Beyond The Dualism of Democracy and Populism

“Where there is populism there can be no democracy.”

Populism is a special term because there are very few terms that are as ambiguous as populism; to the point some scholars propose we should get rid of it all together. So to suggest that there is no democracy when there is populism we need to specify what we mean by populism. Another factor here is democracy; democracy also needs to be defined. This is not because of its meaning, but rather its context and what kind of democracy we are considering. Only after clarifying these terms can we look further into the repercussions of them. So, let us discuss the implications of this assumption: “Where there is populism there can be no democracy.”.

Populism has been used in different contexts, in different cultures since the late 19th century when it was first used by the People’s Party. Also few political figures have self-identified as populists. All these factors and more add to the confusion behind this term. In our statement at hand populism is implied to be a political approach that exploits the fed up citizens by claiming to be for “the people '' and use public resources to flatter the voters by redistributing wealth to poor regions. To add to this populism is considered to use economic resources for non-economic purposes. In this statement this kind of populism is considered and to clearly see how this affects democracy we need to analyze the statement again. In the statement democracy is only about voting; it is about the free will of the people choosing their governors. In this case populism can affect voting as it bends the perceptions of voters and gives them false hope and solutions.

This kind of populism perfectly highlights the needs of society. When populism claims to be anti-elitist and majoritarian it will do anything to please the citizens to get votes. To do this populists capitalize on giving resources up to poorer areas.This shows that there is a need for economic support. In this situation we should ask a very crucial question. Why do populist leaders tend to control countries such as Brazil, India and Turkey instead of developed countries in the west? This is simply because there is social and economic inequality and a substantial portion of the population lives in poor conditions in the former countries. In the latter countries democracy protects human rights well enough that people don’t get as desperate. In conclusion the way to protect and progress democracy lies in eliminating the social need for populism by improving the living conditions of the citizens.

“Where there is populism there can be no democracy.” is a statement which implies populism destroys democracy but a proper democracy that supports its citizens will destroy the need for populism and leave populists powerless.

https://diamond-democracy.stanford.edu/speaking/speeches/when-does-populism-become-threat-democracy

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-populist-challenge-to-liberal-democracy/