Reflection

The Myth of Global Populism

The “rise of global populism” has become a primary metanarrative for the previous decade in advanced industrial democracies, but I
argue that it is a deeply misleading one. Nativism—not populism—is the defining feature of both radical right parties in Western
Europe and of radical right politicians like Donald Trump in the United States. The tide of “left-wing populism” in Europe receded
quickly, as did its promise of returning power to the people through online voting and policy deliberation. The erosion of
democracy in states like Hungary has not been the result of populism, but rather of the deliberate practice of competitive
authoritarianism. Calling these disparate phenomena “populist” obscures their core features and mistakenly attaches normatively
redeeming qualities to nativists and authoritarians.

There exists a shoe—the word “populism”—for which some- politics should be an expression of the general will of the
where exists a foot. There are all kinds of feet which it nearly fits, people.” Mudde’s ideational approach has allowed scholars
but we must not be trapped by these nearly fitting feet. The
prince is always wandering about with the shoe; and somewhere, to begin cross-national research on populism, identify at
we feel sure, there awaits a limb called pure populism. least two prominent subtypes—exclusionary and inclu-
—Isiah Berlin.1 sionary—and hypothesize on populism’s relationship to

I
both liberal democracy and competitive authoritarianism.
argue that populism is a misleading lens for viewing
Still, only a small group of scholars, mostly those who
some major shocks to liberal democracy in Europe and
worked either on the European radical right or the Latin
the United States over the last decade. The goal is not
American cases of Venezuela, Peru, or Bolivia, engaged in
intellectual demolition, but rather the resurrection of a
such research until the last several years. Whether “popu-
position—call it populist skepticism—that has been over-
list” was the right term to describe any or all of these
whelmed by the rediscovery of populism by political
movements was not really a core concern within this small,
scientists. That few scholars now seriously question the
albeit rich, field of inquiry.
analytical utility of populism is a testament to the clarity of
And then the events of 2016—particularly Brexit and
Cas Mudde’s (2004) definition of it as a “thin-centered
the election of Donald Trump—turned populism into a
ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated
political buzzword on par with “globalization” or “terror-
into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, the ‘pure
ism” or “austerity.”2 The Cambridge Dictionary declared
people’ and ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that
populism the word of the year for 2017, academic and
commercial presses rushed to deliver books on it, and
research clusters on populism appeared at major univer-
David Art is Professor of Political Science at Tufts
sities worldwide. The American Political Science Associ-
University (david.art@tufts.edu). He is the author of The
ation chose “Populism and Privilege” as the theme for its
Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria
annual conference in 2019. Indeed, the existence of a
(Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Inside the Radical
“global populism” is now part of conventional political
Right (Cambridge University Press, 2011). He is currently
science wisdom and research has moved onto questions of
completing a book manuscript titled The Resilience of the
concept measurement and hypothesis testing (Ackerman,
Old Regime: The Rise in Mass Politics in Europe,
Mudde, and Zaslove 2013; Hawkins et al. 2019).
1832–1918).
Much as I admire parts of this intellectual enterprise,
my contention is that it is built on a flawed conceptual
He would like to thank participants in the University of
foundation. Specifically, the current expansive use of
Zürich’s summer school on populism (2018) and fellow
populism, and the tendency to see it at work in parties
panelists and audience members at APSA roundtables on
as diverse as Fidesz in Hungary, Podemos in Spain, and the
populism in 2016, 2018, and 2019. Their intellectual
Alternative for Germany (AfD), obscures what Mudde
tolerance for a populist skeptic, along with their insightful
initially referred to as the “host ideology.” If it is true that
critiques of the arguments, helped improve this essay
“populism almost always appears attached to other ideo-
immeasurably. He is especially grateful to the editor of
logical elements,” and if these elements are all “thicker”
Perspectives on Politics for his sage comments and patience.
doi:10.1017/S1537592720003552
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 Reflection | The Myth of Global Populism

