The three stages of populism: institutional degradation, popular dictatorship, imperialist expansion

The term populism (or populist) has become a placeholder for a growing gamut of extreme politics. Let's look at some common components of populism and its stages of evolution.

Definitions 

Merriam-Webster

Definition of populist

 (Entr

y 1 of 2)

1: a member of a political party claiming to represent the common peopleespecially, often capitalized: a member of a U.S. political party formed in 1891 primarily to represent agrarian interests and to advocate the free coinage of silver and government control of monopolies

2: a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people

Brittanica

populism is a political program or movement that champions, or claims to champion, the common person, usually by favorable contrast with a real or perceived elite or establishment.

Populism usually combines elements of the left and the right, opposing large business and financial interests but also frequently being hostile to established liberal, socialist, and labor parties.

The term populism can designate either democratic or authoritarian movements. Populism is typically critical of political representation and anything that mediates the relation between the people and their leader or government. In its most democratic form, populism seeks to defend the interests and maximize the power of ordinary citizens, through reform rather than revolution

Political Science (Francis Fukuyama) 

 

 Common characteristics:

1. "Anti-Elitism": Politics that blame the situation of a group -usually considered a majority of low and middle income "native" working class- on the policies and privileges of "elites" or minorities with un-earned access to wealth, property, power, or education, including foreigners, immigrants and ethnic or religious groups (Jews, Arabs, White, Men, European)  or industries (Finance and banking, oil, Technology) and places (rural, small towns vs, big cities, high-end vs poor neighborhoods and slums)
2. Zero-sum, victimization logic: the "gains" and superior wealth, status, and access to education of "the elites" is taken away from "the people" by an unfair system. 
3. Group and class antagonistic and unresolvable (by institutional and peaceful means) conflict there is no "middle ground" or 'melting pot" but segregation, expulsion, or warfare among classes, ethnic groups, locals vs foreigners.
4. Protectionism, nationalism
5. Secessionism, autonomism, separatism
6. Isolationism, anti-"cosmopolitanism"
7. Xenophobia and "kin-based" trust (and distrust)
8. Extreme conspirative views shared in "communication bubbles" with highly exclusive beliefs and even language and behavioral codes
9. Highly emotional, passion-based motivations (mostly rage)
10. Self-reinforcing, partisan politics
11. Distrust in liberal institutions and rule of law
12. Strong leaders totally empowered by  faithful followers
13. Avoidance of "unpopular" positions. "The people" are always right.
14. Use of direct and circumstantial majorities: rule by the crowd, rally, street, referendums.

Evolution and Stages

1. Institutional degradation

Populist politics and policies erode those institutions designed to check and balance power. They usually start by defacing and storming the Congress -as in the cases of 19717 Russia, 1924 Italy, 1932 Germany, 2003 Venezuela, 2020 US, and 2022 Chile.

Soon Congress's compromise and legislation are replaced by referendum and special executive orders justified by some kind of "national emergency".

      2. Popular Dictatorship

Contrary to conventional wisdom, dictators most often are popularly elected; Mussolini and Hitler reached office by vote and were reelected by 90% of the popular vote. Chavez, Maduro, and Putin stayed decades in power through elections. 

Populist leaders "elect" their voters in exchange for benefits. Patronage, fraud, and opposition illegalization make indefinite reelections safe. Nepotism and dynastic succession secure power beyond life terms.

Common policies:

1. Protectionism
2. Clientelism & patronage
3. Anti-free market capitalism
4. State and crony capitalism

   3. Imperialist Expansion

The constant depletion of wealth and resources to sustain corruption and clientelism requires continuous expansion -"Lebensraum" - Hitler's term for our modern "secure borders". Hitler's annexation of Sudetes and Putin's of Crimea follows that same pattern. Hitler's outright invasion of Poland (with Stalin's help) and Putin's invasion of Ukraine show the same type of escalation.

