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I didn't see any clear definition of populism anywhere here. At present moment it seems to just be a pejorative against lower class people with right-wing leani

I didn't see any clear definition of populism anywhere here. At present moment it seems to just be a pejorative against lower class people with right-wing leanings. It's also odd to me that they only look at the post-WWII period. Populism was widespread in Europe during the 1800s

rayiner 3y ago
Using “populism” to describe traditional mindsets is a clever rhetorical trick. You don’t need a label to describe the desire of people to protect local industries and not have foreigners come live in their country. That’s just how most people in the world have felt historically, and how most people in the world still feel. If you look at China, most of the rest of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, etc., those things are no-brainers. What requires a label is the new thing. The new idea that embraces freedom of movement of capital, goods, and labor, across national borders. “Populism” is nothing more than the opposition to this new, unlabeled thing.
- bawolff 3y ago
  Populism is not neccesarily protectionism. Its less about the specific policies as how they are made. Also its not like populism is a new term or idea. It goes back to Roman times at least.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    Populism isn’t new. But the ideas being called “populist” today wouldn’t have warranted that label even a few decades ago. It’s turned into a label for everyone who opposes globalized industries and mass immigration.
- jjjjj55555 3y ago
  Anti-globalist seems like a more precise term for what you're describing. It also avoids clashing with populist movements of the past, which dealt with issues other than those that you're describing.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Category error. Populism isn't an issue portfolio; there is left-populism and right-populism. Populism is a vector for influencing politics (specifically: it's the vector that rejects pluralism, divides the polity into "the people" and "the elites", and declares that a particular political agenda, in its entirety, represents the true will of the people). If "traditional mindsets" are pursued by means of populism, it's a populist campaign. If not, it isn't. There is nothing intrinsically populist about anti-globalism, but, like many political agendas, it's easy to create a populist lozenge for it to get it down the polity's throat easily.
  - jjjjj55555 3y ago
    What are the other possible vectors for influencing politics in a republic/democracy like the US. Now that I think of it, it seems like both sides are populist.
    - importantbrian 3y ago
      > (specifically: it's the vector that rejects pluralism, divides the polity into "the people" and "the elites", and declares that a particular political agenda, in its entirety, represents the true will of the people) The elites vs the people distinction is usually the key characteristic of populism in most definitions. Populist movements also tend to be very anti-establishment. Many vectors for influencing politics don't involve viewing society as this battle between the people and the elites. For example, while it's true that left-wing populists exist in the US I wouldn't describe the current Democratic party as a populist party. It is more of an institutionalist party and they don't tend to attack elites, because most groups traditionally considered part of the elite support the party. This is in contrast to the current Republican party which very much casts itself as being opposed to the elite. All the rhetoric about battling the deep state and draining the swamp is very much populist.
      - downWidOutaFite 3y ago
        It depends on your definition of elites. "Deep state" and "drain the swamp" is about attacking government elites but the same movement promotes less regulation and lower taxes for business elites.
- downWidOutaFite 3y ago
  It is not new. America is special because we are a nation of immigrants. Always have been. And it is one of America's biggest strengths, one of the reason why we have been so prosperous. The acrimonious immigration debate is also not new, there has always been anti and pro factions. What is new is the level of surveillance and bureaucracy to notice and control immigration and the partisan polarization on the issue.
  - zarathustreal 3y ago
    Immigration is not in and of itself a cause of prosperity, it is the diversity of thought and opinion that comes as a result. Like all things in the world, too much of anything becomes harmful. A nation is a system that must maintain a certain level of order or it ceases to exist as such. There’s a reason the immigration debate is so passionate and it’s not xenophobia or nationalism
- tivert 3y ago
  > What requires a label is the new thing. The new idea that embraces freedom of movement of capital, goods, and labor, across national borders. “Populism” is nothing more than the opposition to this new, unlabeled thing. Isn't that "new, unlabeled thing" called liberalism?
whstl 3y ago
> a pejorative against lower class people with right-wing leanings Or against lower class people with non-US-left-wing leanings
- deleted 3y ago
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- frank_nitti 3y ago
  I am curious about this “non-US-left-wing”, maybe someone can clarify. I consider left-wing to mean the same here in the US and abroad. But the presence of actual “leftists” in the US dialogue has decreased dramatically since the bad old Rockefeller/Carnegie days when the working class made some nominal but real progress. These days in the US, people associate the “left” with identity politics and some vague, ever-decreasing lip service to the oppression of the working class voter. The Democrat Party establishment is staunchly neoliberal, in practice, nearly indistinguishable from the Reagan-era Republican except for some theatrics around gender and race, but they are not leftist by any reasonable measure. Is that the distinction you are referring to here, or is this another classification of leftism that doesn’t apply to either US contingency?
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    I read it as saying that it's also a pejorative against lower class centrists, in particular those without unwavering party loyalty.
    - whstl 3y ago
      By “non-US” I mean the left outside the US that didn’t get too influenced by Democrats. Not saying Democrats are good or bad, I’m not American. But their brand of leftism is quite different from what I knew as a young person.
  - jjjjj55555 3y ago
    It seems like the words are all increasingly meaningless. It's about what connotation you can give to them for the people in your base. And if you can't change the connotation, you just invent a new word. I think I remember some on the left calling when Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama "populists", but in a good way. Or maybe the word was "grassroots." Nowadays the word populist has a negative, right-wing connotation for many in that group.
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bell-cot 3y ago
Being neither a political scientist, nor a digital native up on all the latest usages, I took a glance at Wikipedia: "Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group with "the elite".[1] It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment.[2] The term developed in the late 19th century and has been applied to various politicians, parties and movements since that time, often as a pejorative. Within political science and other social sciences, several different definitions of populism have been employed, with some scholars proposing that the term be rejected altogether.[1][3]" In the context of WWII-era history, that would fit quite well with both Russian (Stalinist-Leninist) communism ("the people" = "workers" and "the elite" = "nobility & capitalists", roughly) and with German (Nazi) fascism ("the people" = "Aryans" and "the elite" is a mish-mash of socialists, communists, foreigners, Jews, etc.). I don't know about Spain or Italy...but compared to Hitler and Stalin, Franco and Mussolini were rather small fish.
bawolff 3y ago
> I didn't see any clear definition of populism anywhere here. For reference this is what the paper says. Seems like they are taking a broad approach. > The most conventional approach in the literature identifies populism as a ‘thin-centred ideol- ogy’ that frames the fundamental political cleavage between the elite and the pure people (Mudde 2007). The strengths of this approach are that it is agnostic about the causes and the specific pol- icy content of populism; is broad enough to capture a wide range of the phenomenon, such as left- and right-wing; inclusionary or exclusionary populism; and specific enough to exclude non- populism. Despite the ubiquity of this definition, empirical researchers often include parties influenced by the notion of anti-establishment politics, a term closely related to populism (Barr 2009; Mudde 2007).1 Our aim is not to clarify the concept of populism or decide between different approaches but to capture a wide variety of populist outcomes to reflect the heterogeneity of the literature. Thus, our definition includes the radical left, the radical right, and historical pre- cedents of populism, such as fascism in Europe or Latin-American import-substitution populism, such as Peronism (Guriev and Papaioannou 2022, 11–13).
wkat4242 3y ago
Populism to me is rallying people based on gut feelings while knowing that they have no basis in reality. And then usually voting the opposite way. Populists usually know that their points are fallacies, they're just telling people what they want to hear. But they're doing nothing to solve the problems because really they're not caused by the things they claim. And of course actually solving problems is not in their interest because they thrive on the anger of people with those problems.
- jwells89 3y ago
  This is what comes to mind for me, as well. Campaigns designed to above all else scratch emotional itches with brittle underlying logic/reason.