than a “thin-centered” populism, then the analytical value- was a new diagnosis—populism—for the endurance of
added of populism is significantly diminished (Mudde and competitive authoritarianism in states from Venezuela to
Kaltwasser 2018, 1669). More importantly, it allows Turkey. Interestingly, it was the small Central European
nativist and authoritarian actors to legitimate their claims state of Hungary that became Exhibit A for the perils of
by appeals to the general will. populism, and it was Hungarian President Victor Orbán
The last decade witnessed not the rise of global popu- who emerged as populism’s master tactician. Yet it was not
lism, I argue, but rather the convergence of three distinct populism that eroded Hungarian democracy but the
trends in advanced industrial democracies. The first was transformation of Orbán—and by extension Fidesz—
the political activation of race and ethnicity by radical right from what Juan Linz (1978) once termed a loyal demo-
parties. In most of Western Europe this preceded Brexit cratic actor into first a semi-loyal one until finally becom-
and Trump by decades, and students of these parties had ing a disloyal one. As with nativism and anti-austerity,
reached a consensus that nativism was their core ideology populism was epiphenomenal to a deeper political project
years before 2016. Neither general feelings of political which, as has recently become even more clear in the
alienation nor economic concerns provided much explan- Hungarian case, is best described as authoritarianism.
ation for vote choice among radical right voters in most
studies, whereas anti-immigrant sentiment nearly always Nativist to the Core
did. Given both the volume of research on the European In 1978, an unknown politician named Jean-Pierre Stir-
radical right and the clarity of its findings on nativism, it bois of the tiny French National Front ran for a seat in the
was unfortunate that some scholars ended up replicating National Assembly under the slogan “a million people out
debates about the degree of Trump’s populism and the of work are a million immigrants too many.” Forty-two
role of culture versus economics in his political rise. Now years later, the nativist message of the French far right
that research on the 2016 elections has cumulated, there is remains the same. Following Mudde (2017), I conceive of
overwhelming evidence that culture—particularly race nativism as “an ideology that holds that states should be
and ethnicity—was the core of Trump’s appeal. Trump inhabited exclusively by members of the native group, and
was not the product of a general revolt against the political that non-native people and ideas are fundamentally threat-
class in the wake of the great recession; rather, Trump was ening to the homogenous nation-state.” Neither name
the ultimate beneficiary of a long-running “southern changes (the National Front was renamed the National
strategy” fueled by white grievances that was pioneered Rally in 2018), nor epic leadership fights between mem-
by George Wallace and honed by Richard Nixon. bers of the Le Pen family, nor multiple efforts to distance
Unlike nativism, the second major trend of 2010–2020 the party from its most extremist elements have diluted the
proved to be ephemeral despite the enormous initial fundamental nativism of Europe’s vanguard radical right
energy surrounding it. When the transformation of Syriza party. Indeed, when Steve Bannon spoke at the National
from a left-wing intellectual circle to a party of government Rally party congress in 2018, he urged the NR to “double-
in Greece in 2015 was repeated by Podemos in Spain and down” on its anti-immigrant message: “Let them call you
then the Five-Star Movement (M5S) in Italy, it looked to racist, let them call you xenophobes, let them call you
many as though “inclusionary populism” had spread from nativists. Wear it like a badge of honor … Because every
Latin America to Europe and thereby strengthened the day we get strong and they get weaker.”3 Bannon was
case that populism could be grafted onto the left as well as incorrect in one sense: radical right parties were not really
the right (or even center, as the case with the ideologically surging at the end of the decade but had instead shown, in
inscrutable M5S). But most populist elements of these the aggregate, a high degree of electoral stability since the
parties vanished within a couple of years. Syriza ended up 1980s. Consider these average vote shares for radical right
enforcing the very austerity measures it had campaigned parties by decade: 1980s (10.5%), 1990s (10.5%), 2000s
against. Podemos lost its chief advocate of its “populist (11.4%), 2010-2015 (11.7%) (Norris and Ingelhart
strategy” following a split in 2019. The promise of direct 2019, 297). Bannon did, however, correctly identify the
participation in politics also proved illusory for Podemos, core of the radical right’s ideology. Whereas these parties
but even more so in the case of the M5S. The party’s have shifted positions toward Europe (some began as pro-
online platform “Rousseau” became not so much a means EU) and have drifted far from their initial neoliberalism,
for arriving at the general will as a machine to manufacture their nativist core has not changed in the least. In this
consent and legitimate the decisions of the party leaders. sense, radical right parties exhibit a remarkable ideological
The third major trend was a global decline in democ- consistency compared to Christian democratic, social
racy, or at least the widespread perception of a global democratic, liberal, and even many Green parties who
decline. By the turn of the twenty-first century, most have sought new policy domains after their core ideology
analysts had come to recognize that the “third wave of (environmentalism) became the political status quo.
democratization” had either ended abruptly or had never When radical right parties first emerged across West
been very robust to begin with. What was novel after 2016 Europe, many analysts were puzzled. How could it be that

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 parties whose comparative advantage lay in mobilizing moment, it appeared that a party to the right of the
resentment were emerging in some of the wealthiest and CDU/CSU would succeed by concentrating on econom-
longest standing democracies in the world? Looking past ics and jettisoning the cultural nativism that had doomed
rising ethnic heterogeneity and growing societal resistance every other radical right party in postwar Germany. Yet
to it, some scholars initially tried to cast it as a manifest- even before millions of Syrian refugees sought asylum in
ation of rising political dissatisfaction in general, or what Europe in 2015–2016, the AfD’s party leadership was
some German scholars termed Politikverdrossenheit captured by a resurgent nativist wing in July 2015 under
(Arzheimer 2002). Yet the voluminous evidence that has Frauke Petry. And when Merkel opened up Germany to
cumulated since the 1980s demonstrates that political Syrian refugees, the AfD pivoted to a relentlessly anti-
distrust—the ostensible motor of populism—is at best a immigrant message that helped it perform well in numer-
secondary factor to attitudes toward immigration. As ous state elections before eventually winning 12.6% of the
Arzheimer (2017) summarizes: “The vast majority of their national vote in 2017, making it the first radical right party
voters support the radical right because of their anti- in postwar Germany to gain representation in the lower
immigrant claims and demands, and their sense of frus- house (Bundestag). It was thus a shock when Petry left the
tration and distrust may very well result from their political party the day after the election: machinations by an even
preferences on immigration not being heeded by the more extremist wing had eroded her internal support. By
mainstream parties.” A second hypothesis on the rise of June of 2020, two state branches of the AfD (Brandenburg
the European extreme right, one first made by Piero Ignazi and Thuringia) were under the surveillance of the Office
(1992) and recently resuscitated by Norris and Ingelhart for the Protection of the Constitution, as they were ruled
(2019), argued that the spread of post-materialist values to be “fighting against the free democratic order.” The
and the political success of the new left had provoked a AfD is thus better understood as a party of the refugee
“silent-counterrevolution” among voters who were crisis—specifically, Merkel’s response to it—even though
attracted to the radical right’s defense of supposedly its origins lie in the politics of the great recession (Art
traditional values. But evidence for this proposition has 2019).
been weak as well, because, again according to Arzheimer As by far the most researched party family in Europe,
(2017): “one way or the other, for many RRP voters in scholars had come to learn a great deal about the radical
Western Europe, homophobia and social conservatism do right parties and their voters. It was unfortunate that this
not seem to matter too much anymore.” knowledge did not prevent a repetition of the “culture
The central debate over the rise of the radical right was versus economics” debate about the political rise of Don-
between proponents of the “losers of modernization” and ald Trump. Rather than looking toward the radical right in
the “cultural backlash” theses. The former view economic contemporary Europe, an initial wave of academic litera-
change as fundamental while the latter understand cultural ture and political journalism sought instead to place
backlash primarily as anti-immigrant sentiment. I agree Trump in an American populist tradition.
with Mudde and Kaltwasser’s (2018, 1673) assessment Of the possible precursors to Trump, none received as
that there is no need to recapitulate this debate given that it much attention as George Wallace, the former governor of
“was decided decades ago (in favor of cultural backlash.”) Alabama (1963–1967, 1971–1979, 1983–1987) and the
Suffice to say that even the most skillful efforts at injecting last politician before Ross Perot to launch a credible third-
political economy into radical right voting have consist- party presidential challenge in 1968. In fact, it was in the
ently failed to demonstrate the centrality of economic wake of Perot’s first presidential run in 1992 that both
anxiety, or the character of the welfare state, or the Wallace and populism received a bump in intellectual
construction of a winning formula that combines neo- attention. Stephen Lesher’s authorized biography George
liberal economic preferences with authoritarian cultural Wallace: American Populist was published in 1995, and
values (Art 2011). Elisabeth Ivarsflaten’s (2008) finding Michael Kazin’s The Populist Persuasion that appeared the
that the only grievances that all successful radical right same year includes a lengthy chapter on Wallace. As Alan
parties (in Western Europe) mobilize are those over Brinkley (1994) noted in his book review, Lesher’s thesis
immigration remains valid today. was that a “broad populist message, much more than its
Tellingly, the greatest economic downturn since the racist mutation, was responsible for Governor Wallace’s
Great Depression did not lead to a dramatic increase in extraordinary success in national politics.” Two decades
radical right support, as most economic theories would later, Rich Lowry traced a direct populist line from
predict. The sovereign debt crisis, however, did spawn a Wallace to Trump: “What you hear in Trump, and
new radical right party in Germany in the form of the Wallace before him, is the authentic voice of American
Alternative for Germany (AfD) in 2013. Founded by a populism, lurid and outraged, crude and entertaining,
professor of economics, the AfD sought a return to the earthy and evocative” (Lowry, 2016).
deutschmark and an end to the EU bailouts that Chan- Recent analyses of populism by John Judis (2016) and
cellor Angela Merkel had grudgingly approved. For a Jan-Werner Müller (2016) draw on Lesher’s portrait of

