Populism is a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their

concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. According to Cas Mudde, populism is the
idea that society is separated into two groups at odds with one another - "the pure people" and
"the corrupt elite“. The true populist leader claims to represent the unified "will of the people”.

Populist leader creates an “us vs. them” situation. The success of populism is evident when the
leader manages to create an opposition in the elite class and make the “pure people” hate them.

Characteristics:

Populist leaders tend to dislike the "complicated democratic systems" of modern government -
preferring direct democracy like referendums. Populist leaders believe in being a one man show.
They can be linked with authoritarianism who tend to overrule the bureaucracy. There is a lack
of trust in the established system which gives rise to "strongman" leaders e.g. Kim Jon Un??
Ultimately, the leader makes the decision in a way that just isn't possible in traditional
democracies. Populism also reflects a deep suspicion of the prevailing establishment; that this
establishment in the view of most populists does not just rule in the common good but conspires
against the people. Populists also tend in the main to be nativist and suspicious of foreigners.
They are skeptical of the facts as provided to them by the establishment press. In most cases
(they don’t much like intellectuals. Nor in general do they like big cities and the metropolitan
types who happen to live in them. According to David Goodhart, These people are the
‘somewheres’—that is to say people who want to be part of somewhere as opposed to those who
are the ‘anywheres’.

The fault line in Britain today is between those who come from Somewhere: people rooted in a
specific place or community, usually a small town or in the countryside, socially conservative,
often less educated, and those who come from Anywhere: footloose, often urban, socially liberal,
university educated and who tend to feel at home nearly everywhere. But it is the ‘somewheres’
who constitute the real basis of what is to be seen as the populist revolt.
Narratives in Support of Populism

1. Moises Naim

This narrative is on an individual level. For him Populism has to be taken seriously but it has
no intellectual coherence. It is merely a rhetorical ‘tactic’ that demagogues i.e. (politicians)
around the world have always used, and will continue to use, to gain power and then hold on
to it. As Naim puts it: The fact is that populism is not an ideology. Instead, it’s a strategy to
obtain and retain power. It has been around for centuries, recently appearing to resurface in
full force, propelled by the digital revolution, precarious economies, and the threatening
insecurity of what lies ahead. This, however, does not make populism any the less dangerous.
Indeed, populism is invariably contentious, thrives on conspiracy, finds enemies even where
they do not exist, criminalises all opposition to it, plays up external threats, and more often
than not insists that its critics at home are merely working for foreign governments.

Example:

The idea of voting in favour of Brexit was seen by many as a way to protest against the
Establishment and the elite who were seen to have ignored "the will of the people" for too
long. Many voters saw the referendum itself as an example of power being given back to the
citizens to make decisions and not the elites, with many voters harbouring discontent for
these elites and the power they hold. Brexit had played on people’s distrust in the political
elite.
2. Tony Giddens:

It is more of a state or regional level narrative. According to it, populism in its modern
iteration termed as a ‘runaway world’ of globalisation—a world which according to Giddens
at least is ‘shaking up our existing ways of life, no matter where we happen to be’. Moreover,
this world, says Giddens, is emerging in ‘an anarchic, haphazard, fashion….fraught with
anxieties’, as well as scarred by deep divisions and a feeling that we are all ‘in the grip of
forces over which we have no control’. Indeed, not only do we have no control, but because
of the speed and depth of the changes across traditional frontiers, many citizens feel as if the
world is not just passing them by but undermining their settled notion of identity born in
more stable, more settled times. This loss has been felt by everybody. But it has been
 experienced most by an older unit of white people who simply want to turn the clock back to
a time when the people in their towns looked like them, sounded like them and even had the
same traditional loyalties as most of them: an age, in other words, when there were fewer
immigrants and even fewer Muslims living amongst them. Globalization and socio-economic
factors in this account obviously play a role. But according to this narrative, at the heart of
the modern populist problem is not so much economics as identity and key questions about
who I am, what I am, and do I still live in my own country surrounded by people who share
the same values and allegiances. It focuses on the somewhere vs anywhere concept that
basically shows that the anywhere have infiltrated the world of somewhere and the
somwheres are not happy with it.

Example:

Tump’s campaign had a great focus on “Make America great again”. He said he was going
to build a wall on the border to stop illegal immigration. He tried to put into peoples mind
that the immigrants were coming there and stealing their homes and jobs.

Brexit referendum also had a populist nature. In the referendum 51.89% voted in favour of
leaving the EU (Leave), and 48.11% voted in favour of remaining a member of the EU
(Remain). One third of leave voters said the main reason was that leaving "offered the best
chance for the UK to regain control over immigration and its own borders. Studies found that
the Leave vote tended to be higher in areas affected by economic decline.Those in higher
social grades (especially the upper middle class)who could actually reap the benfits of
globalization were more likely to vote Remain. This shows that Brexit was dependent on
somewhere vs anywhere mentality especially of the older people.

The Brexit and President-elect Trump victories featured (...) appeals to sovereignty rooted in
national identity and pride.

3. Arvind Subramanian

This narrative is more on a global level. It argues that modern populism is less the result of
an identity crisis as the result of ‘hyperglobalization’. This latest form of globalisation,
began slowly in the 1970s, accelerated rapidly in the 1980s, took off in earnest in the 1990s,
and continued to accelerate thereafter— until, that is, the crash of 2008. For years the results
of this thirty-year headlong drive towards the future only seemed to be positive and
beneficial. Indeed, according to the many defenders of globalisation, the new economic order
generated enormous wealth, drew in once previously closed economies, drove up the world’s
GDP, encouraged real development in countries that had for years been poor, and most
important of all in terms of human welfare, helped reduce poverty too. Not surprisingly
India, China and the developing countries loved this new world order. They were its
beneficiaries. But post 2008 crash it has created problems for the West. Wealth became ever
more concentrated in the hands of the few. Middle class incomes stagnated. Meanwhile,
many of the working class in Western countries found themselves being driven out of work
either by jobs going to immigrants or by a rush of cheap imported goods largely coming from
China. So now the West especially Europe is developing an anti-globalization perspective
e.g. Borris even tho his policies might be pro globalization but he claims to have an anti-
globalization view.

Does populism pose a serious threat to globalisation?

No and yes.

No atm

The ‘facts’ tell you if you measure globalization by such indicators as cross-border financial
flows, international tourism, and foreign direct investment. By any measure, the world is not
de-globalising. Nor is it likely to do so as long as its five biggest economic actors—the
European Union, the United States, China, India and Japan—continue to support policies that
favour more integration not less, more extensive supply chains not fewer, and see continued
advantage economically by being part of a world market. To this degree the forces in favour
of globalisation would still appear to be far stronger than those pitted against it. Especially
post covid we observes that the world id highly dependent on globalization e.g. we say
energy crisis, inflation etc due to stop in globalization e.g. as China, the world's
manufacturing powerhouse had to close its borders.

Yet, as the populist revolt in the West reveals only too clearly, those who feel they have lost
rather than won as their once cherished national economies have become more and more
open to the outside world, have become increasingly vocal, and vocal in a negative way and
this might prove as a threat in the future. It all depends on the anti-globalization governments
if they manage to come in power.