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Populism is often split into two variants – one with a focus on culture and the other that focuses on economics.
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Curated/Reviewed by Matthew A. McIntosh
Public Historian
Brewminate
Introduction
Populism in the United States reaches back to the Presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s and to the People’s Party in the 1890s. It has made a resurgence in modern-day politics in not only the United States but also democracies around the world. Populism is an approach to politics which views “the people” as being opposed to “the elite” and is often used as a synonym of anti-establishment; as an ideology, it transcends the typical divisions of left and right and has become more prevalent in the US with the rise of disenfranchisement and apathy toward the establishment. The definition of populism is a complex one as due to its mercurial nature; it has been defined by many different scholars with different focuses, including political, economic, social, and discursive features. Populism is often split into two variants in the US, one with a focus on culture and the other that focuses on economics.
Overview
A division of American populism into two strains has been suggested: one being an economic form of populism opposed to financial elites, and the other being a cultural populism opposed to intellectual elitism. The economic strain is claimed to have a longer history, including the likes of Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan, while cultural populism is recognized as starting in the 1960s with George Wallace. However, the modern-day rise of populism on both sides of the political spectrum has been said to have stemmed from voter apathy with the current governmental system and those running it, and, subsequently, populist politics are said to play a constitutive role in political realignments, in which moral boundaries between groups are redrawn and categories of “us” and “them” emerge.
Populism has risen in recent years; however, the focus is no longer on the general population protesting against the elites, which was historically the case with populism, but rather on more political polarization, whereby a simple majority is the goal of politicians and thus leads to the “tyranny of the majority” in which they do not focus on appeasing opposing politics but reinforcing their own base. The political scientist Benjamin Moffitt argues that modern-day populists, such as Donald Trump, garner support by radically simplifying the terms of the crises and discussing them in terms of emergency politics, whilst offering a short-term response—appealing to the general public and setting such populists apart from the establishment.
Global History
Anti-Administration Party
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The Anti-Administration party was an informal political faction in the United States led by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson that opposed policies of then Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in the first term of U.S. president George Washington. It was not an organized political party, but an unorganized faction. Most members had been Anti-Federalists in 1788, when they opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution. However, the situation was fluid, with members joining and leaving.
Although contemporaries often referred to Hamilton’s opponents as “Anti-Federalists”, that term is now seen as imprecise since several Anti-Administration leaders supported ratification, including Virginia Representative James Madison. He joined former Anti-Federalists to oppose Hamilton’s financial plans in 1790. William Maclay, a leader of the faction in the Senate, used in his Congressional diary the term “Republican”.
After Jefferson took leadership of the opposition to Hamilton in 1792, the faction became a formal party, Jefferson’s Republican Party, which is often called the Democratic-Republican Party by historians and political scientists.
Ukrainian National Revival
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The Ukrainian National Revival took place during a period when the territory of modern Ukraine was divided between the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary and the Russian Empire after the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century. The period took place soon after the Haidamaka Uprisings (also known as Koliivshchyna) rocked lands of former Cossack Hetmanate.[1]
The movement arose at a time when the Ukrainian national resistance was almost entirely subjugated and largely driven underground. All state institutions under the Cossack Hetmanate were completely liquidated along with the Cossack movement. The European territory of the Russian Empire had successfully crossed the Dnieper and extended towards Central Europe, as well as reaching the shores of Black Sea.
Nonetheless, the period is also considered to be the beginning of modern Ukrainian literature, foremostly the works of Ivan Kotliarevsky. A number of Ukrainian historians such as Volodymyr Doroshenko and Mykhailo Hrushevsky divided the period into three stages. The first stage stretches from the end of the 18th century to the 1840s, the second stage covers the period of the 1840s-1850s, and the third stage is the second half of the 19th century.
Hromada
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A hromada was one of a network of secret societies of Ukrainian intelligentsia that appeared soon after the Crimean War. The societies laid a groundwork for appearance of the Ukrainian political elite and national political movement. The Ukrainian national and anti-oppressive movement intensified with the January Uprising and issuing of the Valuev Circular. Many were former members of the disbanded Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius.
In parallel to the development of hromoda networks in the Russian Empire, Prosvita (Enlightenment) societies sprang forth in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Important hromadas existed in Saint Petersburg, Kyiv, Poltava, Chernihiv, Odesa, Ternopil, Lviv, Chernivtsi and Stryi.
Narodniks
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The Narodniks were members of a movement of the Russian Empire intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, Narodnism or Narodnichestvo, was a form of agrarian socialism, though it is often misunderstood as populism.
The khozhdeniye v narod (meaning ‘going to the people’) campaigns were the central impetus of the Narodnik movement. The Narodniks were in many ways the intellectual and political forebears and, in notable cases, direct participants of the Russian Revolution—in particular of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which went on to greatly influence Russian history in the early 20th century.
Farmers’ Alliance
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The Farmers’ Alliance was an organized agrarian economic movement among American farmers that developed and flourished ca. 1875. The movement included several parallel but independent political organizations — the National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union among the white farmers of the South, the National Farmers’ Alliance among the white and black farmers of the Midwest and High Plains, where the Granger movement had been strong, and the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union, consisting of the African American farmers of the South.
One of the goals of the organization was to end the adverse effects of the crop-lien system on farmers in the period following the American Civil War. The Alliance also generally supported the government regulation of the transportation industry, establishment of an income tax in order to restrict speculative profits, and the adoption of an inflationary relaxation of the nation’s money supply as a means of easing the burden of repayment of loans by debtors. The Farmers’ Alliance moved into politics in the early 1890s under the banner of the People’s Party, commonly known as the “Populists.”
Chłopomania
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Chłopomania or Khlopomanstvo are historical and literary terms inspired by the Young Poland modernist movement and the Ukrainian Hromady. The expressions refer to the intelligentsia’s fascination with, and interest in, the peasantry in late-19th-century Galicia and right-bank Ukraine.
Though originally used in jest, with time the renewed interest in folk traditions influenced the national revivals in Poland and Ukraine, both ruled by foreign empires. “Peasant-mania”, a manifestation of both neo-romanticism and populism, arose during Galicia’s rule by Austria-Hungary and touched both Poles and Ukrainians. It also manifested itself in the Russian Empire in forms of Narodniks, where it strongly contributed to the shaping of modern Ukrainian culture. Chłopomania also contributed to formation of Hromadas (communities of Ukrainian intelligentsia).
Völkisch Movement
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The Völkisch movement was a German ethnic nationalist movement active from the late 19th century through the dissolution of the German Reich in 1945, with remnants in the Federal Republic of Germany afterwards. Erected on the idea of “blood and soil”, inspired by the one-body-metaphor, and by the idea of naturally grown communities in unity, it was characterized by organicism, racialism, populism, agrarianism, romantic nationalism and – as a consequence of a growing exclusive and ethnic connotation – by antisemitism from the 1900s onward. Völkisch nationalists generally considered the Jews to be an “alien people” who belonged to a different Volk (“race” or “folk”) from the Germans.
The Völkisch movement was not a homogeneous set of beliefs, but rather a “variegated sub-culture” that rose in opposition to the socio-cultural changes of modernity. The “only denominator common” to all Völkisch theorists was the idea of a national rebirth, inspired by the traditions of the Ancient Germans which had been “reconstructed” on a romantic basis by the adherents of the movement. This rebirth would have been achieved by either “Germanizing” Christianity – an Abrahamic and “Semitic” religion that spread into Europe from the Near East – or by rejecting any Christian heritage that existed in Germany in order to revive pre-Christian Germanic paganism. In a narrow definition, the term is used to designate only groups that consider human beings essentially preformed by blood, or by inherited characteristics.
The Völkischen are often encompassed in a wider Conservative Revolution by scholars, a German national conservative movement that rose in prominence during the Weimar Republic (1918–1933). During the period of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis believed in and enforced a definition of the German Volk which excluded Jews, the Romani people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and other “foreign elements” living in Germany. Their policies led to these “undesirables” being rounded up and murdered in large numbers, in what became known as The Holocaust.
Gilded Age
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In United States history, the Gilded Age is described as the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction Era and the Progressive Era. It was named by 1920s historians after an 1873 Mark Twain novel, although its publication was in the Reconstruction Era. Historians saw late 19th-century economic expansion as a time of materialistic excesses marked by widespread political corruption.
It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Western United States. As American wages grew much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, and industrialization demanded an increasingly skilled labor force, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 40% from 1860 to 1890 and spread across the increasing labor force. The average annual wage per industrial worker (including men, women, and children) rose from $380 in 1880 ($11,998 in 2023 dollars) to $584 in 1890 ($19,126 in 2023 dollars), a gain of 59%. The Gilded Age was also an era of poverty, especially in the South, and growing inequality, as millions of immigrants poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.
Sămănătorul
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Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuță and George Coșbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism. The magazine’s ideology, commonly known as Sămănătorism or Semănătorism, was articulated after 1905, when historian and literary theorist Nicolae Iorga became editor in chief. While its populism, critique of capitalism and emphasis on peasant society separated it from other conservative groups, Sămănătorul shared views with its main conservative predecessor, the Junimea society, particularly in expressing reserve toward Westernization. In parallel, its right-wing agenda made it stand in contrast to the Poporanists, a Romanian populist faction whose socialist-inspired ideology also opposed rapid urbanization, but there was a significant overlap in membership between the two groups. Sămănătorul‘s relationship with the dominant National Liberal Party was equally ambiguous, ranging from an alliance between Sămănătorul and National Liberal politician Spiru Haret to Iorga’s explicit condemnation of 20th century Romanian liberalism.
Promoting an idealized interpretation of local history, basing its aesthetic ideals on the work of national poet and conservative essayist Mihai Eminescu, the publication advertised itself as the voice of oppressed Romanians in Transylvania and other areas controlled by Austria-Hungary prior to World War I. Its irredentism, as well as its outspoken criticism of the political and cultural establishment, made Sămănătorul a popular venue for young Romanian intellectuals from both the Kingdom of Romania and the regions surrounding it. The traditionalist literary faction coalescing around the magazine was generally opposed to modernist literature and the aesthetics of modern art, but was more tolerant of Symbolism. In time, Sămănătorul became host to a subgroup of the local Symbolist movement.
Radiosomaggismo
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Radiosomaggismo (Italian for the “Radiant days of May”) describes a brief period of popular demonstrations in a number of Italian cities in May 1915, demanding the country’s entry into the First World War.
Although in 1915 Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Italian government of Antonio Salandra had entered into clandestine discussions to join the Triple Entente. This led to the signing of the secret Treaty of London on 26 April by which Italy agreed to enter the war within one month. On 4 May Italy renounced the Triple Alliance, but did not yet enter the war in the side of the Entente as a majority in parliament continued to favour neutrality. The former Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti was warned that Salandra intended to take the country to war, and on 9 May he returned to Rome to try to prevent this. On 10 May he tried to persuade King Victor Emmanuel that a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies would show that parliament did not support entry into the war. Realising that he could not secure a majority, on 13 May, Salandra resigned.
