«What Exactly is Dangerous about Populism and Polarisation?»

Speech by Jan Werner-Müller (in German)

German professor of political theory, Princeton and fellow at the institute for human sciences in Vienna

Today, it is often said that the entire Western world is experiencing a novel confrontation between “the people” and “the elites.” Herman Van Rompuy, then President of the European Council, warned as early as 2010: “The great problem is populism.” A different prominent figure on the European stage, Yanis Varoufakis, this summer noted a new “zeal” of “anti-establishment sentiments.” And the British philosopher John Gray, always a kind of seismograph for prevailing ideas, even claimed that Europe is witnessing a “mass uprising”—which, according to Gray, has led to what liberals perceive as “paranoia.”

As understandable as this image of “Establishment vs. The People” might seem at first glance, it is not only misleading but directly plays into the hands of populists. Not everyone who criticizes elites is a populist. On the contrary: In liberal democracies, it is not only permissible but even expected for citizens to critique those in power; the “critical citizen” is a classic demand of political education. An immediate equation of protest with populism is incorrect and often serves only to delegitimize legitimate grievances about political measures.

So who is really a populist? The populist always operates with the following dichotomy: On one side, the morally unblemished, homogeneous people; on the other, the corrupt or at least incompetent elites (which, among German populists, is now often referred to as “traitors to the people”). Thus, when populists are in opposition, they naturally criticize elites. However, this critique of elites is only a necessary but not sufficient criterion for identifying populists. What is crucial is that the populist claims a kind of moral monopoly, asserting that they—and only they—truly represent the people. Think of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who once retorted to critics of him and his party: “We are the people. Who are you?” Or consider Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the right-wing populist FPÖ. Strache now always presents himself as the “Citizen Chancellor”—which evidently implies the insinuation that the elected Chancellor of the Republic does not work for the citizens (but for transnational elites or some other dark forces). In clear terms: Those who, like populists, claim a moral exclusive representation in politics, are also signaling that all other political competitors are fundamentally illegitimate.

But this is not the only consequence of the populists’ fundamental claim to represent the people alone. It also follows that anyone who does not support the populists is, in some way, not part of the people. For populists, “the people” is never simply the empirical totality of the citizens in a country. They always operate with a distinction between the “true people” and citizens whose belonging to the people is fundamentally questioned. American populists, for instance, always talk about “real Americans.” And Nigel Farage, the now-retired leader of the British UK Independence Party, rejoiced on the night of the Brexit vote that the result was a victory for “real people” (which suggests that the 48 percent of voters who wanted to remain in the EU were somehow not “real” and did not belong to the “true” British people). Donald Trump made two statements at a campaign event in May that, given the many hateful rants and falsehoods regularly uttered by the Republican presidential candidate, went largely unnoticed. Yet these statements clearly marked Trump as a populist: “The only thing that matters is the unification of the people, and all the other people don’t matter.”

A statement that the only thing that counts is the unity of the people—this sounds relatively harmless. But what is crucial is the conclusion: “All the other people don’t count.” So there is a true people and a single true representative of this people—him. Those who are against him are automatically not part of the true people and are thus morally and, above all, politically irrelevant.

It should be clear that the common judgment that populists might be somewhat rough in their appearance but are actually good for democracy is not sustainable. Populists do not actually seek “more popular participation.” They have no fundamental objections to the modern principle of political representation; they only believe that—unless they themselves are in power—the people have the wrong representatives. They do not aim to transform political systems toward more direct democracy; rather, they only occasionally use a referendum to demonstrate that those currently in power do not implement the true will of the people. What is crucial is that populists—contrary to what is often claimed—are not interested in representing political will at all. What they call the “authentic will of the people” is not an empirical quantity that must emerge from complicated, lengthy, and perhaps often annoying discussions. Instead, the “true will of the people” is derived from a symbolic representation of the “true people”—here again, the exclusion of those who are in some way not “real” is decisive. In other words: Populism cannot serve as a corrective for a representative democracy in which “the elites” (as if they were a homogeneous group…) have distanced themselves too far from the people (as if that were a homogeneous collective…). Populists do not want an open-ended political discussion process among citizens; rather, they always know the correct—because symbolically correct in terms of the concept of the people—answer in advance. It is not about something like Rousseau’s volonté générale; rather, it is about validating something like an “authentic spirit of the people.” In this sense, populists are also akin to national romantics.

