The fatal flaw of the populist approach

Humorously this post itself screamed of elitism. So not really sure you’ve fully bought into what the problem is.

Politics should work for as many people as possible – at least in a republic. Other forms it just needs to work for the people required to force the rest to stay in line. But in a republic the wealth needs to get into as many pockets as possible.

A lot of western countries lost sight of that.

I argued against austerity because I didn’t want populism. It was economically dumb as well and the needless human suffering it caused was clearly immoral, but the longer-term, more dangerous consequence was political. Just as poor economic policies that fueled wealth inequality in the 20s lead to the populism of the 30s in Europe, the poor economic policy of austerity fueled populism over the past 10 years.

And we’re still doing it. Right now public sector group after public sector group has to fight to get their pay restored. And working conditions are still horrible because very little is done in Ireland about poor management – in the public or private sector. Bankers not being in jail is just another symptom of that. And the defense that “they didn’t break any laws” is actually a problem statement, not the end to the discussion that Mr. Kinsella thinks it is.

The issue is that people see themselves falling further behind. The small few forge ahead, but the rest just see economic stability disappearing over the horizon. That’s not something people should accept. And in the long term they won’t. They’ll look to anyone who will seek to address that.

And in case it’s not obvious, they’re not seeing anything on offer from Mr. Kinsella’s post here. Seems like something that should be addressed in future posts.

I agree with the thrust of the article that the ‘populists’ are a pretty useless lot who should be totally shunned.

In Ireland I would include among their number not only the Independents, but SF and AAA/PSB.

When these ‘populists’ get into government their record invariably turns out to be worse than that of the despised politicians from mainstream parties who preceded them. For example, Shane Ross is now Minister for Transport. Since he took office road deaths in Ireland have risen 20%. In the previous two decades, under a succession of FF and FG ministers, the number fell continuously.

Recent opinion polls show a swing back to FF/FG, although not to former levels. Since the February election, most polls have put the combined FF/FG vote at 52%-56%. In the previous Dail, most polls were putting their combined vote at around 45%.

In the U. States, while I’d see Donald Trump as a ‘populist’ and wouldn’t vote for him, I see Hilary Clinton as being just as bad, a left-liberal fanatic of the worst kind, whose obvious corruption is played down by the left-liberal media precisely because she is a left liberal.

I fail to see how economic conditions are responsible for the rise of the ‘populists’, In absolute terms people are vastly better off than in the 1950s and 1960s and in relative terms the distribution of wealth is pretty similar to what it always has been. The Left always finds ‘growing inequality’ as the explanation for every nasty social trend. However, there is little evidence that reducing the Gini coefficient would have any effect on those voting for Trump, Le Pen etc.

Among the reasons for their rise globally, I would say:

(a) The absence of a major external enemy for western countries that produced social and political cohesion in opposition to it. The Nazis fitted this bill for a decade or so, then the USSR Communists. Its difficult to imagine the USA splintering the way it has done in, say, 1960 when the Cold War was at its height and people saw the need to stand up to USSR aggression. In Ireland the National Question fulfilled this role to some extent

(b) The liberal assault on traditional values, patriotism, religion, family etc has destroyed social cohesion throughout the western world. Whether one agrees with it or not, its clear that the effect is to produce whole swathes of society that are lacking ties to traditional organisations (whether political parties, religious denominations or whatever) and, as a result, have become rootless and fodder for every populist crank that comes along.

(c) The belief of sections of the traditional population in many countries that they are on the way out and in the process of being replaced as the dominant ethnic group. The problem is there is a lot of truth in this belief. They are indeed on the way out – although they shouldn’t blame immigrants for it, but instead their own tendency to shun marriage, espouse abortion etc, all of which has combined to produce a calamitous collapse in their birth rate. In the U. States, the white middle-class, traditionally the backbone of the country’s stability and prosperity, is in freefall as a percentage of the total population. In a century’s time, this group will be a small minority. Reaction to this trend is what has produced Trump. In Europe, many cities will have Muslim majorities by the end of the century. Reaction to this trend is what has produced Le Pen et al. As Stephen Kinsella says, Ireland hasn’t been much affected by this one yet, but it might one day.

(d) The liberal revolution has also destroyed the common bonds that spanned the left-right divide. I see the the rise of the ‘populists’ as part of the trend towards a less homogeneous society in all aspects. Traditionally in western democracies you had a 2-party system, with regular alternation of power and, while there were differences between the 2 parties, there were also common bonds based to a large extent on a shared Judaeo-Christian heritage. Many of the issues tearing the U. States apart in this election (abortion, gun control, gay marriage, transgender rest rooms etc) simply wouldn’t have arisen half a century ago as both main parties would have had a common view on such matters.