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 Reflection | The Myth of Global Populism

Wallace to make similar arguments to Lowry. Judis writes segregation signs in public places and by threatening to
that “Wallace emphasized his opposition to radical inte- arrest any FBI agent who exposed the racial makeup of
gration, but he framed it as a defense of the average (white) Southern grand juries. He broke with his political protégé
American against the tyranny of Washington bureaucrats” Governor James “Big Jim” Folsom in 1956 because,
(34). Wallace, Judis notes, routinely railed against the according to Wallace, he had always been “soft on the
“pointy-headed intellectuals” that were, in his view, cre- [original racial slur omitted] question” (quoted in Kazin
ating a new oligarchy under the guise of a revamped 1995, 230). Moreover, Wallace was always clear in his
liberalism. He quotes selections of Wallace’s 1967 cam- own mind about the role that race played in his political
paign interview on Meet the Press: ascent. After losing the gubernatorial race in 1958 to state
Attorney General John Patterson, who was endorsed by the
There’s a backlash against big government in this country. This is
a movement of the people … . And I think that if the politicians KKK, Wallace concluded: “Well, boys, no other son-of-
get in the way a lot of them are going to get run over by this a-bitch will ever out [racial slur omitted] me again” (Carter
average man in the street—this man in the textile mill, this man 1995, 96). In the next campaign, which he won, Wallace
in the steel mill, this barber, this beautician, the policeman on the confessed that he “started off talking about school and
beat … the little businessman. (Judis, 34) highways and prisons and taxes—and I couldn’t make them
Müller similarly describes Wallace as the first important listen. Then I began talking about [racial slur omitted]—
American populist of the postwar era. Wallace, he writes, and they stomped the floor” (Carter 1995, 109).
spoke about “real Americans,” wore cheap suits, and Some of Wallace’s language might look populist at first
claimed to put ketchup on everything (Müller 2016, blush, but further inspection reveals that his populism
40, 80, 83-83, 91). Wallace’s inaugural address as gov- derived from his racism. Consider this rambling answer
ernor of Alabama, Müller argues, was also populist: “In the that Wallace gave to a journalist in response to a question
name of the greatest people that have ever trod the earth, I about the defining issues of the upcoming 1968 election:
draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the Schools, that’ll be one thing. By the fall of 1968, the people of
feet of tyranny.” Müller writes that “the rhetoric that Cleveland and Chicago and Gary and St. Louis will be so God-
revealed Wallace to be a populist centered on his claim damned sick and tired of Federal interference in their local
exclusively to speak “in the name of the greatest people schools, they’ll be ready to vote Wallace by the thousand. The
that have ever trod this earth” (21). people don’t like this triflin’ with their children, tellin’ ‘em which
teachers to have to teach in which schools, and bussing {sic} little
But not all scholars consider Wallace a populist. Norris boys and girls half across a city jus’ to achieve ‘the proper racial
and Ingelhart (2019, 3) label the Wallace phenomenon a mix.’ … I’ll give you another big one for 1968: law and order.
“white backlash,” which I argue later is the proper term. Crime in the streets. The people are going to be fed up with the
The reason is simple: Wallace’s populism was always sissy attitude of Lyndon Johnson and all the intellectual morons
epiphenomenal to his racism. Consider the lines directly and theoreticians he has around him. They’re fed up with a
Supreme Court that … It’s a sorry, lousy, no-account outfit …
after Wallace’s invocation of the “greatest people that have Folks won’t stand for it. (quoted in Micklethwait and Wool-
ever trod the earth:” they are: “segregation now … segre- dridge 2004, 66)
gation tomorrow … segregation forever.” Relying on
Lesher’s biography for material on Wallace is problematic Although Wallace only mentions race directly once in
in two senses. First, any authorized biography is likely to this answer (when he decries the goal of a “proper racial
downplay the worst features of its subject, so it is not mix”), race actually pervades his response. Clearly, his
shocking that Wallace would want to have his racism defense of local and state rights against federal interference
recast as populism. Second, Wallace was a rare politician is based in race, but so too is his invocation of “law and
who recanted racism and sought forgiveness. He apolo- order” as well as his criticism of the Supreme Court. The
gized personally to African Americans for his prior views immediate historical context matters; national media
and words, appointed more to state government positions coverage of the Watts riots in 1965 and other events raised
than any previous governor, and overwhelmingly won the fears of a black criminal class among white audiences.
black vote in 1983 on his way to a fourth term as governor. “Law and Order” was thus a racially coded message from
But this later reinvention cannot—and should not— its inception. The Supreme Court—which at the time was
diminish the centrality of race in Wallace’s political rise. the “liberal” court of Chief Justice Warren—drew Wal-
For as Brinkley (1994) argued in his review of Lesher’s lace’s ire primarily for its defense of racial equality and for
biography: “Mr. Lesher overstates his case. Governor landmark cases like Miranda that cut against the law and
Wallace’s message was never a purely racist one, but at order agenda.
the height of his powers he drew his strength almost Like Wallace, Trump based his campaign on racial
entirely from white anxieties about integration.” resentment. He was, after all, the most vocal advocate of
Elected a state circuit judge in 1952, Wallace made a “birtherism” and began his campaign by calling Mexicans
name for himself by resisting federal efforts to remove rapists. It was thus surprising that many analysts viewed