For populists, their claim to moral exclusive representation immediately presents a non-trivial challenge. They claim to have the monopoly on authentic representation—but why then do they not receive a hundred percent of the votes in parliamentary elections or referendums? One way to resolve this contradiction is to question the status of citizens who reject populists as part of the authentic people. Another way is to deny legitimacy to political systems that produce results that, from the populists’ perspective, are politically and morally incorrect. It is no coincidence that populists always question the system after unfavorable election results. Consider Viktor Orbán, who, after the surprising defeat in the Hungarian parliamentary elections of 2002, declared: “The nation cannot be in opposition.” Not only was the crucial moral exclusive representation claim made (only Orbán’s party Fidesz represents the nation)—it was also suggested that something fundamentally wrong must be with a democracy that does not allow the nation to prevail (which is why it is only logical that Orbán, since his election victory in 2010, has restructured Hungary’s political system so that only his party Fidesz can be in power). Or consider the Austrian presidential election campaign this year. Norbert Hofer, the FPÖ candidate, told his opponent Alexander Van der Bellen in a television debate: “You have the high society, and I have the people.” How could it be that “the people” suffered a defeat in the vote at the end of May? It could not be that which could not be in democracy; thus, the result was questioned (it is well-known that the Austrian Constitutional Court decided to repeat the election, but did not follow the FPÖ’s suggestions of manipulation in favor of Van der Bellen).

Hofer claimed after the election outcome that his opponent had been “counted but not elected.” But in democracy, only numbers count, i.e., empirical election results (as long as elections are free and fair). One cannot pit a supposed “substance” of the people (often called the “silent majority” by populists) against existing democratic institutions (including the election process). Indeed, a thinker like Carl Schmitt, who, in the 1920s, launched a general attack on parliamentarism, stated: “The will of the people can be expressed democratically just as well, and even better, through acclamation, through simple and undisputed existence, as through the statistical apparatus that has been developed with such meticulous care for half a century. The stronger the force of democratic feeling, the more certain the recognition that democracy is something different from a registration system of secret votes.” In this sense, populists who deploy people’s spirits and silent majorities against the inevitably “statistical apparatus” of democracy are also heirs to Carl Schmitt.

This does not mean that there is only the power of facts in democracy and that election procedures or other institutions cannot be criticized. Everyone is free to demonstrate in the streets, write critical blog entries, go to court, or resort to the ultimate means of civil disobedience. As German constitutional lawyer Christoph Möllers has shown, such actions undoubtedly have democratic significance—but they lack democratic form. Only institutions like elections have such form and can empower representatives to make binding decisions for all citizens.

One might be tempted to conclude that populists live in a kind of political fantasy world: They construct a concept of the people from various symbolic elements; they put their own words into the imagined people’s mouth and then claim, like Trump at the Republican convention in July, “I am your voice.” These fictions, one might think, must inevitably fail in the face of political reality. A similar expectation regarding the inevitable “disillusionment” of populists is also found among observers who view populist parties primarily as protest movements—and then conclude that protest parties are by definition incapable of governing because, once in power, they cannot protest against themselves. Not to mention those who believe that populism means something like simplistic political offers or demagogic promises that must inevitably come into conflict with political and, above all, economic reality. If all this were true, one could actually be relieved to note that the problem of populism would eventually resolve itself. But here, especially liberal observers, are simplifying matters too much. Populists can indeed govern—and do.

«Asymmetric Polarization and Party Change»

Speech by Matt Grossman

Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research (IPPSR) and Professor of Political Science, Michigan State University

Here you can find the slides of the presentation:

Slides