Populism
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While populists reject the notion of the people as citizens, on the grounds that it is incompatible with the people/elite divide, each of the other two definitions casts some light on the populist conception of the people. The assertion that the people are ‘common’, ‘plain’ or ‘ordinary’, in the sense that they are somehow disadvantaged, is helpful in that it captures the idea that power – who has it, and who lacks it – is vital to the distinction between the people and the elite. However, if the people encompasses all those who lack power and are socially disadvantaged, it threatens to include groups that populists may wish to exclude (such as ethnic or religious minorities). Moreover, to base the people/elite divide primarily on socio-economic factors is to come close to adopting a form of class analysis that only left-wing populists could accept, most
populists subscribing to a ‘post-class’ approach to society. The same applies to the assertion that the people are equivalent to the nation. While this is the defining assumption of national populism (sometimes called ‘cultural’ or ‘xenophobic’ populism), it is not a position necessarily favoured by other populists.
National populism: A form of populism that prioritizes the culture and interests of the nation and embraces strident anti-internationalism.
PERSPECTIVES ON . . . THE PEOPLE LIBERALS embrace a disaggregated, even atomistic, notion of the people, underpinned by a belief in the supreme importance of the individual over any social group or collective body. The people are therefore a collection of autonomous and unique individuals, whose ‘personhood’ is reflected in their entitlement to equal legal and political rights. CONSERVATIVES have traditionally understood the people in the context of hierarchy, the people, or masses, occupying the lower strata of society and benefiting from the support, leadership and guidance that is provided by their social ‘betters’. This view of the people was most prominent among pre-democratic conservatives. SOCIALISTS define the people in terms of social class, meaning that they share a similar socio-economic position. The people are identified as the working class, implying either that they are manual, or ‘blue collar’, workers, or, in the Marxist view, that they live off the sale of their labour power (the proletariat). NATIONALISTS believe that the people is equivalent to the nation. It is thus a collection of people who are bound together by shared values and traditions, a common language, religion and history, and usually occupying the same geographical area. FASCISTS view the people as an organically unified whole, forged out of an intense and militant sense of national identity. In its Nazi version, Volksgemeinscaft (people’s community) places a strong emphasis on the racial unity of the German people, seen as the ‘master race’. POPULISTS portray the people – typically conceived of selectively as the ‘real people’ or ‘true people’ – in either socialist or nationalist terms, seeing their wishes and instincts also as the sole legitimate guide to political action.
The populist conception of the people is distinctive in two senses. In the first place, populists claim to represent not all the people but only those who are seen as the ‘real’, ‘pure’ or ‘true’ people. Only some of the people are therefore really the people (Muller, 2017). To be a proper member of the political community it is thus necessary to meet
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