Great Depression
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The Great Depression (1929–1939) was a severe global economic downturn that affected many countries across the world. It became evident after a sharp decline in stock prices in the United States, leading to a period of economic depression. The economic contagion began around September 1929 and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October (Black Tuesday). This crisis marked the start of a prolonged period of economic hardship characterized by high unemployment rates and widespread business failures.
Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. Devastating effects were seen in both rich and poor countries with falling personal income, prices, tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered the most.
Economic historians usually consider the catalyst of the Great Depression to be the devastating Wall Street Crash. However, some dispute this, seeing the crash less as a cause of the Depression and more a symptom of the rising nervousness of investors partly due to gradual price declines caused by falling sales of consumer goods (as a result of overproduction because of new production techniques, falling exports and income inequality, among other factors) that had already been underway as part of a gradual depression.
Vargas Era
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The Vargas Era is the period in the history of Brazil between 1930 and 1946 when the country was governed by president Getúlio Vargas. The period from 1930 to 1937 is known as the Second Brazilian Republic, and the other part of Vargas Era, from 1937 until 1946 is known as the Third Brazilian Republic (or Estado Novo).
The Brazilian Revolution of 1930 marked the end of the First Brazilian Republic. The coup deposed President Washington Luís and blocked swearing-in of president-elect Júlio Prestes on the grounds that the election had been rigged by his supporters. The 1891 Constitution was abrogated, the National Congress dissolved, then the provisional military junta ceded power to Vargas. Federal intervention in state governments increased and the political landscape was altered by suppressing the traditional oligarchies of São Paulo and Minas Gerais states.
Share Our Wealth
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Share Our Wealth was a movement that began in February 1934, during the Great Depression, by Huey Long, a governor and later United States Senator from Louisiana. Long first proposed the plan in a national radio address, which is now referred to as the “Share Our Wealth Speech”. To stimulate the economy, the Share Our Wealth program called for massive federal spending, a wealth tax, and wealth redistribution. These proposals drew wide support, with millions joining local Share Our Wealth clubs. Roosevelt adopted many of these proposals in the Second New Deal.
Radical Right – United States
In the politics of the United States, the radical right is a political preference that leans towards ultraconservatism, white nationalism, white supremacy, or other far-right ideologies in a hierarchical structure which is paired with conspiratorial rhetoric alongside traditionalist and reactionary aspirations. The term was first used by social scientists in the 1950s regarding small groups such as the John Birch Society in the United States, and since then it has been applied to similar groups worldwide. The term “radical” was applied to the groups because they sought to make fundamental (hence “radical”) changes within institutions and remove persons and institutions that threatened their values or economic interests from political life.
Radical Right – Europe
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In political science, the terms radical right, reactionary right and populist right have been used to refer to the range of nationalist, right-wing to far-right parties that have grown in support since the late 1970s in Europe. Populist right groups have shared a number of causes, which typically include opposition to globalisation and immigration, criticism of multiculturalism, and opposition to the European Union, but do not usually oppose democracy.
The ideological spectrum of the radical right extends from staunchly right-wing national conservatism and right-wing populism to far-right Third Positionism ideologies.
Revolutions of 1989
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The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. This revolutionary wave is sometimes referred to as the Autumn of Nations, a play on the term Spring of Nations that is sometimes used to describe the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe. The Revolutions of 1989 contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union—one of the two global superpowers—and the abandonment of communist regimes in many parts of the world, some of which were violently overthrown. These events drastically altered the world’s balance of power, marking the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the post-Cold War era.
Pink Tide
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The pink tide, or the turn to the left, is a political wave and turn towards left-wing governments in Latin America throughout the 21st century. As a term, both phrases are used in political analysis in the news media and elsewhere to refer to a move toward more economic progressive or social progressive policies in the region. Such governments have been referred to as “left-of-centre”, “left-leaning”, and “radical social-democratic”. They are also members of the São Paulo Forum, a conference of left-wing political parties and other organizations from the Americas.
The Latin American countries viewed as part of this ideological trend have been referred to as pink tide nations, with the term post-neoliberalism or socialism of the 21st century also being used to describe the movement. Elements of the movement have included a rejection of the Washington Consensus, while some pink tide governments, such as those of Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, have been varyingly characterized as being “anti-American”, prone to populism, as well as authoritarian, particularly in the case of Nicaragua and Venezuela by the 2010s, although many others remained democratic.
The pink tide was followed by the conservative wave, a political phenomenon that emerged in the early 2010s as a direct reaction to the pink tide. Some authors have proposed that there are multiple distinct pink tides rather than a single one, with the first pink tide happening during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and a second pink tide encompassing the elections of the late 2010s to early 2020s. A resurgence of the pink tide was kicked off by Mexico in 2018 and Argentina in 2019, and further established by Bolivia in 2020, along with Peru, Honduras, and Chile in 2021, and then Colombia and Brazil in 2022, with Colombia electing the first left-wing president in their history. In 2023, centre-left Bernardo Arévalo secured a surprise victory in Guatemala, and in June 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum was projected to win the Mexican presidency in a landslide, a continuation of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s left-wing government.
Great Recession
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The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline observed in national economies globally, i.e. a recession, that occurred in the late 2000s. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At the time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded that it was the most severe economic and financial meltdown since the Great Depression. One result was a serious disruption of normal international relations.
The causes of the Great Recession include a combination of vulnerabilities that developed in the financial system, along with a series of triggering events that began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble in 2005–2012. When housing prices fell and homeowners began to abandon their mortgages, the value of mortgage-backed securities held by investment banks declined in 2007–2008, causing several to collapse or be bailed out in September 2008. This 2007–2008 phase was called the subprime mortgage crisis.
The combination of banks unable to provide funds to businesses, and homeowners paying down debt rather than borrowing and spending, resulted in the Great Recession that began in the U.S. officially in December 2007 and lasted until June 2009, thus extending over 19 months. As with most other recessions, it appears that no known formal theoretical or empirical model was able to accurately predict the advance of this recession, except for minor signals in the sudden rise of forecast probabilities, which were still well under 50%.
The recession was not felt equally around the world; whereas most of the world’s developed economies, particularly in North America, South America and Europe, fell into a severe, sustained recession, many more recently developing economies suffered far less impact, particularly China, India and Indonesia, whose economies grew substantially during this period. Similarly, Oceania suffered minimal impact, in part due to its proximity to Asian markets.
Tea Party Movement
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The Tea Party movement was an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party that began in 2009. The movement formed in opposition to the policies of Democratic President Barack Obama and was a major factor in the 2010 wave election in which Republicans gained 63 House seats and took control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Participants in the movement called for lower taxes and for a reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit through decreased government spending. The movement supported small-government principles and opposed the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), President Obama’s signature health care legislation. The Tea Party movement has been described as both a popular constitutional movement and as an “astroturf movement” purporting to be spontaneous and grassroots, but created by hidden elite interests. The movement was composed of a mixture of libertarian, right-wing populist, and conservative activism. It sponsored multiple protests and supported various political candidates since 2009. According to the American Enterprise Institute, various polls in 2013 estimated that slightly over 10% of Americans identified as part of the movement. The movement took its name from the December 1773 Boston Tea Party, a watershed event in the American Revolution, with some movement adherents using Revolutionary era costumes.
The Tea Party movement was popularly launched following a February 19, 2009, call by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for a “tea party”. On February 20, 2009, The Nationwide Tea Party Coalition also helped launch the Tea Party movement via a conference call attended by around 50 conservative activists. Supporters of the movement subsequently had a major impact on the internal politics of the Republican Party. While the Tea Party was not a political party in the strict sense, research published in 2016 suggests that members of the Tea Party Caucus voted like a right-wing third party in Congress. A major force behind the movement was Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a conservative political advocacy group founded by businessman and political activist David Koch.
By 2016, Politico wrote that the Tea Party movement had died; however, it also said that this was in part because some of its ideas had been absorbed by the mainstream Republican Party. CNBC reported in 2019 that the conservative wing of the Republican Party “has basically shed the tea party moniker”.
Occupy Movement
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The Occupy movement was an international populist socio-political movement that expressed opposition to social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primarily to advance social and economic justice and different forms of democracy. The movement has had many different scopes, since local groups often had different focuses, but its prime concerns included how large corporations (and the global financial system) control the world in a way that disproportionately benefits a minority, undermines democracy and causes instability.
The first Occupy protest to receive widespread attention, Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park, Lower Manhattan, began on 17 September 2011. By 9 October, Occupy protests had taken place or were ongoing in over 951 cities across 82 countries, and in over 600 communities in the United States. Although the movement became most active in the United States, by October 2011 Occupy protests and occupations had started in dozens of other countries across every widely inhabited continent. For the first month, overt police repression remained minimal, but this began to change by 25 October 2011, when police first attempted to forcibly remove Occupy Oakland. By the end of 2011 authorities had cleared most of the major camps, with the last remaining high-profile sites – in Washington, D.C., and in London – evicted by February 2012.
The Occupy movement took inspiration in part from the Arab Spring, from the 2009 Iranian Green Movement, and from the Spanish Indignados Movement, as well as from the overall global wave of anti-austerity protests of 2010 and following. The movement commonly used the slogan “We are the 99%” and the #Occupy hashtag format; it organized through websites such as the now defunct Occupy Together. According to The Washington Post, the movement, which Cornel West described as a “democratic awakening”, is difficult to distill to a few demands. On 12 October 2011, the Los Angeles City Council became one of the first governmental bodies in the United States to adopt a resolution stating its informal support of the Occupy movement. In October 2012, Andy Haldane the Executive Director of Financial Stability at the Bank of England stated that the protesters were right to criticise and had persuaded bankers and politicians “to behave in a more moral way”.
Brexit
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Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Following a referendum held on 23 June 2016, Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET). The UK is the only sovereign country to have left the EU. The UK had been a member state of the EU or its predecessor, the European Communities (EC), since 1 January 1973. Following Brexit, EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union no longer have primacy over British laws. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains relevant EU law as domestic law, which the UK can amend or repeal.
The EU and its institutions developed gradually after their establishment. Throughout the period of British membership, Eurosceptic groups had existed, opposing aspects of the EU and its predecessors. Labour prime minister Harold Wilson’s pro-EC government held a referendum on continued EC membership in 1975, in which 67.2 per cent of those voting chose to stay within the bloc. Despite growing political opposition to further European integration aimed at “ever closer union” between 1975 and 2016, notably from factions of the Conservative Party in the 1980s to 2000s, no further referendums on the issue were held.
