that this labelling game is, at best, uninformative and, at worst, seriously misleading.

We should not allow our dislike of many 'populist' attacks on parliamentary democracy, the party system, the press or the rule of law (Thompson's four 'institutional manifestations of a civilized democratic life') to lead us into the view that there is little objectionable about these institutions as they stand today." (https://www.opendemocracy.net/barry-hindess/against-concept-of-populism)