(e) The failure of mainstream parties on the right to resist the liberal revolution has produced a splintering of parties on the right. Germany is a good example. Merkel has run the economy well and could have been totally dominant. But, she adopted an extreme liberal policy on immigration and other social issues and this has predictably splintered her conservative base.

(f) The general dumbing-down of society and the growth of social media, which allows every crank and nut to have an ‘equal’ voice. Years ago it was possible for intelligent people (such as most that post here) to go through life without having to encounter close up extremely stupid people. Nowadays there is no getting away from them.

Politics has long had very effective populist instincts. What has changed is that the targets of the populism of the mainstream parties have to be renewed over longer time-scales (when you are in power, for long enough, you have to have done something about those you demonised, don’t you?) and are no longer those that suit ‘the elites’ – who are beginning to think the gun might be starting to point a little too close to them for the next cycle.

The key intersection between politics and economics relates to the redistribution of social wealth and provision of public goods. The net result is invariably imperfect. Every generation hosts its ‘ winners and losers’. Hence the politics of protest, of seeking redress and demands for change, are nothing unusual. They don’t threaten the democratic system They are a necessary part of the normal democratic process and act as a wake-up call for policy failure. Occasionally they may be led by self-serving ideologues or demagogues, but they’re not ‘populist’ . Once the main fight is over, the ideologues and demagogues troupe on to their next cause celebre

Populism is an all-out assault on and rejection of representative democracy. Whether left or right, populists challenge “the dominant political culture by juxtaposing ‘a virtuous and homogeneous people’ with an unscrupulous elite and a set of dangerous ‘others’.”(1) The leftist brand aims to dismantle the institutions of representative democracy, replacing them with ideologically-derived constructions based on their own utopian vision of ‘mass democracy’. Right-leaning populists seek to subvert representative democracy to their own narrow political purposes of a lust for power and self-aggrandisement. Each would suppress all sources of dissent to their singular authority. Both capitalise on primal fears and uncertainty. Populist demagoguery is never concerned about the truth or accuracy of its claims or statements. Facts are irrelevant. In the long march to power and privilege, the sole purpose of speech is to excite ‘feeling’.

All political organisations have a tendency towards populism; without which your average politician would never get elected to anything. Left to their own devices, they’d indulge themselves if only for the sake of securing re-election. But the institutions, rules and norms of representative democracy constrain their worst inclinations.

The political culture of western liberal democracy emanates from ideas about representative forms of government bandied about since the 17th century. Principles then established continue to shape its contemporary form. As the UK Government discovered this week, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the limitations its settlement placed on exercise of Crown prerogative, still has implications for the legitimate exercise of power in the 21st century. Whoever thought we’d have William of Orange to thank for anything?

Underpinned by liberal principles of rule of law, justice, individual freedom, and later, universal suffrage, fair elections and freedom of expression, representative democracy has evolved into the ‘regime of choice’ for more than half the world’s population, including a majority of small nation-states. From shaky beginnings, representative democracy has proved resilient and adaptive to change, once its roots are firmly planted. Part of its weakness is that it is state-bound. It is also its greatest strength.

The twenty-first century poses new challenges for representative democracy. The past half century has seen the relentless devolution of nation-state power to a range of supranational institutions. Although pooling sovereignty within institutions like the EU ostensibly confers more advantage than disadvantage, socially and economically; by the nature of its institutions and functions at several levels removed from national power, the EU democratic deficit is inbuilt and irrevocable.

At the level of the individual nation-state, representative democracy relies on strongly competitive national parties to work effectively or not at all. Over the past half-century mainstream parties have watched their traditional support base gradually dissipate under pressure from the forces of economic globalisation and more latterly, the Great Recession. For social democrats, the tide has gone out on the old labour movement. For conservatives, economic protectionism is no longer available as a device to stifle competition to favoured industries or their business supporters. Civil society movements are no longer what they were in the mid-twentieth century. Environmental NGOs , for example, are now more akin to professional multinational lobbyists than grassroots’ representative movements.