By the 2010s, the growing popularity of UK Independence Party (UKIP), as well as pressure from Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party, persuaded then-Prime Minister David Cameron to promise a referendum on British membership of the EU if his government were re-elected. Following the general election in 2015, which produced a small but unexpected overall majority for the governing Conservative Party, the promised referendum on continued EU membership was held on 23 June 2016. Notable supporters of the Remain campaign included Cameron, future Prime Ministers Theresa May and Liz Truss, and former Prime Ministers John Major, Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown; while notable supporters of the Leave campaign included future Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. The electorate voted to leave the EU with a 51.9% share of the vote, with all regions of England and Wales except London voting in favour of Brexit, and Scotland and Northern Ireland voting against. The result led to Cameron’s sudden resignation, his replacement by then-Home Secretary Theresa May, and four years of negotiations with the EU on the terms of departure and on future relations, completed under a Boris Johnson government, with government control remaining with the Conservative Party during this period.
The negotiation process was both politically challenging and deeply divisive within the UK, leading to two snap elections in 2017 and 2019. One deal was overwhelmingly rejected by the UK Parliament, causing great uncertainty and leading to postponement of the withdrawal date to avoid a no-deal Brexit. The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020 after a withdrawal deal was passed by Parliament, but continued to participate in many EU institutions (including the single market and customs union) during an eleven-month transition period in order to ensure frictionless trade until all details of the post-Brexit relationship were agreed and implemented. Trade deal negotiations continued within days of the scheduled end of the transition period, and the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement was signed on 30 December 2020. The effects of Brexit are in part determined by the cooperation agreement, which provisionally applied from 1 January 2021, until it formally came into force on 1 May 2021.
Election of Donald Trump
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Trumpism is a political movement that follows the political ideologies associated with Donald Trump and his political base. It incorporates ideologies such as right-wing populism, national conservatism, neo-nationalism, and has also been described as authoritarian and neo-fascist. Trumpist rhetoric heavily features anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nativist, and racist attacks against minority groups. Other identified aspects include conspiracist, isolationist, Christian nationalist, evangelical Christian, protectionist, anti-feminist, and anti-LGBT beliefs. Trumpists and Trumpians are terms that refer to individuals exhibiting its characteristics.
Many scholars and commentators argue that a distinguishing mark of Trumpism is that it is authoritarian, meaning that Trumpists do not want presidential power to be limited by the Constitution or by the rule of law. It has been referred to as an American political variant of the far-right and the national-populist and neo-nationalist sentiment seen in multiple nations worldwide from the late 2010s to the early 2020s. Though not strictly limited to any one party, Trump supporters became the largest faction of the United States Republican Party, with the remainder often characterized as “the elite” or “the establishment” in contrast. In response to the rise of Trump, there has arisen a Never Trump movement.
Yellow Vests Protests
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The Yellow Vests Protests or Yellow Jackets Protests or Yellow Vests Revolution are a series of populist, grassroots weekly protests in France that began on 17 November 2018.
After an online petition posted in May 2018 had attracted nearly one million signatures, mass demonstrations began on 17 November. The movement was initially motivated by rising crude oil and fuel prices, a high cost of living, and economic inequality. The movement argued that a disproportionate burden of taxation in France was falling on the working and middle classes, especially in rural and peri-urban areas. The protesters called for lower fuel taxes, a reintroduction of the solidarity tax on wealth, a minimum wage increase, among other things. On 29 November 2018, a list of 42 demands was made public and went viral on social media, becoming a de facto structuring basis for the movement. The demands covered a wide range of topics, mostly related to democracy, and social and fiscal justice. Participation in the weekly protests diminished due to violence, particularly due to the loss of eyes, hands, and neurological disorders caused by police blast balls. The protests eventually stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic in France but continued again after health restrictions were lifted.
The movement is supported primarily by populists on both sides of the political spectrum, but rarely by moderates. According to one poll, few of those protesting had voted for Macron in the 2017 French presidential election; many had shown political alienation by not voting, or had voted for far-right or far-left candidates. Rising fuel prices initially sparked the demonstrations. Yellow high-visibility vests, which French law requires all drivers to have in their vehicles and to wear during emergency situations, were chosen as “a unifying thread and call to arms” because of their convenience, visibility, ubiquity, and association with working-class industries. The protests have involved demonstrations and the blocking of roads and fuel depots, sometimes developing into major riots, described as the most violent since those of May 68. The police action, resulting in multiple incidents of loss of limb, has been criticized by politicians and international media; it has sometimes resulted in police officers being charged for their violent behavior. The movement has received international attention. Protesters in many places around the world have used the yellow vest as a symbol. About 3 million people have participated in the yellow-vests movement.
Variants
Black
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Black populism was a broad-based, independent political movement started by African Americans following the end of the Reconstruction era. The movement began among Black agricultural workers as a response to Jim Crow laws. They sought better pay and labor protections, increased funding for Black schools, criminal justice reform, and increased participation of African Americans in politics.
Judicial
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Judicial populism or juridical populism is a phenomenon where the judgments and actions of the courts are driven by the perception of the masses or certain groups. The term, which some refer to as popular constitutionalism, has been described as a reaction to the perceived elitist bias in the legal system.
Judicial populism can also refer to the actions of the courts that reflect public sentiment or those aimed at garnering public support for the judicial institution.
Left-Wing
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Left-wing populism, also called social populism, is a political ideology that combines left-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric often includes elements of anti-elitism, opposition to the Establishment, and speaking for the “common people”. Recurring themes for left-wing populists include economic democracy, social justice, and scepticism of globalization. Socialist theory plays a lesser role than in traditional left-wing ideologies.
Criticism of capitalism and globalization is also linked to unpopular United States military operations, especially those in the Middle East. It is considered that the populist left does not exclude others horizontally and relies on egalitarian ideals. Some scholars also speak of nationalist left-wing populist movements, a feature exhibited by the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua or the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. Unlike exclusionary or right-wing populism, left-wing populist parties are generally supportive of minority rights, as well as to an idea of nationality that is not delimited by cultural or ethnic particularisms. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, self-described democratic socialists, are examples of modern left-wing populist politicians in the United States. With the rise of Syriza and Podemos during the European debt crisis, there has been increased debate on new left-wing populism in Europe.
Traditionally, left-wing populism has been associated with the socialist movement; since the 2010s, there has been a movement close to left-wing populism in the left-liberal camp, some of which are considered social democratic positions. Left-liberal economic populism appealing to the working class has been prominent in some countries, such as with Joe Biden of United States and Lee Jae-myung of South Korea, in the 2020s, where liberal and conservative parties are the main two parties.
Macroeconomic
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Macroeconomic populism is a term coined by Rudi Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards in a 1990 paper. The term refers to the policies by many Latin American administrations by which government spending and real wages increase in a non-sustainable way leading to inflation, then stagflation and ultimately an economic collapse that drops real wages to lower than they were before the populist period began. The paper cites as examples Salvador Allende in Chile (1970–1973), and Alan García first term in Peru (1985–1990). In 1991, Dornbusch and Edwards edited a book titled The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America which analyzed more cases like Argentina between 1973 and 1976, Mexico between 1970 and 1982, and Brazil.
In 2014, Paul Krugman cited Argentina’s policies under Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Venezuela as new cases of macroeconomic populism. During a lecture in 2014, he said that he did not endorse the attacks on Argentina nor what it looks to him as a “somewhat out of control fiscal and monetary policy”.
Market
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Market populism, coined by American journalist and historian Thomas Frank, is the concept that the free market is more democratic than any political democracy. Frank himself does not believe this premise and sets forth arguments against it in his book One Market Under God. The concept received major widespread prominence in the 1990s when it was used to justify the New Economy, which consisted of a long bullish trend, and support for the free market.
Penal
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Penal populism is a media driven political process whereby politicians compete with each other to impose tougher prison sentences on offenders based on a perception that crime is out of control. It tends to manifest in the run up to elections when political parties put forward hard-line policies which they believe the public wants, rather than evidence-based policies based on their effectiveness at dealing with crime and associated social problems.
Right-Wing
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Right-wing populism, also called right populism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti-elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishment, and speaking to or for the “common people”. Recurring themes of right-wing populists include neo-nationalism, social conservatism, economic nationalism and fiscal conservatism. Frequently, they aim to defend a national culture, identity, and economy against perceived attacks by outsiders. Like all forms of populism, right-wing populism has associations with authoritarianism, while some far right-wing populists draw comparisons to fascism.
Right-wing populism in the Western world is generally associated with ideologies such as anti-environmentalism, anti-globalization, nativism, and protectionism. In Europe, the term is often used to describe groups, politicians, and political parties generally known for their opposition to immigration, especially from the Muslim world, and for Euroscepticism. Right-wing populists may support expanding the welfare state, but only for those they deem fit to receive it; this concept has been referred to as “welfare chauvinism”. Since the Great Recession, European right-wing populist movements such as the Brothers of Italy and the League in Italy, the National Rally (formerly the National Front), the Party for Freedom and the Forum for Democracy in the Netherlands, All for Latvia, the Finns Party, the Sweden Democrats, Danish People’s Party, Vox in Spain, the Freedom Party of Austria, Law and Justice in Poland, the UK Independence Party, the Alternative for Germany, the Swiss People’s Party and Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party) began to grow in popularity, in large part due to increasing opposition to immigration from the Middle East and Africa, rising Euroscepticism and discontent with the economic policies of the European Union.
From the 1990s, right-wing populist parties became established in the legislatures of various democracies. Right-wing populism has remained the dominant political force in the Republican Party in the United States since the 2010s. Although extreme right-wing movements in the United States (where they are normally referred to as the “radical right”) are usually characterized as separate entities, some writers consider them to be a part of a broader, right-wing populist phenomenon. American businessman and media personality Donald Trump won the 2016 United States presidential election after running on a platform that was founded on right-wing populist themes.
Techno
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Techno-populism is either a populism in favor of technocracy or a populism concerning certain technology – usually information technology – or any populist ideology conversed using digital media. It can be employed by single politicians or whole political movements respectively. Neighboring terms used in a similar way are technocratic populism, technological populism, and cyber-populism. Italy’s Five Star Movement and France’s La République En Marche! have been described as technopopulist political movements.
Valence
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Valence populism is a variant of populism that is assigned to political parties or politicians whose positions cannot be determined on the left–right political spectrum. Parties or politicians alike promote issues and themes that are non-positional, such as anti-corruption ideas, government transparency, democratic reform, and moral integrity. Valence populism is also an anti-establishment ideology, that rejects consistent ideologies unlike left-wing or right-wing populism.
The concept of valence populism has been largely built by political scientist Mattia Zulianello. It has usually been found in parties in the Central and Eastern Europe. Despite this, the most known example is the Italian Five Star Movement. Other parties include the Czech ANO 2011, Bulgarian GERB, Croatian Human Shield, Slovak OĽaNO, and Slovenian List of Marjan Šarec. Variants of valence populism include techno-populism and agrarian populism.