rayiner 3y ago

Using “populism” to describe traditional mindsets is a clever rhetorical trick. You don’t need a label to describe the desire of people to protect local industries and not have foreigners come live in their country. That’s just how most people in the world have felt historically, and how most people in the world still feel. If you look at China, most of the rest of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, etc., those things are no-brainers. What requires a label is the new thing. The new idea that embraces freedom of movement of capital, goods, and labor, across national borders. “Populism” is nothing more than the opposition to this new, unlabeled thing.

bawolff 3y ago
Populism is not neccesarily protectionism. Its less about the specific policies as how they are made. Also its not like populism is a new term or idea. It goes back to Roman times at least.
- rayiner 3y ago
  Populism isn’t new. But the ideas being called “populist” today wouldn’t have warranted that label even a few decades ago. It’s turned into a label for everyone who opposes globalized industries and mass immigration.
jjjjj55555 3y ago
Anti-globalist seems like a more precise term for what you're describing. It also avoids clashing with populist movements of the past, which dealt with issues other than those that you're describing.
tptacek 3y ago
Category error. Populism isn't an issue portfolio; there is left-populism and right-populism. Populism is a vector for influencing politics (specifically: it's the vector that rejects pluralism, divides the polity into "the people" and "the elites", and declares that a particular political agenda, in its entirety, represents the true will of the people). If "traditional mindsets" are pursued by means of populism, it's a populist campaign. If not, it isn't. There is nothing intrinsically populist about anti-globalism, but, like many political agendas, it's easy to create a populist lozenge for it to get it down the polity's throat easily.
- jjjjj55555 3y ago
  What are the other possible vectors for influencing politics in a republic/democracy like the US. Now that I think of it, it seems like both sides are populist.
  - importantbrian 3y ago
    > (specifically: it's the vector that rejects pluralism, divides the polity into "the people" and "the elites", and declares that a particular political agenda, in its entirety, represents the true will of the people) The elites vs the people distinction is usually the key characteristic of populism in most definitions. Populist movements also tend to be very anti-establishment. Many vectors for influencing politics don't involve viewing society as this battle between the people and the elites. For example, while it's true that left-wing populists exist in the US I wouldn't describe the current Democratic party as a populist party. It is more of an institutionalist party and they don't tend to attack elites, because most groups traditionally considered part of the elite support the party. This is in contrast to the current Republican party which very much casts itself as being opposed to the elite. All the rhetoric about battling the deep state and draining the swamp is very much populist.
    - downWidOutaFite 3y ago
      It depends on your definition of elites. "Deep state" and "drain the swamp" is about attacking government elites but the same movement promotes less regulation and lower taxes for business elites.
downWidOutaFite 3y ago
It is not new. America is special because we are a nation of immigrants. Always have been. And it is one of America's biggest strengths, one of the reason why we have been so prosperous. The acrimonious immigration debate is also not new, there has always been anti and pro factions. What is new is the level of surveillance and bureaucracy to notice and control immigration and the partisan polarization on the issue.
- zarathustreal 3y ago
  Immigration is not in and of itself a cause of prosperity, it is the diversity of thought and opinion that comes as a result. Like all things in the world, too much of anything becomes harmful. A nation is a system that must maintain a certain level of order or it ceases to exist as such. There’s a reason the immigration debate is so passionate and it’s not xenophobia or nationalism
tivert 3y ago
> What requires a label is the new thing. The new idea that embraces freedom of movement of capital, goods, and labor, across national borders. “Populism” is nothing more than the opposition to this new, unlabeled thing. Isn't that "new, unlabeled thing" called liberalism?

