The term “populism” is used these days to refer to a vast array of leaders, movements, and parties—from Viktor Orbán’s far right anti-immigrant Fidesz party, to Evo Morales’ left radical anti-neoliberal Movement for Socialism, to recently elected Jair Bolsonaro, who has glorified Brazil’s period of military rule, promised to rid Brazil of socialism, and give the police free rein to kill suspected criminals. Does the term have any meaning if applied to such a disparate array of leaders, parties, and governments?

Populism and Political Settlements

The short answer is that it does if conceptualized not as ideology, but as a method of organizing power, arising from either the absence of, or deterioration of, a political settlement. Political settlements binds together contending social forces of a given society and obligate rulers to honour that agreed upon settlement. Populism is a means of addressing the angst that arises from absent, threatened or broken political settlements. Populism involves the following: a charismatic leader, who makes an emotional appeal drawing on deeply felt emotions of fear, insecurity, anger, and betrayal; invocation of the “will of the people” and the desirability of a direct relationship between the leader and the popular following. Populism usually involves a disregard for formal institutional processes because these have failed to address intense popular emotional angst. Populism entails appeals to nationalism, and it includes the identification of an internal or external enemy or both—often a rich oligarchy and/or foreigners. Populism arises when there is a feeling among a significant proportion of the population that their exclusion from the political process is having a deeply harmful impact. The characteristics of populism as identified here represent an ideal type construction; this means that populism in its pure form exists nowhere in reality, but various movements, parties and governments can be described in terms of the extent to which they approach these characteristics. A great many movements, parties and government have had elements of populism—but there have clearly been larger doses of populism more recently.

Identity and Economic Dislocation: The Mix Depends on the Context