Ideologies
Berlusconism
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Berlusconism is a term used in the Western media and by some Italian analysts to describe the political positions of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. In general, Berlusconism could be reassumed as a mix of conservatism, populism, liberism, and anti-communism.
Other observers describe it as more of a personality-driven populist movement, where “a billionaire businessman and television personality” pledges to use his unique skills to “represent the interests of ordinary people” against the political establishment; and where the “scandals, investigations, and trials” that follow him are dismissed by his passionately loyal base of supporters as evidence that he is “the most persecuted” person in history.
Bonapartism
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Bonapartism is the political ideology supervening from Napoleon Bonaparte and his followers and successors. The term was used to refer to people who hoped to restore the House of Bonaparte and its style of government. In this sense, a Bonapartiste was a person who either actively participated in or advocated for conservative, monarchist, and imperial political factions in 19th-century France.
Bonapartism emerged in 1814 with the first fall of Napoleon. However, it only developed doctrinal clarity and cohesion by the 1840s.
After Napoleon, the term was applied to French politicians who seized power in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, ruling in the French Consulate and subsequently in the First and Second French Empires. The Bonapartistes desired an empire under the House of Bonaparte, the Corsican family of Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I of France) and his nephew Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III of France).
In recent years, the term has been used more generally for political movements that advocate for an authoritarian centralised state, with a strongman charismatic leader, support for the military, and conservatism.
Chavismo
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Chavismo, also known in English as Chavism or Chavezism, is a left-wing populist political ideology based on the ideas, programs and government style associated with the Venezuelan President between 1999 and 2013 Hugo Chávez that combines elements of democratic socialism, socialist patriotism, Bolivarianism, and Latin American integration. People who supported Hugo Chávez and Chavismo are known as Chavistas.
Dutertism
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The political positions of Rodrigo Duterte, the 16th President of the Philippines, have been difficult to define coherently into what some analysts have attempted to package as “Dutertism” or “Dutertismo” due to numerous policy shifts during his presidency.
Duterte’s political party, PDP-Laban, describes itself as a democratic socialist party, and Duterte has nominally identified as a socialist, making appeals to left-leaning sectors. He has also stressed that he was not a communist. He was once a member of the national democratic Kabataang Makabayan during the 1970s, and was himself a student of José María Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Earlier in his presidency, he had shown favor to the left in a series of speeches: on one occasion he proclaimed himself as the first “leftist President”; called the CPP a “revolutionary government”; ordered his officials to file petitions in court for the release of about 20 jailed communist leaders, which led to their subsequent release; and appointed several cabinet members from the CPP.
Erdoğanism
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Erdoğanism or Tayyipism refers to the political ideals and agenda of Turkish President and former Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who became Prime Minister in 2003 and served until his election to the Presidency in 2014. With support significantly derived from charismatic authority, Erdoğanism has been described as the “strongest phenomenon in Turkey since Kemalism” and used to enjoy broad support throughout the country until the 2018 Turkish economic crisis which caused a significant decline in Erdoğan’s popularity. Its ideological roots originate from Turkish conservatism and its most predominant political adherent is the governing Justice and Development Party (AK Parti), a party that Erdoğan himself founded in 2001.
As a personified version of conservative democracy, key ideals of Erdoğanism include a religious inspired strong centralised leadership based primarily on electoral consent and less so on the separation of powers and institutional checks and balances. Critics have often referred to Erdoğan’s political outlook as authoritarian and as an elective dictatorship. The election-centric outlook of Erdoğanism has often been described as an illiberal democracy by foreign leaders, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Fascism
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Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to anarchism, democracy, pluralism, liberalism, socialism, and Marxism, fascism is placed on the far-right wing within the traditional left–right spectrum.
Fascism rose to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I before spreading to other European countries, most notably Germany. Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe. Fascists saw World War I as a revolution that brought massive changes to the nature of war, society, the state, and technology. The advent of total war and the mass mobilization of society erased the distinction between civilians and combatants. A military citizenship arose in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner. The war resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines and providing logistics to support them, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.
Fascism rejects assertions that violence is inherently negative or pointless, instead viewing imperialism, political violence, and war as means to national rejuvenation.
Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sentiment, sometimes with economic liberal issues, as well as opposition to social democracy, parliamentarianism, Marxism, capitalism, communism, and socialism (sometimes are opposed to liberalism and liberal democracy). As with classical fascism, it occasionally proposes a Third Position as an alternative to market capitalism.
Fortuynism
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Fortuynism is the political ideology of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. Observers variously saw him as a political protest targeting the alleged elitism and bureaucratic style of the Dutch purple coalitions, as offering “openness, directness and clearness”, populism simply as charisma. Another school holds Fortuynism as a distinct ideology, with an alternative vision of society. Some argue that Fortuynism is not just one ideology, but that it contained liberalism, populism and nationalism.
Fortuyn was harshly critical of Islam and Muslim immigration to the Netherlands and was opposed to multicultural policies of the Dutch government at the time. However, some political commentators noted that ethnic and racial sentiments did not play a part of Fortuyn’s ideology and in comparison to other European national-populist politicians of the era, he held socially liberal stances on matters such as LGBT rights. Following his assassination in the run up to the 2002 Dutch general election, his party, the Pim Fortuyn List formed the second largest party in parliament and government after the election. Although the party would fade from relevance and eventually dissolve in 2008, Fortuyn is noted for influencing anti-immigrant parties and politicians in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.
Gaullism
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Gaullism is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic. De Gaulle withdrew French forces from the NATO Command Structure, forced the removal of Allied bases from France, as well as initiated France’s own independent nuclear deterrent programme. His actions were predicated on the view that France would not be subordinate to other nations.
According to Serge Berstein, Gaullism is “neither a doctrine nor a political ideology” and cannot be considered either left or right. Rather, “considering its historical progression, it is a pragmatic exercise of power that is neither free from contradictions nor of concessions to momentary necessity, even if the imperious word of the general gives to the practice of Gaullism the allure of a programme that seems profound and fully realised”. Gaullism is “a peculiarly French phenomenon, without doubt the quintessential French political phenomenon of the 20th century”.
Lawrence D. Kritzman argues that Gaullism may be seen as a form of French patriotism in the tradition of Jules Michelet. He writes: “Aligned on the political spectrum with the right, Gaullism was committed nevertheless to the republican values of the Revolution, and so distanced itself from the particularist ambitions of the traditional right and its xenophobic causes”. Furthermore, “Gaullism saw as its mission the affirmation of national sovereignty and unity, which was diametrically opposed to the divisiveness created by the leftist commitment to class struggle”.
Gaullism was nationalistic. In the early post-WWII period, Gaullists advocated for retaining the French Empire. De Gaulle shifted his stance on empire in the mid-1950s, suggesting potential federal arrangements or self-determination and membership in the French Community.
Hansonism
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In Australian politics, Hansonism is the political ideology of Pauline Hanson, the leader of One Nation, and those that follow her. The term has been used since 1998, and was added to The Australian National Dictionary in 2018.
Hansonism has been described as a form of right-wing populism. A common theme within Hansonism is the idea that the “multiculturalist elite” are manipulating “hardworking Australians” into supporting certain policies, such as Indigenous land rights and welcome to country ceremonies. Hansonism believes that such rights for minority groups, such as for Indigenous Australians, are forms of reverse racism and are anti-equality. In this regard, Hansonism is often viewed as similar to other right-wing populist ideologies such as Trumpism.
Another key feature of Hansonism is support of economic nationalism and opposition to economic rationalism. Hanson has supported the re-introduction of tariffs, establishing government-run banks, renewing local manufacturing, and is critical of multinational corporations.
In 1998, Kukathas and Maley identified two strands of Hansonism: Soft Hansonism, and Hard Hansonism. Hard Hansonism refers to the policies directly supported by Hanson, such as anti-Asian sentiment, an attachment to the White Australia Policy, criticism of multiculturalism, and the populist view that these policies are associated with “the people”. Soft Hansonism is associated with Hansonist policies that take a milder form or are promoted by non-One Nation members, such as staunch opposition to asylum seekers, with the views of Graeme Campbell being cited as an example of the latter type.
Hindutva
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Hindutva is a political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1922. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other organisations, collectively called the Sangh Parivar.
Inspired by European fascism, the Hindutva movement has been described as a variant of right-wing extremism, and as “almost fascist in the classical sense”, adhering to a concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony. Some have also described Hindutva as a separatist ideology. Some analysts dispute the identification of Hindutva with fascism, and suggest Hindutva is an extreme form of conservatism or ethno-nationalism.
Jacksonian Democracy
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Jacksonian democracy was a 19th-century political philosophy in the United States that expanded suffrage to most white men over the age of 21 and restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, Andrew Jackson and his supporters, it became the nation’s dominant political worldview for a generation. The term itself was in active use by the 1830s.
This era, called the Jacksonian Era or Second Party System by historians and political scientists, lasted roughly from Jackson’s 1828 presidential election until the practice of slavery became the dominant issue with the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 and the political repercussions of the American Civil War dramatically reshaped American politics. It emerged when the long-dominant Democratic-Republican Party became factionalized around the 1824 presidential election. Jackson’s supporters began to form the modern Democratic Party. His political rivals John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay created the National Republican Party, which would afterward combine with other anti-Jackson political groups to form the Whig Party.
Broadly speaking, the era was characterized by a democratic spirit. It built upon Jackson’s equal political policy, subsequent to ending what he termed a monopoly of government by elites. Even before the Jacksonian era began, suffrage had been extended to a majority of white male adult citizens, a result which the Jacksonians celebrated. Jacksonian democracy also promoted the strength of the presidency and the executive branch at the expense of Congress, while also seeking to broaden the public’s participation in government. The Jacksonians demanded elected, not appointed, judges and rewrote many state constitutions to reflect the new values. In national terms, they favored geographical expansionism, justifying it in terms of manifest destiny.
Jackson’s expansion of democracy was exclusively limited to White men, as well as voting rights in the nation were extended to adult white males only. There was also little to no improvement, and in many cases a reduction of the rights of non-white U.S citizens, during the extensive period of Jacksonian democracy, spanning from 1829 to 1860.
Janismo
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Janismo is a political behavior and ideology often attributed to Jânio Quadros, the 22nd President of Brazil.
During the term of former president Juscelino Kubitschek, the Brazilian government adopted a policy of developmentalism. It constructed the city of Brasilia under the promise of development in national industry within 5 years.
Janismo is defined by the electoral campaign promises and government actions under Jânio Quadros’ presidency. The main goal of the ideology is to combat corruption. It is characterized as right-wing populism making opposition to Getulismo and Peronism. The difference between Jânismo and Vargas’ Getulismo was in the way their policies targeted the lower class. While Vargas appealed to the working class for his promises of better living conditions, Jânio appealed to the same class using promises of bringing corrupt government officials to justice.