whstl 3y ago

> a pejorative against lower class people with right-wing leanings Or against lower class people with non-US-left-wing leanings

deleted 3y ago
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frank_nitti 3y ago
I am curious about this “non-US-left-wing”, maybe someone can clarify. I consider left-wing to mean the same here in the US and abroad. But the presence of actual “leftists” in the US dialogue has decreased dramatically since the bad old Rockefeller/Carnegie days when the working class made some nominal but real progress. These days in the US, people associate the “left” with identity politics and some vague, ever-decreasing lip service to the oppression of the working class voter. The Democrat Party establishment is staunchly neoliberal, in practice, nearly indistinguishable from the Reagan-era Republican except for some theatrics around gender and race, but they are not leftist by any reasonable measure. Is that the distinction you are referring to here, or is this another classification of leftism that doesn’t apply to either US contingency?
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  I read it as saying that it's also a pejorative against lower class centrists, in particular those without unwavering party loyalty.
  - whstl 3y ago
    By “non-US” I mean the left outside the US that didn’t get too influenced by Democrats. Not saying Democrats are good or bad, I’m not American. But their brand of leftism is quite different from what I knew as a young person.
- jjjjj55555 3y ago
  It seems like the words are all increasingly meaningless. It's about what connotation you can give to them for the people in your base. And if you can't change the connotation, you just invent a new word. I think I remember some on the left calling when Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama "populists", but in a good way. Or maybe the word was "grassroots." Nowadays the word populist has a negative, right-wing connotation for many in that group.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bell-cot 3y ago

Being neither a political scientist, nor a digital native up on all the latest usages, I took a glance at Wikipedia: "Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group with "the elite".[1] It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment.[2] The term developed in the late 19th century and has been applied to various politicians, parties and movements since that time, often as a pejorative. Within political science and other social sciences, several different definitions of populism have been employed, with some scholars proposing that the term be rejected altogether.[1][3]" In the context of WWII-era history, that would fit quite well with both Russian (Stalinist-Leninist) communism ("the people" = "workers" and "the elite" = "nobility & capitalists", roughly) and with German (Nazi) fascism ("the people" = "Aryans" and "the elite" is a mish-mash of socialists, communists, foreigners, Jews, etc.). I don't know about Spain or Italy...but compared to Hitler and Stalin, Franco and Mussolini were rather small fish.

bawolff 3y ago

> I didn't see any clear definition of populism anywhere here. For reference this is what the paper says. Seems like they are taking a broad approach. > The most conventional approach in the literature identifies populism as a ‘thin-centred ideol- ogy’ that frames the fundamental political cleavage between the elite and the pure people (Mudde 2007). The strengths of this approach are that it is agnostic about the causes and the specific pol- icy content of populism; is broad enough to capture a wide range of the phenomenon, such as left- and right-wing; inclusionary or exclusionary populism; and specific enough to exclude non- populism. Despite the ubiquity of this definition, empirical researchers often include parties influenced by the notion of anti-establishment politics, a term closely related to populism (Barr 2009; Mudde 2007).1 Our aim is not to clarify the concept of populism or decide between different approaches but to capture a wide variety of populist outcomes to reflect the heterogeneity of the literature. Thus, our definition includes the radical left, the radical right, and historical pre- cedents of populism, such as fascism in Europe or Latin-American import-substitution populism, such as Peronism (Guriev and Papaioannou 2022, 11–13).

wkat4242 3y ago

Populism to me is rallying people based on gut feelings while knowing that they have no basis in reality. And then usually voting the opposite way. Populists usually know that their points are fallacies, they're just telling people what they want to hear. But they're doing nothing to solve the problems because really they're not caused by the things they claim. And of course actually solving problems is not in their interest because they thrive on the anger of people with those problems.

jwells89 3y ago
This is what comes to mind for me, as well. Campaigns designed to above all else scratch emotional itches with brittle underlying logic/reason.