In its imperial expansionist phase, populist dictatorships provoke territorial wars culminating in global conflicts until their regimes are destroyed with large devastation and loss of lives.

Recommended readings: Liberalism and its discontents by Francis Fukuyama

In his book "Liberalism and its discontents", Francis Fukuyama revisits critically his earlier views of "The End of History" and makes new observations about the status of liberal democracy twenty years into the 21st century. 

Fukuyama starts by defining liberalism in the widest possible way:

By “liberalism,” I refer to the doctrine that first emerged in the second half of the seventeenth century that argued for the limitation of the powers of governments through law and ultimately constitutions, creating institutions protecting the rights of individuals living under their jurisdiction. 

Classical liberalism is a big tent that encompasses a range of political views that nonetheless agree on the foundational importance of equal individual rights, law, and freedom.  

And makes a clear distinction with plain democracy: 

Democracy refers to rule by the people, which today is institutionalized in periodic free and fair multiparty elections under universal adult suffrage. 

Liberalism in the sense I am using it refers to the rule of law, a system of formal rules that restrict the powers of the executive, even if that executive is democratically legitimated through an election.

He finds that, after a triumphant expansion after the fall of the Soviet Union and China's opening to some degree of free market, global capitalism, a new series of challenges have risen from within liberal democracies, both established and new.

Right- and left-wing populism has captured the dissatisfaction of those groups left relatively behind or even threatened by global liberal democracy and free markets.

From the right, rising immigration from developing and Third World countries exacerbated by liberal policies pursued in the US by the Democratic party and in the EU by the center from the left Schengen consensus combined with the 2008 financial crisis and rising unemployment has fueled the rise to power of strong nationalist and xenophobic right-wing populism.

In established liberal democracies, it is the liberal institutions that have come under immediate attack. Leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Poland’s Jarosław Kaczyński, Brazil’s Jair Bolsanaro, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and America’s Donald Trump were all legitimately elected, and have used their electoral mandates to attack liberal institutions in the first instance. These include the courts and justice system, nonpartisan state bureaucracies, independent media, and other bodies limiting executive power under a system of checks and balances."

And also a rise in left-wing populism in Spain, the US, and Latin America

Liberalism has been challenged in recent years not just by populists of the right, but from a renewed progressive left as well.The critique from this quarter evolved from a charge—correct in itself—that liberal societies were not living up to their own ideals of equal treatment of all groups.

There is ample evidence that democracy not necessarily favors liberal systems, particularly when these bring rising unequal outcomes for certain groups -blue-collar native whites on the Right and immigrants from illiberal cultures on the Left.

These new realities are turning upside down the traditional Right and Left political constituencies and clientele: blue-collar workers vote for Far Right candidates and immigrants fleeing Third World socialism vote for an open-borders Left in the EU.

A growing polarization goes hand in hand with ethnic, class, and nationalistic divisions fueled by populist vote-capturing rhetoric. 

Fukuyama notices a growing number of democracies that are turning illiberal by exacerbating the power of an executive strongman favored by local ethnic majorities: blue-collar whites in the US follow if not Trump, "trumpist", 'Tea Party" nationalistic ideas. In Europe, France's centrist government is under siege from the "yellow jackets" disaffected native French rejecting liberal "elites" that tolerate massive unassimilated Islamic immigration. The same situation occurs in all of Western Europe. Russia is also promoting a pan-Slavic, pan-Russian redesign of the post-WWII borders following ethnic and linguistic lines.

The Left wing's challenge to liberal democracy in Latin America and Europe also exploits historical ethnic nationalism -from the pre-Colombian descendants in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina carving land through rewriting constitutions and referendums to the Catalan and Basque separatists in  Spain-.

The world that Fukuyama describes bears an eery resemblance with the one that preceded WWI a hundred years ago. The war in Ukraine resembles the territorial annexations and alliances that triggered both World Wars of the 20th century.