4 Perspectives on Politics
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 Trump with a populist rather than nativist lens. Analyzing a major voting motive for Trump voters (532).” Sides,
campaign rhetoric before the November election, Oliver Tesler, and Vavreck (2018, 74) similarly conclude that
and Rahn (2016) argued that “the year 2016 is indeed the “Trump did not benefit much from any belief that ordin-
year of the populist, and Donald Trump is its apotheosis” ary people had little ability to influence politics” and that
(190). Immediately after Trump’s victory, pundits and “measures of political and economic dissatisfaction were
scholars analyzed how and why he had won the “white not linked to support for Trump.” They also find “little
working class.” Economic decline and political distrust apparent relationship between support for Trump and
emerged as the primary explanatory variables for some distrust of government” (92). Norris and Ingelhart
scholars (Gest 2016; Morgan and Lee 2018). To be sure, (2019, 458) reason that populist “attitudes were so
no credible analyst was arguing that Trump was not a broadly shared in the American electorate that Clinton
nativist, but rather that his nativism was just a part of his voters did not differ from Trump supporters in their
populist profile. distaste for politicians.”
Four years later, we have overwhelming evidence that Developments since November 2016 have only
racial resentment and anti-immigration attitudes were the strengthened the case that Trump is a nativist first and
most important factor in Trump’s electoral success foremost. He succeeded in making the 2018 midterms
(Donavan and Redlawsk 2018; Mutz 2018; Redlawsk about “Caravans and Kavanaugh,” although his focus on
et al. 2018; Reny, Collingwood, and Valenzuela 2019; race and sex backfired electorally (Schaffner 2020).
Schaffner, Macwillams, and Nteta 2018; Sides, Tesler, and Nowhere has the Trump administration scored as many
Vavreck 2018; Lajevardi and Abrajano, 2019.)” As Sides, policy victories as in immigration, and Trump’s political
Tesler, and Vavreck (2018, 156) conclude: “No other comfort zone clearly lies in stoking racial and ethnic
factor appeared as distinctly powerful in 2016, compared animosity at every possible turn. He has openly supported
to prior elections, as attitudes about racial issues and radical right politicians across Europe, as one might expect
immigration and no other factor explained the diploma from the first radical right president in American history.
divide among whites as fully.” By contrast, nearly every Before 2016, it was really an academic debate whether
study finds that personal economic conditions had, at best, radical right parties were populist or not. Since there was a
a modest effect on vote (Schaffner, Macwilliams, and nearly perfect overlap between “populist parties” and
Nteta 2018; Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck 2018; Reny, radical right ones, scholars were comfortable referring to
Collingwood, and Valenzuela 2019; Rudolph 2019). the same phenomenon by different terms. But the explo-
Median household income was not related to support sion of the global populist narrative has made it more
for Trump. Nor was it the case that economics led voters important to highlight the core features of these parties, as
to scapegoat immigrants, confirming previous research several scholars have recently done. I share Jens Rydgren’s
that personal economic fortunes are not good predictors (2017) view that “these parties are mainly defined by
of individual attitudes on immigration (Hainmuller and ethnic nationalism, and not a populist ideology.” Mudde
Hopkins 2014). makes a similar point in a 2017 column in The Guardian
What about the role of political dissatisfaction? In his titled “Why Nativism, Not Populism, Should Be Declared
critique of Mutz (2018), Stephen Morgan (2018) claims Word of the Year.” “Within the core ideology of the
that rising economic inequality colored perceptions of popular radical right,” he writes, “populism comes sec-
Trump among the white working class. Specifically: ondary to nativism, and within contemporary European
and US politics, populism functions at best as a fuzzy
Many voters recognized their own stagnant economic fortunes,
borne of an age of gross inequality not seen in decades, and blanket to camouflage the nastier nativism.”
welcomed by a highly educated elite no longer shy of its own
conspicuous consumption … It may be puzzling to see a Anti-Austerity Politics Meets the Iron Law
billionaire as a savior for the fortunes of such voters, but its far of Oligarchy
less puzzling if, as a bombastic outsider candidate claiming to The second major subtype of populism—inclusionary
fund his own campaign, he was a beneficiary of their desire for a
transgressive moment of protest. (14) populism—was long considered exclusive to Latin Amer-
ica. As Mudde and Kaltwasser (2013, 167) noted: “Latin
But despite its plausibility and ubiquity in pundit American populism predominantly has a socio-economic
commentary, the protest thesis finds little empirical sup- dimension (including the poor) while European populism
port. Hooghe and Dassonville (2018) demonstrate that has a primarily sociocultural dimension (excluding the
the Trump vote cannot be explained by lack of trust in ‘aliens’).” Their conclusion reflected the empirical fact
politics or a low level of satisfaction with democracy, but that inclusionary or “left-wing populism” was close to an
rather by anti-immigrant sentiment and racial resentment. empty cell. Before the Eurozone crisis, the only significant
“Although the rhetoric about ‘draining the swamp’ candidate for membership was the German Die Linke.4
(of bureaucracy in Washington DC) received ample media Yet even this case was complicated as the party was the
attention,” they write, “our analysis suggests that it was not direct descendent of the Party of Democratic Socialism

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 Reflection | The Myth of Global Populism