Jeffersonian Democracy
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Jeffersonian democracy, named after its advocate Thomas Jefferson, was one of two dominant political outlooks and movements in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The Jeffersonians were deeply committed to American republicanism, which meant opposition to what they considered to be artificial aristocracy, opposition to corruption, and insistence on virtue, with a priority for the “yeoman farmer”, “planters”, and the “plain folk”. They were antagonistic to the aristocratic elitism of merchants, bankers, and manufacturers, distrusted factory workers, and strongly opposed and were on the watch for supporters of the Westminster system.
The term was commonly used to refer to the Democratic-Republican Party, formally named the “Republican Party”, which Jefferson founded in opposition to the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton. At the beginning of the Jeffersonian era, only two states, Vermont and Kentucky, established universal white male suffrage by abolishing property requirements. But by the end of the Jeffersonian period, more than half of the states had followed suit, including virtually all of the states in the Old Northwest. States then also moved on to allowing white male popular votes for presidential elections, canvassing voters in a more modern style. Jefferson’s party was then in full control of the apparatus of government – from the state legislature and city hall to the White House.
Jeffersonian democracy persisted as an element of the Democratic Party until the early 20th century, exemplified in the rise of Jacksonian democracy and the three presidential candidacies of William Jennings Bryan.
Kemalism
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Kemalism, also known as Atatürkism, or the Six Arrows, is the founding and official ideology of the Republic of Turkey based on the ideas and legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Atatürk’s Turkey was defined by sweeping political, social, cultural, and religious reforms designed to separate the Republican state from its Ottoman predecessor and embrace a Western-style lifestyle, including the establishment of secularism/laicism, state support of the sciences, gender equality, economic statism and more. Most of those policies were first introduced to and implemented in Turkey during Atatürk’s presidency through his reforms.
Kirchnerism
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Kirchnerism is an Argentine political movement based on populist ideals formed by the supporters of spouses Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who consecutively served as Presidents of Argentina. Although considered a branch of Peronism, it is opposed by some factions of Peronists and generally considered to fall into the category of left-wing populism.
Although originally a section in the Justicialist Party, Kirchnerism later received support from other smaller Argentine political parties (like the Communist Party or the Humanist Party) and from factions of some traditional parties (like the Radical Civic Union and the Socialist Party). In parties which are divided along Kirchnerist/Anti-Kirchnerist lines, the members of the Kirchnerist faction are often distinguished with the letter K (for instance “peronistas/justicialistas K”, “radicales K” or “socialistas K”) while the anti-Kirchnerist factions, those opposing Kirchnerism, are similarly labelled with the expression “anti-K”.
Lulism
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Lulism is a political ideology describing the 2006 consolidation of segments of Brazilian society previously hostile to social movements and the Workers’ Party behind political forces led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, appealed by a controlled reformism and limited structural change focused on the poorest sections of society. The lower classes, who had distanced themselves from Lula, accepted his candidacy after his first term as President as the middle class turned from him. The rhetoric and praxis which united the maintenance of stability and state distributism are the origins of Lulism. While advocating socialism, Lulism aims for a ‘social liberal’ approach that gradually resolves the gap between the rich and the poor in a market-oriented way.
Brazilian manufacturers, banks and retailers benefited from the consumption-led and credit-fueled government economic model. According to André Singer, who coined the term: “The convergence of interests of the private industry sector on one side, and of the organized labor force on the other, led to the stability that allowed this political system to take the form of a sort of consensus”. This equilibrium allowed the government to gradually make significant changes in policy. In the Lulism movement, non-confrontation is a sine qua non for development. It is part of the Latin American leftist wave known as Socialism of the 21st century.
Nasserism
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Nasserism is an Arab nationalist and Arab socialist political ideology based on the thinking of Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the two principal leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and Egypt’s second President. Spanning the domestic and international spheres, it combines elements of Arab socialism, republicanism, secularism, nationalism, anti-imperialism, developing world solidarity, Pan-Arabism, and international non-alignment. According to Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Nasserism symbolised “the direction of liberation, socialist transformation, the people’s control of their own resources, and the democracy of the peoples working forces.”
Many other Arab countries have adopted Nasserist forms of government during the 20th century, most being formed during the 1960s, including Algeria under the FLN and the Libyan Arab Republic under Muammar Gaddafi. The Nasserist ideology is also similar in theory to the Ba’athist ideology which was also notably practiced under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist Iraq (1968–2003) and under Hafez al-Assad and now Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Arab Republic (1971–present).
Peronism
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Peronism, also known as justicialism, is an Argentine ideology and movement based on the ideas and legacy of Argentine ruler Juan Perón (1895–1974). It has been an influential movement in 20th- and 21st-century Argentine politics. Since 1946, Peronists have won 10 out of the 14 presidential elections in which they have been allowed to run. Peronism is defined through its three flags, which are: “Economic Independence” (an economy that does not depend on other countries by promoting its national industry), “Social Justice” (the fight against socioeconomic inequalities) and “Political Sovereignty” (the non-interference of foreign powers in the domestic affairs of the country).
Nationalism is an essential part of Peronism, pushing for a sense of national pride among Argentines. However, it promotes an inclusive form of nationalism that embraces all ethnicities and races as integral parts of the nation, distinguishing it from racial or chauvinistic nationalism that prioritizes a single ethnic group. This is because of the ethnically heterogeneous background of the Argentine demographics, which is a result of the mixing between indigenous peoples, Criollos, the various immigrant groups and their descendants. Likewise, Peronism is generally considered populist, since it needs the figure of a leader (originally occupied by Perón) to lead the masses.
Peronism has taken both conservative and progressive measures. Among those conservative elements are its fierce anti-communism, a strong patriotism, the military background of Perón and the sanction of the law 12,978 on Catholic teaching in public schools. While some progressive measures include the expansion of workers’ rights, the adoption of women’s suffrage, free tuition for public universities and a failed attempt to sanction the divorce law after the breakdown of relations with the church.
Due to this great confluence of ideas, Peronism is frequently located in the center of the political spectrum, sometimes in the center-right or center-left depending on the criteria used. Peronism adopts a third position in the context of the Cold War and in the economic dichotomy between liberalism and marxism, expressed in the phrase: “we are neither Yankees nor Marxists”. Peronism espouses corporatism, and thus mediated tensions between the classes of society, with a state responsible for uniting capitalists and workers, by negotiating compromise in their conflicts. This way, trade unions have been incorporated into Peronism’s structure, and remain being a key part of the movement up until this day.
Poporanism
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Poporanism is a Romanian version of nationalism and populism.
The word is derived from popor, meaning “people” in Romanian. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, Poporanism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for all and its intent to reform the Parliament and the farming system.
Regarding Romania’s agrarian situation, Poporanists wished to form co-operative farms for the peasants and to remove them from aristocratic control. Unlike Junimism, another popular political philosophy, Poporanism focused mainly on expanding the power of the peasants. In a very nationalist manner, it was also a champion of the Romanian language and of maintaining the Romanian spirit.
Several famous Romanians, including Ion Agârbiceanu, supported it.
Qasimism
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Qasimism is an Iraqi nationalist ideology based on the thoughts and policies of Abd al-Karim Qasim, who ruled Iraq from 1958 until 1963.
Qasimism opposes Pan-Arabism, Pan-Iranism, Pan-Turkism, Turanism, Kurdish nationalism, and any ideology which affects the unity of Iraqi people and takes land from Iraq. The main policy of Qasimism is Iraqi nationalism, which is the unity and equality of all ethnicities in Iraq, including Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis, and Mandaeans. Abd al-Karim Qasim had many conflicts against Ba’athists, Pan-Arabists, and Kurdish separatists. In the Qasimism ideology, Iraq and Iraqis are put first and foremost. Qasimism also views Iraq’s ancient Mesopotamian (Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Ancient Assyrian) identities as the core of Iraq and its people, and seeks to preserve them. Qasimism is a secular ideology which puts being Iraqi before any religion.
Qasimism also has some irredentist influence due to Abd al-Karim Qasim and many Qasimists wanting Kuwait and Khuzestan province to be a part of Iraq. In fact, it was the Qasimists who created the belief that Kuwait and Khuzestan were rightful Iraqi lands, a belief which had also influenced Saddam Hussein, who further popularised it, made it public that it was his goal, and made it his motive for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the Iran–Iraq War.
Nationalization and populism are more policies of Qasimism. Abd al-Karim Qasim was the one who overthrew the Kingdom of Iraq, which was established by the British, and he became the one to establish Iraqi rule over Iraq. Under Abd al-Karim Qasim, 99% of British-owned oil company lands were taken and distributed to the Iraqi civilian population.
Qasimism seeks women to participate more in society and play a bigger role in the development of Iraq. This was encouraged by Abd al-Karim Qasim himself who rewrote the Iraqi constitution to guarantee more women’s rights. Under Qasimist rule, Iraq appointed its first woman minister, Naziha al-Dulaimi, who was actually the first woman in the entire Arab world to hold a significant role. She inspired the 1959 Civil Affairs Law, which increased women’s benefits in marriages and inheritance laws.
Trumpism
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Trumpism is a political movement that follows the political ideologies associated with Donald Trump and his political base. It incorporates ideologies such as right-wing populism, national conservatism, neo-nationalism, and has also been described as authoritarian and neo-fascist. Trumpist rhetoric heavily features anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nativist, and racist attacks against minority groups. Other identified aspects include conspiracist, isolationist, Christian nationalist, evangelical Christian, protectionist, anti-feminist, and anti-LGBT beliefs. Trumpists and Trumpians are terms that refer to individuals exhibiting its characteristics.
Many scholars and commentators argue that a distinguishing mark of Trumpism is that it is authoritarian, meaning that Trumpists do not want presidential power to be limited by the Constitution or by the rule of law. It has been referred to as an American political variant of the far-right and the national-populist and neo-nationalist sentiment seen in multiple nations worldwide from the late 2010s to the early 2020s. Though not strictly limited to any one party, Trump supporters became the largest faction of the United States Republican Party, with the remainder often characterized as “the elite” or “the establishment” in contrast. In response to the rise of Trump, there has arisen a Never Trump movement.
Some commentators have rejected the populist designation for Trumpism and view it instead as part of a trend towards a new form of fascism or neo-fascism, with some referring to it as explicitly fascist and others as authoritarian and illiberal. Others have more mildly identified it as a specific light version of fascism in the United States. Some historians, including many of those using a new fascism classification,[note 4] write of the hazards of direct comparisons with European fascist regimes of the 1930s, stating that while there are parallels, there are also important dissimilarities. Certain characteristics within public relations and Trump’s political base have exhibited symptoms of a cult of personality.
The label Trumpism has been applied to national-conservative and national-populist movements in other democracies. Many politicians outside of the United States have been labeled as staunch allies of Trump or Trumpism (or even as their countries’ equivalent to Trump) by various news agencies; among them are Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, Viktor Orbán of Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte and Bongbong Marcos of the Philippines, Shinzo Abe of Japan, and Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea.
