Populism
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z z Political and civil rights are selectively suppressed, especially in relation to the media, although no attempt is made to control every aspect of human life. z z A disposition towards majoritarianism is reflected in a general intolerance of pluralism and, maybe, hostility towards ethnic, cultural or religious minorities.
KEY CONCEPT MAJORITARIANISM
over the minority, with the possible implication that the defeated minority is morally obliged to come into line with the views of the majority. In this case, the majority effectively becomes the people. Majoritarianism has been criticized for allowing the majority to ride roughshod over minority groups, and for failing to recognize that complex modern societies contain no single, cohesive majority but rather comprise a collection of minorities.
As a descriptive concept, majoritarianism refers to a rule of decision-making in which the preferences of the majority overrule those of the minority, although it is unclear whether this refers to an ‘absolute’ or ‘simple’ majority. As a normative concept, majoritarianism refers to the belief that the majority view should prevail
Finally, an alternative approach to the relationship between populism and democracy has been advanced by theorists such as Ernesto Laclau (2005) and Chantal Mouffe (2018). In this view, populism has an in-built disposition in favour of democracy. By using radical democracy to redress the defects of liberal democracy, populists foster the ‘democratization of democracy’. This process involves the reintroduction of conflict into politics, brought about, in particular, through the mobilization of the ‘underdog’ against ‘those in power’. One of the implications of this is that all democratic movements can, to a greater or lesser degree, be seen as populist. TYPES OF POPULISM Populism is marked by a revulsion against the ideological centre ground. This is for at least two reasons. First, centrist politics is typically associated with a liberalism that populists deride, not least because the liberal emphasis on individualism (see p. 24) differs starkly from the populist image of a society divided into rival homogeneous groups. Second, the ideological centre ground is an arena of compromise and fine balances between left- and right-wing beliefs, which offers little scope for the blanket moral judgements to which populists are drawn. The idea of a ‘populism of the centre’ therefore makes very little sense. Some, indeed, link this to the wider problem of locating populism anywhere on the political spectrum, given a tendency to blend policies and beliefs from both the left and the right. For example, Poland’s Law and Justice party combines a conservative approach to social issues with a socialist stance on economic affairs, while the yellow vest ( gilets jaunes ) movement in France has campaigned on issues of economic justice that span the left/right divide, and attracted support frommany who had previously backed far-left and
far-right candidates. However, other populist parties and movements tend to have a more consistent ideological orientation, in line with contrasting sub-traditions.
Radical democracy: A form of democracy that favours decentralization and participation, the widest possible dispersal of political power.
z z right populism z z left populism.
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