(PDS), which was in turn the successor party to the SED Beginning with the Greek case, Syriza was founded as a
that controlled the East German state from 1949–1990. In coalition of radical left parties in 2004, the largest of which
any event, there was not a big academic debate about left- was the communist Synaspismos. Unlike in Spain, where
wing populism in Europe before the financial crisis as most the Indignados movement resulted directly in the foun-
of these parties were electorally insignificant. dation of a new leftist party (Podemos), Syriza predated
The rise first of Syriza, and then of Podemos and the the spontaneous social opposition to austerity. Its anti-
Five Star Movement (M5S), made it look like populism neoliberal and counter-globalization positions were thus
had suddenly taken an inclusionary form. While Norris developed at a time when Greece was ostensibly benefit-
and Ingelhart (2019, 240) refer to these three parties ting from its adoption of the euro. Yet Syriza and its young
(along with Die Linke) as Libertarian populist parties, a leader Alexei Tsipras were virtually unknown within
consensus quickly emerged that they were in fact left-wing, Greece before the Greek government announced in
inclusionary populists. Class replaced ethnicity in their December 2009 that its annual budget deficit was not
construction of the people versus the elite, and they 3%, as per Eurozone regulations, but rather 15%. This
embraced the “ninety-nine percent” language of the admission upended Greek politics and marked the begin-
Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States. It ning of its decade-long saga with the “troika” that was
was not a coincidence that all three parties emerged in charged with managing Greece’s debt without destroying
three of the states hardest hit by the sovereign debt crisis the euro in the process. Syriza benefitted electorally from
and the resulting politics of austerity. All three parties were this dynamic because “Syriza was the only party that
in favor of using state power against international market managed to articulate an alternative to austerity”
forces and the dictates of the despised “troika” of the EU (Katsambekis 2016, 399).
Commission, IMF, and the European Central Bank. Yet Syriza ended up doing precisely the opposite. After
Now these positions are all consistent with far left and elections in January 2015, Syriza formed a government
even classic social democratic ideology. For as Luke March with an ostensible mandate to fight the troika at every
(2016) notes, “many of these policies are less radical than turn. As tensions mounted and international markets
those promoted by formerly mainstream Keynesian social braced for a Grexit, Tsipras launched a referendum on
democrats” (5). Regarding Podemos: “most of its electoral whether or not Greece should accept the troika’s latest
program is indiscernible from that of the traditional package of bailout terms. Greeks voted no by a margin of
alternative left: restructuring of foreign debt, tax reform, 61% to 39% on July 5, 2015, but Tsipras nevertheless
progressive state in the economy, women’s rights” (Sola signed onto an even harsher set of terms a mere days later.
and Rendueles 2018, 104). Pablo Iglesias, leader of Pode- As the Economist noted, “Mr. Tsipras has performed the
mos, admitted as much in 2015 in a wide-ranging article in most remarkable volte-face in recent European history.” His
the New Left Review: “We are not opposing a strategy for a stunning shift on domestic priorities recalls Francois Mit-
transition to socialism, but we are being more modest and terrand’s “U-turn” of the early 1980s, whereby the French
adopting a neo-Keynesian approach … calling for higher socialist abandoned his “Keynesianism in one country”
investment, securing social rights and redistribution” (27). approach because it could not operate under conditions of
Given their roots in communist or post-communist par- international capital mobility and the fixed-currency regime
ties, coupled with their rejection of globalization and of the European Monetary System (the forerunner of
neoliberalism, one wonders what “populism” adds to this EMU). But whereas Mitterrand changed course over a
already thick ideological profile? matter of months and years, Tsipras did so within days.
I next consider three possible connections to populism. And the defeat was particularly stinging for, as Ellinas
The first is that these parties genuinely acted on the general (2016, 13) reminds us, “the agreement included many of
will and against the elites that were enforcing the austerity the measures that Syriza pledged in September 2014 to
measures. This was Syriza’s central claim. The second is reverse,” such as “pension cuts, tax cuts, and privatizations.”
that leaders of these parties were explicitly committed to a It is difficult to imagine a less populist recipe than calling
set of theoretical propositions about populism tied to a referendum to determine the general will before flouting
Ernesto Laclau and related to their experiences with Latin it and taking the identical position to the supposed
American variants, primarily Hugo Chavez and Evo enemies of the people. One can debate the political and
Morales. This was really only the case with Podemos. economic wisdom of this choice: Syriza actually held onto
The third is that novel organizational methods—particu- most of its voters in elections in September 2015 as the
larly online platforms—were truly putting power in the leadership splintered and critics of Tsipras’ surrender left
hands of the people and achieving new levels of internal and formed their own groups, none of which did very well.
party democracy. Podemos tried this to a certain extent One could also say that Tsipras truly had no alternative,
(Syriza did not), but it was above all the M5S that tried to and that his choosing a bad course of action over a
revolutionize Italian politics through the internet. disastrous one (pulling out of the Eurozone) actually led