All political actors rely on a half-decent functioning media system to carry their message to their electorates and relay public opinion back to them. ICT has put paid to that. Traditional news organisations no longer have loyal consumers who place trust in their individual news brand. News organisations are no longer representative of discrete cohorts in society. Their audience-directed product has been supplanted by news apps’ content for which source and provenance are less important than immediacy. Social media enables politicians of all stripes to communicate their message directly and pseudo-personally to supporters and to create new bases of popular support. It’s a gift for the populist demagogue’s virtual persona , for whom howls of outrage and creation of echo-chambers of the like-minded perform serve the same purpose of accumulating the currency of notoriety.

Bereft of their traditional base of allegiance within society and with diminishing grassroots membership, 21st century mainstream parties have turned professional. They are ever more reliant on troupes of political consultants, polls and focus groups to get a handle on public opinion and to guide the public and virtual performances of their leaders.

As for the rest of us, arguably we live in what Bernard Manin at the turn of the century termed the ‘audience democracy’. Spectators at a political vaudeville, periodically there is the chance to boo and hiss our political actors off the stage or reward them for their loyalty to our feelings, if not our best collective interests.

Hence, narratives suggesting the current surge in left and right-wing populism across Europe, and Trumpism in the United States, is primarily due to ‘winners and losers’ within the system are incomplete. When it comes to Brexit, for example, polling results show that those most likely on the wrong end of job insecurity and the impact of austerity policies – the younger age cohorts – overwhelming voted ‘remain’. It’s not just all about economics. It may yet turn out to be about democratic resilience.

[(1) See McDonnell, D. (2008) Ch.14 in Twenty-first Century Populism – the Spectre of European Democracy p.200]

Interesting points.More food for thought. Many thanks!

@grumpy and Hugh Sheehy

The definition of populism cited is Duncan McDonnell’s from Turin University, from a book on 21st century populism which he co-edited with Daniele Albertazzi from Birmingham University, and published in 2008.As such I am obliged to use the original wording without adulteration.

McDonnell and Albertazzi’s work appears to have been primarily motivated by Italy’s experience in the Berlusconi years. McDonnell contributed his own chapter on Ireland. He was (presumably) drafting it in 2006 or so, at the height of the Bertie era, then on course for a third consecutive Fianna Fail election victory, McDonnell infers that Ahern displayed populist traits that belong in a class of their own. I don’t agree with him. I think Ahern was more corporatist than populist in his political inclinations, as suggested in work by Aidan Regan in his thesis on the political economy of Ireland throughout the Celtic Tiger period i find McDonnell’s definition of populism useful though, as it seems to me broad enough to encapsulate the essence of populism in all its seemingly infinite variety of political manifestations, both historical and contemporary.

As Hugh points out above, the European Fascist regimes of the 1930s were quintessentially populist, but of their time. DeValera’s Fianna Fail party embedded its own version of a popullist nationalist ideology in the irish Free State, in close association with the Dublin Archbishop McQuaid’s narrow Catholic ideology. As McDonnell writes: “Indeed, Irish political culture was nearly unimpeachable with its twin pillars of the worthy plain Catholic people of Ireland on one side and the common enemy (and easy scapegoat for the nation’s ills) of Britain and its liberal culture on the other,” (p.200).

In a more nuanced analysis by political scientist, Peter Mair (1987) and others of Fianna Fail’s project of ‘economic nationalism’, the quasi-populist ethos of the then ‘semi-constitutionalist’ party (on its own admission) is exposed. Not that Fianna Fail were the only populists on the block – the ‘Blue Shirt’ faction that ultimately combined with Cumann na nGhaedheal to emerge as the Fine Gael party, was a fascist organization. There were other nakedly populist parties – loose alliances of independent farmers and others, mainly rural based – that came and went along the way.

For sure, the plain people of Ireland, unwittingly impoverished by the prevailing political ideology, but long familiar with the tenets of representative democracy through the local authority electoral system which predated political Independence, by and large laughed the Blue Shirts off the stage. Or worse. I vividly recall my favourite uncle’s graphic description of his own personal encounter with ‘one of them jumped-up Blue Shirts’ at a dancehall in Jamestown, Carrick on Shannon. My dear uncle was a tall man. As befitting one who worked the land for a living, he had large fists…’Nuff said

My argument is that populism is a persistent feature of all political systems. A particular confluence of circumstances allow it to come to the fore, at least for a time. The rules, established norms, traditions and values of representative democracy combine to prevent its worst excesses and hold it in check. Just as well, since full-blown populist regimes, however short lived they may be, are generally most unfortunate for those societies that have to live through such periodic eruptions.

Wiser heads claim that if Trump loses next week, it will put a brake on the current wave of European right-wing (and left) populism …except for the Brexiteers of course, whose destructive impulses have yet to reach full throttle..