Concepts
Agrarianism
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Agrarianism is a social and political philosophy that promotes subsistence agriculture, family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Adherents of agrarianism tend to value traditional bonds of local community over urban modernity. Agrarian political parties sometimes aim to support the rights and sustainability of small farmers and poor peasants against the wealthy in society.
Anti-Corruption
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Anti-corruption (or anticorruption) comprises activities that oppose or inhibit corruption. Just as corruption takes many forms, anti-corruption efforts vary in scope and in strategy A general distinction between preventive and reactive measures is sometimes drawn. In such framework, investigative authorities and their attempts to unveil corrupt practices would be considered reactive, while education on the negative impact of corruption, or firm-internal compliance programs are classified as the former.
Anti-Globalization
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The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or movement against neoliberal globalization. There are many definitions of anti-globalization.
Participants base their criticisms on a number of related ideas. What is shared is that participants oppose large, multinational corporations having unregulated political power, exercised through trade agreements and deregulated financial markets. Specifically, corporations are accused of seeking to maximize profit at the expense of work safety conditions and standards, labour hiring and compensation standards, environmental conservation principles, and the integrity of national legislative authority, independence and sovereignty. Some commentators have variously characterized changes in the global economy as “turbo-capitalism” (Edward Luttwak), “market fundamentalism” (George Soros), “casino capitalism” (Susan Strange), and as “McWorld” (Benjamin Barber).
Anti-Intellectualism
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Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism, commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy and the dismissal of art, literature, history, and science as impractical, politically motivated, and even contemptible human pursuits. Anti-intellectuals may present themselves and be perceived as champions of common folk—populists against political and academic elitism—and tend to see educated people as a status class that dominates political discourse and higher education while being detached from the concerns of ordinary people.
Totalitarian governments have, in the past, manipulated and applied anti-intellectualism to repress political dissent. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the following dictatorship (1939–1975) of General Francisco Franco, the reactionary repression of the White Terror (1936–1945) was notably anti-intellectual, with most of the 200,000 civilians killed being the Spanish intelligentsia, the politically active teachers and academics, artists and writers of the deposed Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). During the Cambodian Genocide (1975–1979), the totalitarian regime of Cambodia led by Pol Pot nearly destroyed its entire educated population.
Anti-Politics
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Anti-politics is a term used to describe opposition to, or distrust in, traditional politics. It is closely connected with anti-establishment sentiment and public disengagement from formal politics. Anti-politics can indicate practices and actors that seek to remove political contestation from the public arena, leading to political apathy among citizens; when used this way the term is similar to depoliticisation. Alternatively, if politics is understood as encompassing all social institutions and power relations, anti-politics can mean political activity stemming from a rejection of “politics as usual”.
Anti-politics tends to focus on negative assessments of politicians and political elites by civic organisations, the media and citizens, whereas political apathy may involve disaffection with other elements of a political system, such as the electoral system or party system. Since the 2000s, increasing dissatisfaction with democracy has been a theme of scholarship in both the Americas and Europe, with some political scientists describing high levels of political antipathy as a ‘crisis’ which risks democratic deconsolidation. Anti-politics has become a key concept in accounts of political dysfunction in liberal democracies, typically dissatisfaction with politics and mistrust of politicians.
Possible causes of anti-political sentiment include the processes associated with depoliticisation, especially an increase in technocratic forms of governance, as well as citizens’ perceptions of incompetent governance and the poor performance of politicians. Political distrust can originate from, and increase support for, a range of different political ideologies, including both left-wing and right-wing positions and the extremes of these. Healthy levels of mistrust in politics are often seen as legitimate scepticism and considered beneficial for democratic functioning. High distrust can increase the divide between policy-makers (politicians, or the political establishment) and citizens, which provides opportunities for populist rhetoric. Anti-politics is often expressed through appeals to “the people” and is consequently linked with populism, particularly, but not exclusively, right-wing populism.
Backlash
A backlash is a strong adverse reaction to an idea, action, or object. It is usually a reflection of a normative resentment rather than a denial of its existence. In Western identitarian political discourse, the term is commonly applied to instances of bias and discrimination against marginalized groups. In this form of discourse, backlash can be explained as the response- or counter reaction- to efforts of social change made by a group to gain access to rights or power.
Common People
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A commoner, also known as the common man, commoners, the common people or the masses, was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither royalty, nobility, nor any part of the aristocracy. Depending on culture and period, other elevated persons (such members of clergy) may have had higher social status in their own right, or were regarded as commoners if lacking an aristocratic background.
This class overlaps with the legal class of people who have a property interest in common land, a longstanding feature of land law in England and Wales. Commoners who have rights for a particular common are typically neighbours, not the public in general.
In monarchist terminology, aristocracy and nobility are included in the term.
Continuismo
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Continuísmo is the practice by incumbents of keeping themselves in office beyond legal term limits for their elected office, often a result or cause of democratic backsliding and the erosion of human rights.
Some Latin American heads of state indefinitely extend their rule by way of reducing or abolishing term limits, via constitutional revision. An example is Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay. Another tactic is legislative enactment, such as with Jorge Ubico, in Guatemala in 1941. A third tactic is by plebiscite, such as in the cases of Carlos Castillo Armas in Guatemala, Marcos Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela and the 1988 failed attempt by Augusto Pinochet in Chile. A further type is through a self-coup, as done by Getúlio Vargas in Brazil. Yet another way is for the outgoing incumbent to hand-pick a successor that they can use as a puppet ruler, as when Emilio Portes Gil and Abelardo Rodríguez in Mexico allowed Plutarco Elías Calles, “el jefe máximo“, to continue ruling, a period known as the Maximato.
The extension of family rule occurred in Nicaragua with the Somoza family; in Argentina with Juan Perón; and then more recently with Néstor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner; and in Cuba with Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl Castro. Despite Peru’s one-term limit established by its 1979 constitution, Alberto Fujimori illegally extended his rule to ten years through two re-elections.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump often mused about serving in office beyond constitutional limits.
Criticism of Multiculturalism
Criticism of multiculturalism questions the ideal of the maintenance of distinct ethnic cultures within a country. Multiculturalism is a particular subject of debate in certain European nations that are associated with the idea of a nation state. Critics of multiculturalism may argue against cultural integration of different ethnic and cultural groups to the existing laws and values of the country. Alternatively critics may argue for assimilation of different ethnic and cultural groups to a single national identity.
Demagogy
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A demagogue, or rabble-rouser, is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoating out-groups, exaggerating dangers to stoke fears, lying for emotional effect, or other rhetoric that tends to drown out reasoned deliberation and encourage fanatical popularity. Demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so.
Historian Reinhard Luthin defined demagogue as “a politician skilled in oratory, flattery and invective; evasive in discussing vital issues; promising everything to everybody; appealing to the passions rather than the reason of the public; and arousing racial, religious, and class prejudices—a man whose lust for power without recourse to principle leads him to seek to become a master of the masses. He has for centuries practiced his profession of ‘man of the people’. He is a product of a political tradition nearly as old as western civilization itself.”
Demagogues have appeared in democracies since ancient Athens. Demagogues exploit a fundamental weakness in democracy: because ultimate power is held by the people, it is possible for the people to give that power to someone who appeals to the lowest common denominator of a large segment of the population. Demagogues have usually advocated immediate, forceful action to address a crisis while accusing moderate and thoughtful opponents of weakness or disloyalty. Many demagogues elected to high executive office have unraveled constitutional limits on executive power and tried to convert their democracy into a dictatorship, sometimes successfully.
Direct Democracy
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate decides on policy initiatives without elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are representative democracies. The theory and practice of direct democracy and participation as its common characteristic was the core of work of many theorists, philosophers, politicians, and social critics, among whom the most important are Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and G.D.H. Cole.
Economic Nationalism
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Economic nationalism or nationalist economics is an ideology that prioritizes state intervention in the economy, including policies like domestic control and the use of tariffs and restrictions on labor, goods, and capital movement. The core belief of economic nationalism is that the economy should serve nationalist goals. As a prominent modern ideology, economic nationalism stands in contrast to economic liberalism and economic socialism.
Economic nationalists oppose globalization and some question the benefits of unrestricted free trade. They favor protectionism and advocate for self-sufficiency. To economic nationalists, markets are to be subordinate to the state, and should serve the interests of the state (such as providing national security and accumulating military power). The doctrine of mercantilism is a prominent variant of economic nationalism. Economic nationalists tend to see international trade as zero-sum, where the goal is to derive relative gains (as opposed to mutual gains).
Economic nationalism tends to emphasize industrialization (and often aids industries with state support), due to beliefs that industry has positive spillover effects on the rest of the economy, enhances the self-sufficiency and political autonomy of the country, and is a crucial aspect in building military power.
Egalitarianism
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Egalitarianism, or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds on the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. As such, all citizens of a state should be accorded equal rights and treatment under the law. Egalitarian doctrines have supported many modern social movements, including the Enlightenment, feminism, civil rights, and international human rights.
One key aspect of egalitarianism is its emphasis on equal opportunities for all individuals, regardless of their background or circumstances. This means ensuring that everyone has access to the same resources, education, and opportunities to succeed in life. By promoting equal opportunities, egalitarianism aims to level the playing field and reduce disparities that result from social inequalities.
Elitism
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Elitism is the belief or notion that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people with intrinsic and desirable qualities such as high intellect, wealth, power, physical attractiveness, notability, special skills, experience, lineage, or other desirable traits—are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole, and therefore deserve influence or authority greater than that of others. The term elitism may be used to describe a situation in which power is concentrated in the hands of a limited number of people. Beliefs that are in opposition to elitism include egalitarianism, anti-intellectualism, populism, and the political theory of pluralism.
Elite theory is the sociological or political science analysis of elite influence in society: elite theorists regard pluralism as a utopian ideal.
Elitism is closely related to social class and what sociologists term “social stratification”. In modern Western societies, social stratification is typically defined in terms of three distinct social classes: the upper class, the middle class, and the lower class.
Some synonyms for “elite” might be “upper-class” or “aristocratic”, indicating that the individual in question has a relatively large degree of control over a society’s means of production. This includes those who gain this position due to socioeconomic means and not personal achievement. However, these terms are misleading when discussing elitism as a political theory, because they are often associated with negative “class” connotations and fail to appreciate a more unbiased exploration of the philosophy.
Establishment and Anti-Establishment
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In sociology and in political science, the term The Establishment describes the dominant social group, the elite who control a polity, an organization, or an institution. In the praxis of power, The Establishment usually is a self-selecting, closed elite entrenched within specific institutions — hence, a relatively small social class can exercise all socio-political control.