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 to a modest—some might say anemic—economic recov- the traditional left-right axis by a dichotomy opposing
ery. But one cannot credibly label Syriza a populist party, “those at the bottom” to “those at the top”; (2) by
and arguably not even an old-school leftist one, after the constructing a new “transversal” political identity; (3) by
disaster of the bailout referendum. Tsipras admitted there universalizing the struggle; (4) by designating a “we” (the
had been ideological change within the party: “We have people) against a “them” (the ‘regime’); (5) by creating
shown that Syriza is a party of compromise, and that Syriza ‘transversal sympathy” in very diverse groups” (Chazel and
is the leader of the centre-left. We are a party that belongs Fernandez Vazquez 2020).
to the European family of the governing left” (quoted in I do not dispute that Errejón in particular was sincerely
The Economist, March 21, 2019). committed to Laclauian concepts. At the same time, it is not
Podemos originated in the Indignados movement of shocking that abstruse notions like “transversal sympathies”
2011, though there was a three-year lag between the and “floating signifiers” failed to filter down to the party
spontaneous street mobilization against austerity and the rank and file. Moreover, the two leaders of Podemos
founding of the party in 2014. There were two principal disagreed on their interpretations of Laclau: Iglesias focused
wings of the party leadership. The first was the Izquierda on the anti-establishment feature of populism, while Erre-
Anticapitalista, which had been founded in 2008. Its jón was more concerned with the construction of [Grams-
ideological profile (Marxist and anti-globalization) and cian] hegemony (Chazel and Fernandez Vazquez 2020).
political influence (negligible) were similar to Syriza’s These intellectual divides became more acute after the
before 2009. The nucleus of the second wing was com- failure of Podemos to improve significantly on its electoral
prised of political scientists based at the Complutense score from December 2015. Iglesias argued that this failure
University of Madrid. The head of the party, Pablo demonstrated the vacuity of the “populist hypothesis” while
Iglesias, was named after the Spanish labor union leader Errejón attributed it to Podemos’ embrace of the commun-
of the late nineteenth century and the founder of the ist left. There followed a debate within the party about, in
Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). Iglesias was Iglesias’ words, “whether we should continue being popu-
active in the youth wing of the communist party and lists or not” (quoted in Faber and Seguìn 2019). This
wrote his doctoral dissertation on the anti-globalization reached a climax at the party’s citizen’s assembly from
movement in Italy and Spain. Before becoming the face of December 2016 to February 2017 (known as Vistalegre
Podemos, he was a political science professor at Complu- II) and there was a proxy battle over party strategy between
tense and a TV host. Íñigo Errejón, who quickly emerged Iglesias and Errejón. When Errejón’s proposal lost, it was
first as Iglesias’ informal second-in-command and then as seen as a repudiation of his “populist hypothesis.” He
his primary internal challenger, wrote his PhD thesis on formally left Podemos in January 2019.
the rise of Evo Morales using discourse analysis and A second crisis within Podemos unfolded when Iglesias
borrowing heavily from Ernesto Laclau’s theory of and his partner Irene Montero, who was also Podemos’
populism. parliamentary spokeswoman, bought a villa for $700,000
The most notable “populist” feature of Podemos was its in an upscale neighborhood outside Madrid. This was
use of Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s academic work as a certainly not the type of “anti-austerity” that the party had
manual for creating a hegemonic political project. The been founded upon, and the villa soon turned into a
central point of Laclau and Mouffe’s 1985 book Hegemony scandal. The Podemos mayor of Cádiz José María Gonzá-
and Socialist Strategy—that the political subject is con- lez chastised Iglesias and Montero: “Podemos’s ethics code
structed through discourse rather than merely class rela- isn’t a formality … It’s a commitment to live like working
tions—would seem rather arcane, but members of people so you can represent them” (quoted in The Guard-
Podemos’ leadership team seemed to relish such intellec- ian, May 20, 2018). Iglesias and Montero put the matter
tual discussions.5 More importantly, they claimed to be to a confidence vote in his continued leadership of the
building a political movement according to ideas laid out party and won with 68.4%. But the damage to Podemos’
in Laclau’s 2005 book On Populist Reason. According to anti-elitism had already been done.
Iglesias, Podemos “would not have been possible without Podemos’ populist credentials have been diminished in
… an understanding of the role of speech, common other ways as well. It abandoned its policy of no coalitions
sentiment, and hegemony that is clearly indebted to the when it entered one with the Socialists (SPOE) following
work of Laclau” (quoted in Judis, 2016: 122-3). As the elections of 2019. The December 2019 coalition
campaign advisor, Errejón claimed he was following a agreement calls for “respect for the mechanisms of budget-
“constructivist vision of political discourse” and key ary discipline,” which signals a pretty clear rejection of
Laclauian terms like “articulation of popular discontent” Podemos’s identity as an anti-austerity party, and a major
and “resignification of floating signifiers” found their way shift in tone from Iglesias’ 2014 pledge to “work with
into the party’s electoral strategy (Kioupkiolis 2016). other parties from the south of Europe to make it clear
Following Laclau, Errejón claimed that the Indignados we don’t want to become a German colony” (quoted in
were populist in the following five senses: (1) by replacing El Pais in English, May 31, 2014).

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 Reflection | The Myth of Global Populism

Aside from adopting Laclau’s discourse, Podemos had a “I dream of my son voting yes or not on a computer from
second claim to the populist mantle: direct democracy his home, whether to go to Afghanistan or not, whether
through online participation and decision-making. The staying in Europe or not, if leaving the Euro or not”(inter-
party’s online portal, Participa (participate), grew from view in Pomezia, January 23, 2013). Another former M5S
discussion forums on Reddit and was constructed to gather politician quipped that the goal was to make “politics as
input from ordinary members and conduct voting. For direct as booking tickets on Ryanair, or booking a room on
example, in preparation for the 2015 and 2016 electoral AirBnB” (Gerbaudo 2019, 3). Article 4 of the original party
manifestoes, Podemos solicited proposals under the deci- statute gave to “the totality of the users of the internet the
sion rule that any single proposal that received 100 votes role of government and leadership which is normally
had to be considered by the central party organ. Further- attributed to a few.” Since one could become a member
more, the party instituted a mechanism through which of M5S with several mouse-clicks, the new party experi-
citizens could make any policy proposal binding if it enced an exponential growth in membership.
received enough votes online (Podemos Citizen Initiative, The actual goal of this techno-populism was not to
ICP). Finally, the party used online referendums to call increase internal party democracy, but rather to give the
votes of confidence in the leadership, as Iglesias and appearance of participation. For it was not Grillo who
Montero did following the villa scandal. designed and maintained his online movement, but an
It is doubtful, however, that any of these online mech- eccentric computer scientist named Gianroberto Casaleg-
anisms have actually increased internal party democracy. gio who had no political experience before becoming the
Only 4% of the party’s 380,000 members participated in co-founder of the M5S. An investigative journalist for
the creation of the 2015 and 2016 electoral manifestoes Wired noted how Casaleggio was fascinated by the possi-
mentioned earlier. To date, there has never been a suc- bilities the internet provided for opinion formation:
cessful ICP because, according to an interview with a
Podemos insider, “the threshold was set too high because Casaleggio was interested in learning how consensus—on say,
whether people should be happy to work long hours—could be
of the leadership’s fear of losing control over the decision- manufactured in a way that looked organic. Twenty years before
making process” (Gerbaudo 2019, 7). And online refer- trolls working for Russia’s Internet Research Agency would use
endums feel less like a means of gauging opinions and similar techniques to steer debate on Facebook and other online
more like a Bonapartist device for arriving at consent at forums, Casaleggio seemed to be using his own company as a
predetermined objectives. The margins of victory for the laboratory to figure out how online discourse could be guided
from above. (Loucaides 2019)
leadership’s positions were overwhelming: 96.9% to make
Iglesias General Secretary of the party in 2014, 89% to Casaleggio introduced himself to Grillo in 2004 after
reelect him to the same position in 2017, and 98% for waiting outside the actor’s dressing room. He offered to
forming the alliance with Izquierda Unida in 2016. The build Grillo a blog, which went live on January 26, 2005.
lowest margin of victory was the confidence vote in Iglesias Shortly thereafter, beppegrillo.it had become one of the
and Montero at 68.4%. “For critics,” the author of one top-ten most read blogs in the world. According to former
recent study notes, “this online referendum exhibited the M5S politician Marco Canestrari, “Grillo never wrote a
worst centralistic and plebiscitary tendencies of digital single word on the blog” (Biondo and Canestrari 2018).
democracy, and only [helped] two embattled leaders to Filippo Pitarello (also a former M5S) similarly recalls that
silence criticism and restore their own legitimacy” “Grillo and Casaleggio would speak several times a day to
(Gerbaudo 2019, 9). discuss the content of the daily posts, and Casaleggio
The Italian five-star movement (M5S) is different from might read out the final draft to Grillo over the phone.”
both Syriza and Podemos as it did not emerge from a Such was the extent of Grillo’s participation.
preexisting party or social movement. The original five stars It was also Gianroberto Casaleggio who built the
were: 1) sustainable transport, 2) sustainable development, party’s Rousseau platform, which he willed to his son
3) public water, 4) universal internet access, and 5) envir- Davide Casaleggio following the former’s death in 2016.6
onmentalism. The case for inclusionary populist does not The Rousseau platform allowed M5S members two
rest on this greenish ideology, but rather its promise of avenues for participation: online voting and proposing
direct democracy. Beppo Grillo—the comic turned polit- amendments to legislation. Thus far, the research on
ical activist—stated in 2011 that “The M5S wants the online voting suggests that it was of a strongly plebiscitary
citizens to become [the] State, not to replace parties with character. Mosca (2018) finds that “the leaders establish
another party” (quoted in Pirro, 2018, 445). He lamented the timing, the topic, and the terms of the ballot” and that
in 2013 that “the popular will is continuously bypassed and participation rates declined from 64% in 2012, to 36% in
humiliated” and argued that the solution was putting the 2015, to 14.7% in 2017. As in the case of Podemos,
“tools in the hands of citizens.” And these tools were digital. online voting within the M5S has produced

