In the political ecosystem of today, populism is a mutated new beast that has arisen to threaten other ideological species such as liberalism. The new populism is not the predator of democracy understood as free elections or the rule of the majority. Unlike the Nazis and other evolutionary ancestors, the new populists do not want to abolish elections and impose dictatorships. In fact, elections are the means through which they thrive. What they are rapacious about is “the representative nature of modern democracies, the protection of the rights of minorities, and the constraints to the sovereignty of the people, a distinctive feature of globalization”. It’s critical to do something about it before liberalism becomes an endangered species or worst, an extinct one.

The populist moment

Ivan Krastev in Eurozine

Unlike the extremist parties of the 1930s, new populist movements worldwide do not aim to abolish democracy: quite the opposite, they thrive on democratic support. What we are witnessing today, writes Ivan Krastev, is a conflict between elites that are becoming increasingly suspicious of democracy and angry publics that are becoming increasingly illiberal.

"A spectre is haunting the world: populism. A decade ago, when the new nations were emerging into independence, the question asked was: how many will go Communist? Today, this question, so plausible then, sounds a little out of date. In as far as the rulers of the new states embrace an ideology, it tends more to have a populist character."[1] This observation was made by Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner forty years ago. A period of time long enough for "populism" first to disappear and then to re-emerge as the global phenomenon it is today. Now, like then, the significance of populism cannot be doubted, though now, like then, it is unclear just what populism is.

Full article... (via 3QD)

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