In 1955, the journalist Henry Fairlie popularized the contemporary usage of the term The Establishment to denote the network of socially prominent and politically important people:
By the ‘Establishment’ I do not mean only the centres of official power — though they are certainly part of it — but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised. The exercise of power in Britain (more specifically, in England) cannot be understood unless it is recognised that it is exercised socially.
Consequently, the term the Establishment became common usage in the press of London; The Oxford English Dictionary cites Fairlie’s column originating the British usages of the term the Establishment, as in the established church denoting the official Church of England. Moreover, in sociologic jargon, an outsider is the person who is not a member of The Establishment.
An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine New Statesman to refer to its political and social agenda. Antiestablishmentarianism (or anti-establishmentarianism) is an expression for such a political philosophy. Anti-establishment positions vary depending on political orientation. For example, during the protests of 1968, anti-establishment positions generally emerged from left-wing, socialist, and anarchist circles. In the 2010s however, anti-establishment positions generally emerged from right-wing populist circles.
General Will
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In political philosophy, the general will is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
The phrase “general will”, as Rousseau used it, occurs in Article Six of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen), composed in 1789 during the French Revolution:
The law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to contribute personally, or through their representatives, to its formation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all public dignities, positions, and employments, according to their capacities, and without any other distinction than that of their virtues and their talents.
James Swenson writes:
To my knowledge, the only time Rousseau actually uses “expression of the general will” is in a passage of the Discours sur l’économie politique, whose content renders it little susceptible of celebrity. […] But it is indeed a faithful summary of his doctrine, faithful enough that commentators frequently adopt it without any hesitation. Among Rousseau’s definitions of law, the textually closest variant can be found in a passage of the Lettres écrites de la montagne summarizing the argument of Du contrat social, in which law is defined as “a public and solemn declaration of the general will on an object of common interest.”
As used by Rousseau, the “general will” is considered by some identical to the rule of law, and to Spinoza’s mens una.[4]
The notion of the general will is wholly central to Rousseau’s theory of political legitimacy. […] It is, however, an unfortunately obscure and controversial notion. Some commentators see it as no more than the dictatorship of the proletariat or the tyranny of the urban poor (such as may perhaps be seen in the French Revolution). Such was not Rousseau’s meaning. This is clear from the Discourse on Political Economy, where Rousseau emphasizes that the general will exists to protect individuals against the mass, not to require them to be sacrificed to it. He is, of course, sharply aware that men have selfish and sectional interests which will lead them to try to oppress others. It is for this reason that loyalty to the good of all alike must be a supreme (although not exclusive) commitment by everyone, not only if a truly general will is to be heeded but also if it is to be formulated successfully in the first place”.
Grassroots Democracy
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Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes that shift as much decision-making authority as practical to the organization’s lowest geographic or social level of organization.
Grassroots organizations can have a variety of structures; depending on the type of organization and what the members want. These can be non-structured and non-hierarchical organizations that are run by all members, or by whichever member wishes to do something.
To cite a specific hypothetical example, a national grassroots organization would place as much decision-making power as possible in the hands of local chapters or common members instead of the head office. The principle is that for democratic power to be best exercised it must be vested in a local community and common members and instead of isolated, atomized individuals, at the top of the organization. Grassroots organizations can inhabit participatory systems. Grassroots systems differ from representative systems that allow local communities or national memberships to elect representatives who then go on to make decisions.
The difference among the three systems comes down to where they rest on two different axes: the rootedness in a community (grassroots versus national or international); and the ability of all individuals to participate in the shared decision-making process (participatory versus representative).
Identity Politics
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Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class. The term could also encompass other social phenomena which are not commonly understood as exemplifying identity politics, such as governmental migration policy that regulates mobility based on identities, or far-right nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic others. For this reason, Kurzwelly, Pérez and Spiegel, who discuss several possible definitions of the term, argue that it is an analytically imprecise concept.
The term “identity politics” dates to the late twentieth century, although it had precursors in the writings of individuals such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Frantz Fanon. Many contemporary advocates of identity politics take an intersectional perspective, which accounts for a range of interacting systems of oppression that may affect a person’s life and originate from their various identities. According to many who describe themselves as advocates of identity politics, it centers the experiences of those facing systemic oppression; the purpose is to better understand the interplay of racial, economic, sex-based, and gender-based oppression (among others) and to ensure no one group is disproportionately affected by political actions, present and future. Such contemporary applications of identity politics describe people of specific race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, economic class, disability status, education, religion, language, profession, political party, veteran status, recovery status, and geographic location. These identity labels are not mutually exclusive but are in many cases compounded into one when describing hyper-specific groups. An example is that of African-American, homosexual, women, who constitute a particular hyper-specific identity class. Those who take an intersectional perspective, such as Kimberlé Crenshaw, criticise narrower forms of identity politics which overemphasise inter-group differences and ignore intra-group differences and forms of oppression.
Criticisms of identity politics generally come from either the centre-right or the far-left on the political spectrum. Many socialists, anarchists and ideological Marxists have deeply criticized identity politics for its divisive nature, claiming that it forms identities that can undermine proletariat unity and the class struggle as a whole. On the other hand, many conservative think tanks and media outlets have criticized identity politics for other reasons, claiming that it is inherently collectivist and prejudicial. Right-wing critics of identity politics have seen it as particularist, in contrast to the universalism of liberal or Marxist perspectives, or argue that it detracts attention from non-identity based structures of oppression and exploitation. A leftist critique of identity politics, such as that of Nancy Fraser, argues that political mobilization based on identitarian affirmation leads to surface redistribution—a redistribution within the existing structure and existing relations of production that does not challenge the status quo. Instead, Fraser argued, identitarian deconstruction, rather than affirmation, is more conducive to a leftist politics of economic redistribution. Other critiques, such as that of Kurzwelly, Rapport and Spiegel, state that identity politics often leads to reproduction and reification of essentialist notions of identity, notions which are inherently erroneous.
Law and Order
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In modern politics, “law and order” is an ideological approach focusing on harsher enforcement and penalties as ways to reduce crime. Penalties for perpetrators of disorder may include longer terms of imprisonment, mandatory sentencing, three-strikes laws and even capital punishment in some countries. Supporters of “law and order” argue that harsh punishment is the most effective means of crime prevention.[citation needed] Opponents argue that a system of harsh criminal punishment is ultimately ineffective because it self-perpetuates crime and does not address underlying or systemic causes of crime.[citation needed] They furthermore credit it with facilitating greater militarisation of police and contributing to mass incarceration in the United States.
Despite the widespread popularity of “law and order” ideas and approaches between the 1960s to the 1980s exemplified by presidential candidates including Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan running successfully on a “tough-on-crime” platform, statistics on crime showed a significant increase of crime throughout the 1970s and 1980s instead, and crime rates only began declining from the 1990s onwards. To differing extents, crime has also been a prominent issue in Canadian, British, Australian, South African, French, German, and New Zealand politics.
Localism
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Localism is a range of political philosophies which prioritize the local. Generally, localism supports local production and consumption of goods, local control of government, and promotion of local history, local culture and local identity. Localism can be contrasted with regionalism and centralized government, with its opposite being found in unitarism.
Localism can also refer to a systematic approach to organizing a central government so that local autonomy is retained rather than following the usual pattern of government and political power becoming centralized over time.
On a conceptual level, there are important affinities between localism and deliberative democracy. This concerns mainly the democratic goal of engaging citizens in decisions that affect them. Consequently, localism will encourage stronger democratic and political participatory forums and widening public sphere connectivity.
Mob Rule
Mob rule or ochlocracy or mobocracy is a pejorative term describing an oppressive majoritarian form of government controlled by the common people through the intimidation of more legitimate authorities. Ochlocracy is distinguished from democracy or similarly legitimate and representative governments by the absence or impairment of a procedurally civil process reflective of the entire polity.
Nativism
Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of native-born or indigenous inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the support of anti-immigration and immigration-restriction measures. In the United States, nativism does not refer to a movement led by Native Americans, also referred to as American Indians.
Natural Aristocracy
The natural aristocracy is a concept developed by Thomas Jefferson in 1813 which describes a hypothetical political elite that derives its power from talent and virtue (or merit). He distinguishes this from traditional aristocracies, which he refers to as the artificial aristocracy, a ruling elite that derives its power solely from inherited status, or wealth and birth. Jefferson considers the natural aristocracy to be superior to the artificial aristocracy, and he believes the ideal ruler must come from the natural aristocracy. The natural aristocracy has been interpreted as being related to the concept of meritocracy.
Pluralism
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Classical pluralism is the view that politics and decision-making are located mostly in the framework of government but that many non-governmental groups use their resources to exert influence. The central question for classical pluralism is how power and influence are distributed in a political process. Groups of individuals try to maximize their interests. Lines of conflict are multiple and shifting as power is a continuous bargaining process between competing groups. There may be inequalities but they tend to be distributed and evened out by the various forms and distributions of resources throughout a population. Any change under this view will be slow and incremental, as groups have different interests and may act as “veto groups” to destroy legislation. The existence of diverse and competing interests is the basis for a democratic equilibrium, and is crucial for the obtaining of goals by individuals.
A polyarchy—a situation of open competition for electoral support within a significant part of the adult population—ensures competition of group interests and relative equality. Pluralists stress civil rights, such as freedom of expression and organization, and an electoral system with at least two parties. On the other hand, since the participants in this process constitute only a tiny fraction of the populace, the public acts mainly as bystanders. This is not necessarily undesirable for two reasons: (1) it may be representative of a population content with the political happenings, or (2) political issues require continuous and expert attention, which the average citizen may not have.
Important theorists of pluralism include Robert A. Dahl (who wrote the seminal pluralist work, Who Governs?), David Truman, and Seymour Martin Lipset. The Anti-Pluralism Index in V-Party Dataset is modeled as a lack of commitment to the democratic process, disrespect for fundamental minority rights, demonization of opponents, and acceptance of political violence.
Popular Democracy
Popular democracy is a notion of direct democracy based on referendums and other devices of empowerment and concretization of popular will. The concept evolved out of the political philosophy of populism, as a fully democratic version of this popular empowerment ideology, but since it has become independent of it, and some even discuss if they are antagonistic or unrelated now (see Values). Though the expression has been used since the 19th century and may be applied to English Civil War politics, at least the notion (or the notion in its current form) is deemed recent and has only recently been fully developed.
Popular Sovereignty
Popular sovereignty is the principle that the leaders of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political legitimacy. Popular sovereignty, being a principle, does not imply any particular political implementation. Benjamin Franklin expressed the concept when he wrote that “In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns”.
Post-Politics
Post-politics in social sciences is a term used, along with similar terms “post-democracy” and post-political, to describe the effects of depoliticisation (a move away from the antagonistic political discourse, empowering unelected technocrats with decisions) in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Arguably, the representative democracies at this time had already entered the era of depoliticisation and post-politics. The term “post-politics” carries negative connotations of depriving electorate from voting on issues deemed settled by the elites, “depoliticisation” is neutral.