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 overwhelming majorities for the party elite, such as 94% What’s Populist about Competitive
for a coalition with the Lega in 2018 or 91.6% for Authoritarianism?
approving the new party statute in 2016.
The M5S’s record on integrating citizen input on Hungary is the only “formerly consolidated liberal dem-
legislation is similarly poor. The party immediately elim- ocracy in the EU that has reached the level of a non-
inates proposals that are deemed inconsistent with the democratic system as a hybrid regime” (Bozóki and
party line. Rousseau was not designed to allow members to Hegedüs 2018, 1178). Although Viktor Orbán had been
communicate directly with one another: all they could do dismantling Hungarian democracy since at least 2010, it
was read and post comments. There was thus no mean- was really only in the wake of Brexit and Trump that
ingful deliberation (Deseriis and Vittori 2019). Rather, political scientists took special notice. Orbán has since
“the Rousseau platform mostly offered a showcase for the come to represent a variety of “authoritarian populism”
legislative initiatives of the M5S MP’s, followed by a (Norris and Ingelhart 2019) or “illiberal populism”
disorderly list of low-quality and largely ignored com- (Mounk 2018) that is not conceptually distinct from the
ments … the activists contribution to the parliamentary radical right in Western Europe. The difference, however,
activity through the platform was close to zero” (Tronconi is that Orbán is actually able to realize his populist vision.
2018, 175). Similarly, Deseriis and Vittori (2019, 5699) Following this line of argument, Pappas (2019, 71)
conclude that “the end result is that a negligible number of claims that populists in power display four characteristics:
M5S-sponsored bills are directly based on member pro- “1) a reliance on extraordinary charismatic leadership; 2)
posals.” Mosca (2018) concurs: “Rousseau seems to work the ceaseless, strategic pursuit of political polarization; 3) a
more as a forum for discussion and evaluation than as a real drive to seize control of the state, emasculate liberal insti-
online decision-making tool, with the risk of doubling the tutions, and impose an illiberal constitution; and 4) the
national blog of the Movement where comments have a systematic use of patronage to reward supporters and crowd
simply expressive function.” Internal democracy was, in out the opposition” Müller (2016, 57) puts it similarly:
short, never one of the M5S’s chief features, despite its “While they [populists] may have won an initial election
promises to the contrary. Tronconi (2018, 170) reminds fair and square, they quickly start tampering with the
us that “if M5S activists questioned the leadership or institutional machinery of democracy in the name of the
pushed for greater internal democracy, they were expelled so-called real people (as opposed to their political oppon-
… a blunt post on the blog was sufficient to expel the ents, who are automatically deemed traitors to the nation.”
dissenters with no appeal. Over 40 parliamentarians had I do not disagree that Orbán has followed steps 2–4 of the
been expelled by 2017, and a tell-all written by former playbook that Pappas and Müller outline, though I do not
M5S members exposes Casaleggio’s remarkable degree of think that Orbán qualifies as a charismatic leader in any
control (Biondo and Canestrari 2018). reasonable sense of the term. Rather, Orbán is in all prob-
Like both Podemos and Syriza, M5S also changes its ability an autocrat, though it is possible he began his assault
internal rules once it gains power. The founding principle on Hungarian democracy as a competitive authoritarian and
of no-alliances (which is actually consistent with a party may even have been a convinced democrat at one point. It is
that claims it has the moral high-ground) was jettisoned not worth dwelling on the nature of a leader’s political soul,
when it formed a coalition government with the Lega. but the crucial point is that, at least since 2010, Orbán
Issue positions shifted with the winds: In December 2017, matches all the qualifications for Linz’s “disloyal” democratic
Di Maio stated that he would vote and campaign for a actor (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018). It is unclear how popu-
referendum on Italy leaving the Eurozone, but by lism adds any additional value to this description.
February of 2018 pronounced that the “European Union Some scholars argue that populism may undermine the
is the Five Star Movement’s Home.” quality of democracy. Mudde and Kaltwasser (2012), for
Much like Socialist parties in the early twentieth cen- example, hypothesize that populism threatens liberal dem-
tury, the anti-austerity parties that promised to return ocracy through “the marginalization of specific groups of
power to the people quickly succumbed to the Iron Law society [and] the weakening of political institutions, cul-
of Oligarchy. Iglesias had initially claimed that “Podemos minating in the undermining of minority rights and
is not a party, but a method to facilitate the protagonism of protections” (21). While Orbán certainly pursued these
the citizenry” (Gerbaudo 2019, 3). After the party split, objectives, they were incidental to his construction of
Lola Sanchez, one of first five Podemos candidates elected competitive authoritarianism. According to Levitsky and
to the EP, lamented Iglesias and Errejon’s centralizing Way (2010): “competitive authoritarian regimes are civil-
tendencies: “Their leadership attitudes have been very ian regimes in which formal democratic institutions exist
traditional, classically alpha-male, top-down. I honestly and are widely viewed as the primary means of gaining
thought Podemos was going to be something different” power, but in which incumbents’ abuse of the state places
(quoted in Faber and Seguín 2019.) them at significant advantage vis-à-vis their opponents”