Protectionism
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Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. Proponents argue that protectionist policies shield the producers, businesses, and workers of the import-competing sector in the country from foreign competitors and raise government revenue. Opponents argue that protectionist policies reduce trade, and adversely affect consumers in general (by raising the cost of imported goods) as well as the producers and workers in export sectors, both in the country implementing protectionist policies and in the countries against which the protections are implemented.
Protectionism has been advocated mainly by parties that hold economic nationalist positions, while economically liberal political parties generally support free trade.
There is a consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare, while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers have a significantly positive effect on economic growth. Some scholars, such as Douglas Irwin, have implicated protectionism as the cause of some economic crises, most notably the Great Depression. Although trade liberalization can sometimes result in large and unequally distributed losses and gains, and can, in the short run, cause significant economic dislocation of workers in import-competing sectors, free trade often lowers the costs of goods and services for both producers and consumers.
Social Justice
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Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals’ rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive their due from society. In the current movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets, and economic justice. Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include taxation, social insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to ensure distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity.
Modernist interpretations that relate justice to a reciprocal relationship to society are mediated by differences in cultural traditions, some of which emphasize the individual responsibility toward society and others the equilibrium between access to power and its responsible use. Hence, social justice is invoked today while reinterpreting historical figures such as Bartolomé de las Casas, in philosophical debates about differences among human beings, in efforts for gender, ethnic, and social equality, for advocating justice for migrants, prisoners, the environment, and the physically and developmentally disabled.
While concepts of social justice can be found in classical and Christian philosophical sources, from early Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle to Catholic saints Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, the term social justice finds its earliest uses in the late eighteenth century, albeit with unclear theoretical or practical meanings. The use of the term was early on subject to accusations of redundancy and of rhetorical flourish, perhaps but not necessarily related to amplifying one view of distributive justice. In the coining and definition of the term in the natural law social scientific treatise of Luigi Taparelli, in the early 1840s, Taparelli established the natural law principle that corresponded to the evangelical principle of brotherly love—i.e. social justice reflects the duty one has to one’s other self in the interdependent abstract unity of the human person in society. After the Revolutions of 1848, the term was popularized generically through the writings of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati.
In the late industrial revolution, Progressive Era American legal scholars began to use the term more, particularly Louis Brandeis and Roscoe Pound. From the early 20th century it was also embedded in international law and institutions; the preamble to establish the International Labour Organization recalled that “universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice.” In the later 20th century, social justice was made central to the philosophy of the social contract, primarily by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice (1971). In 1993, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action treats social justice as a purpose of human rights education.
Wedge Issue
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A wedge issue is a political or social issue which is controversial or divisive within a usually-united group. Wedge issues can be advertised or publicly aired in an attempt to strengthen the unity of a population, with the goal of enticing polarized individuals to give support to an opponent or to withdraw their support entirely out of disillusionment. The use of wedge issues gives rise to wedge politics.
Political campaigns use wedge issues to stoke tension within a targeted population. A wedge issue may often be a point of internal dissent within an opposing party, which that party attempts to suppress or ignore discussing because it divides “the base”. Typically, wedge issues have a cultural or populist theme, relating to matters such as crime, national security, sexuality (e.g. same-sex marriage), abortion or race. A party may introduce a wedge issue to an opposing population, while aligning itself with the dissenting faction of the opposition. A wedge issue, when introduced, is intended to bring about such things as:
- A debate, often vitriolic, within the opposing party, giving the public a perception of disarray.
- The defection of supporters of the opposing party’s minority faction to the other party (or independent parties) if they lose the debate.
- The legitimising of sentiment which, while perhaps popularly held, is usually considered inappropriate; criticisms from the opposition then make it appear beholden to special interests or fringe ideology.
- In an extreme case, a wedge issue might contribute to the actual fracture of the opposing party as another party spins off, taking voters with it.
To prevent these consequences from occurring, the opposing party may attempt to take a “pragmatic” stand and officially endorse the views of its minority faction. However, this can lead to the defection of supporters of the opposing party’s majority faction to a third party, should they lose the debate.
Welfare Chauvinism
Welfare chauvinism or welfare state nationalism is the political notion that welfare benefits should be restricted to certain groups, particularly to the natives of a country as opposed to immigrants. It is used as an argumentation strategy by right-wing populist parties, which describes a claimed connection between the problems of the welfare state and, in essence, immigration, but also other social groups such as welfare recipients and the unemployed. The focus is placed on categorizing state residents in two extremes: the “nourishing” and “debilitating” and the contradiction between them in the competition for the society’s scarce resources.
Populists in American Politics
Andrew Jackson
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Andrew Jackson was the president from 1829 to 1837 and at the time was called the “People’s President”. His time in office was characterized by an opposition to institutions, disestablishing the Second Bank of the United States (a central bank), and disobeying the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson argued that “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.”
Populist Party in the 1890s
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The People’s Party, also known as the Populist Party or simply the Populists, was a left-wing agrarian populist political party in the United States in the late 19th century. The Populist Party emerged in the early 1890s as an important force in the Southern and Western United States, but collapsed after it nominated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 United States presidential election. A small faction of the party continued to operate into the first decade of the 20th century, but never matched the popularity of the party in the early 1890s.
The Populist Party’s roots lay in the Farmers’ Alliance, an agrarian movement that promoted economic action during the Gilded Age, as well as the Greenback Party, an earlier third party that had advocated fiat money. The success of Farmers’ Alliance candidates in the 1890 elections, along with the conservatism of both major parties, encouraged Farmers’ Alliance leaders to establish a full-fledged third party before the 1892 elections. The Ocala Demands laid out the Populist platform: collective bargaining, federal regulation of railroad rates, an expansionary monetary policy, and a Sub-Treasury Plan that required the establishment of federally controlled warehouses to aid farmers. Other Populist-endorsed measures included bimetallism, a graduated income tax, direct election of Senators, a shorter workweek, and the establishment of a postal savings system. These measures were collectively designed to curb the influence of monopolistic corporate and financial interests and empower small businesses, farmers and laborers.
In the 1892 presidential election, the Populist ticket of James B. Weaver and James G. Field won 8.5% of the popular vote and carried four small Western states. Despite the support of labor organizers like Eugene V. Debs and Terence V. Powderly, the party largely failed to win the vote of urban laborers in the Midwest and the Northeast. Over the next four years, the party continued to run state and federal candidates, building up powerful organizations in several Southern and Western states. Before the 1896 presidential election, the Populists became increasingly polarized between “fusionists”, who wanted to nominate a joint presidential ticket with the Democratic Party, and “mid-roaders”, like Mary Elizabeth Lease, who favored the continuation of the Populists as an independent third party. After the 1896 Democratic National Convention nominated William Jennings Bryan, a prominent bimetallist, the Populists also nominated Bryan but rejected the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in favor of party leader Thomas E. Watson. In the 1896 election, Bryan swept the South and West but lost to Republican William McKinley by a decisive margin.
After the 1896 presidential election, the Populist Party suffered a nationwide collapse. The party nominated presidential candidates in the three presidential elections after 1896, but none came close to matching Weaver’s performance in 1892. Former Populists became inactive or joined other parties. Debs became a socialist leader. Bryan dropped any connection to the rump Populist Party.
Historians see the Populists as a reaction to the power of corporate interests in the Gilded Age, but they debate the degree to which the Populists were anti-modern and nativist. Scholars also continue to debate the magnitude of influence the Populists exerted on later organizations and movements, such as the progressives of the early 20th century. Most of the Progressives, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, and Woodrow Wilson, were bitter enemies of the Populists. In American political rhetoric, “populist” was originally associated with the Populist Party and related left-wing movements, but beginning in the 1950s it began to take on a more generic meaning, describing any anti-establishment movement regardless of its position on the left–right political spectrum.
According to Gene Clanton’s study of Kansas from 1880s to 1910s, populism and progressivism in Kansas had similarities but different policies and distinct bases of support. Both opposed corruption and trusts. Populism emerged earlier and came out of the farm community. It was radically egalitarian in favor of the disadvantaged classes; it was weak in the towns and cities except in labor unions. Progressivism, on the other hand, was a later movement. It emerged after the 1890s from the urban business and professional communities. Most of its activists had opposed populism. It was elitist and emphasized education and expertise. Its goals were to enhance efficiency, reduce waste, and enlarge the opportunities for upward social mobility. However, some former Populists changed their emphasis after 1900 and supported progressive reforms.
Huey Long
Huey Long was the governor of Louisiana (1928–1932) and a US senator (1932–1935). He has been referred to as a demagogue and a populist, with his slogan being “every man a king”. He advocated for wealth redistribution through the Share Our Wealth initiative. After announcing a bid to run in the 1936 United States presidential election, he was assassinated.
George Wallace
George Wallace was a governor of Alabama who ran for president four times, seeking the Democratic Party nomination in 1964, 1972, and 1976, as well as being the candidate for the American Independent Party in the 1968 United States presidential election. In 1972, he was shot five times while campaigning and left paralyzed from the waist down. His main political ambition was to protect segregation, proclaiming, “say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” He also singled out “pointy-headed intellectuals” and “briefcase-toting bureaucrats”, leading to his being labeled a populist.
Ross Perot
Ross Perot has also been associated with American populism and has been called a “billionaire populist”. He ran as a third party candidate in the 1992 United States presidential election, gaining 19 million votes. Among his policy proposals was the instalment of e-democracy for direct democratic decision-making. Donald Trump later considered running for Perot’s Reform party in the 2000 United States presidential election.
Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin was the governor of Alaska from 2006 to 2009 and the vice-presidential candidate for the 2008 United States presidential election. She has been referred to as a cultural populist in the vein of Wallace.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump, president from 2017 to 2021, has also been referred to as a populist. His rhetoric presented him as a leader who “alone can fix” the problems of American politics and represent the “forgotten men and women of our country”, with echoes of the populism of Jackson’s presidency. Donald Trump’s modern populism is argued to show the symbiotic relationship between nationalism and populism. Moreover, the rise of Trump’s election was argued by some scholars to represent the “tyranny of the majority”, whereby Trump’s attacks on liberal and progressive politics allowed him to gain enough voters to win, so he did not need to appease the majority of voters or be a president for “every American”.
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders has been called a populist from the opposite side of the political spectrum to Trump. However, differences have also been seen between the two. Sanders’ populism is opposed to political, corporate, and media elites, especially the US financial industry epitomized by Wall Street, as well as the wealthiest one percent. When he did not win the Democratic nomination for president in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, he was re-elected as an independent senator for his home state Vermont in 2018. Other populist Democratic politicians in Sanders’ vein include Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
See endnotes and bibliography at source.
Originally published by Wikipedia, 12.01.2020, under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.