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 Reflection | The Myth of Global Populism

(5). It was not the quality of liberal democracy that Orbán Norris and Inglehart (2019) write that “it is the com-
targeted, but democracy itself. bination of authoritarian values disguised by populist
He articulated as much in 2009 during a private address rhetoric which we regard as potentially the most dangerous
to his party where he outlined the need to create a “central threat to liberal democracy” (6). I could not agree more
political forcefield” capable of governing Hungary for the and believe that the verb disguise here is just as revealing as
next twenty years. The elections of 2010 gave Fidesz a Mudde’s (2017) description of populism as a “fuzzy
supermajority in the Hungarian assembly, which Orbán blanket to camouflage the nastier nativism.” Labeling
used to rewrite the Hungarian constitution to his party’s semi-loyal democratic actors like Orbán “populists” only
enduring electoral benefit. Fidesz preserved its super- serves to mask their authoritarianism.
majority in the 2014 elections despite seeing its vote-
share fall by more than 8%. At the same time, Fidesz Conclusion
worked to “replace key officials in every political relevant I have not offered an alternative definition of populism in
institution” (Krekó and Enyedi 2018, 42). These included this critique of its relevance to nativism, anti-austerity
the judiciary, the electoral commission, the statistical politics, and competitive authoritarianism. There are two
office, the ombudsman, and the media. As of 2017, reasons for this. First, I cannot improve upon Mudde’s
90% of all media in Hungary was either owned by the definition for its clarity and portability. Second, I am not
state or by Fidesz allies (Beauchamp 2018). On March convinced that “populism” really exists in the same way I
30, 2020, the Fidesz-dominated parliament approved a am certain that regime types do (democracy, authoritar-
bill that handed Orbán indefinite emergency powers, ianism, and now competitive authoritarianism) or that
cancelled all elections until 2022, and placed severe limits nativism does. I am persuaded by Urbanati’s (2019, 117)
on free speech in what international observers immediately suggestion that “the dualism of we good/they bad is the
dubbed the “coronavirus coup.” motor of all forms of partisan aggregation; clearly, a certain
What relevance is populism to the breakdown of Hun- populist style can be detected in almost all parties, par-
garian democracy from 2010–2020? One theoretical possi- ticularly when they radicalize their claims near elections.”
bility is that a populist victory can lead directly to competitive Populism is not likely to be of much analytical use if it is
authoritarianism. Using cases from Latin America, Levitsky indeed this ubiquitous.7
and Lofton (2012, 162) claim that “successful populism But the academic stakes of this debate are low compared
frequently leads to competitive authoritarianism” for three to the political ones. Pronouncing something or someone
reasons. First, since populists “are often amateur politicians “populist” in the media (social or otherwise) matters far
who emerge from outside the established party system” they more than doing so in the pages of academic journals.
“often lack the skills—or patience—to pursue their political Misdiagnosing Trump as an economic populist, for
objectives through those institutions.” Second, having example, might lead the Democratic party to try and
earned a “mandate to bury the political establishment,” woo back the white-working class through economic
populists work aggressively to sweep away existing demo- policies, which might be desirable in their own right but
cratic institutions like political parties, legislatures, and judi- are not likely to be effective if nativist attitudes outweigh
ciaries. Third, “populists’ incentive to assault representative economic motives in vote choice. Most concerning, in my
institutions is often reinforced by the fact that the political view, is the widespread defense of populism—at least a
elite that they mobilized against and defeated in elections part of it--- as a natural and oftentimes welcome feature of
continues to control these institutions. Lacking strong par- democratic politics. C. Vann Woodward once argued that
ties, populists often fail to translate their electoral success into “one must expect and even hope that there will be future
a legislative majority” (163). upheavals to shock the seats of power and privilege and
Orbán’s slow-moving power grab displays none of these furnish the periodic therapy that seems necessary to the
dynamics. First, and most obviously, Orbán was not a health of our democracy” (Woodward 1959, 72). Kazin
political amateur but a mainstream conservative politician. made the same point decades later:
He was not an outsider in any meaningful sense. Fidesz
also did not come to power with any sort of mandate to They arise [populists] in response to real grievances: an economic
“bury” the political establishment, for the simple reason system that favors the rich, fear of losing jobs to new immigrants,
that Fidesz had long been a part of it. It was also not the and politicians who care more about their own advancement than
case that Orbán was incapable of pursuing his objectives the well-being of the majority. Ultimately, the only way to blunt
their appeal is to take those problems seriously. (Kazin 2016, 18)
through institutions: it was his knowledge of those insti-
tutions that allowed him to hollow them out without I have precisely the opposite reaction. If citizens have a
attracting international attention. Moreover, Orbán was serious grievance with the separation of powers inherent in
also not lacking in a strong political party: indeed, the modern democracies, is the answer really to bolster the
preexisting strength of Fidesz was a necessary condition for power of the executive? If voters want to see an immediate
erecting a one-party state so rapidly. stop to immigration because they fear a terrorist attack in

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 their neighborhood, is the answer to cater to some of their References
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Notes University Press.
1 Berlin’s views on populism from the conference are best Berlin, Isiah, et al. 1968. “To Define Populism.”
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2 This essay is not exhaustive, and major cases such as Bozóki, András, and Dániel Hegedüs. 2018. “An
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