Populism and the politics of redemption

This article re-examines current definitions of populism, which portray it as either a powerful corrective to or the nemesis of liberal democracy. It does so by exploring a crucial but often neglected dimension of populism: its redemptive character. Populism is here understood to function according...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Thesis eleven 2018-12, Vol.149 (1), p.10-30
Main Authors: da Silva, Filipe Carreira, Vieira, Mónica Brito
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambivalence
Democracy
Democratization
Envy
Identity
Liberal democracy
Political manifesto
Political parties
Politics
Populism
Redemption
Resentment
Sociopolitical factors
Urgency
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Summary:This article re-examines current definitions of populism, which portray it as either a powerful corrective to or the nemesis of liberal democracy. It does so by exploring a crucial but often neglected dimension of populism: its redemptive character. Populism is here understood to function according to the logic of resentment, which involves both socio-political indignation at injustice and envy or ressentiment. Populism promises redemption through regaining possession: of a lower status, a wounded identity, a diminished or lost control. Highly moralized images of the past – historical or archetypal – are mobilized by populist leaders to castigate the present and accelerate the urgency of change in it. The argument is illustrated with Caesar’s Column, a futuristic novel written by the Minnesota populist leader Ignatius Donnelly. The complex and ambivalent structure of this dystopian novel – a textual source for the Populist Party manifesto in the 1890s, which stands in contrast with agrarian populism as everyday utopia – enables us to move beyond the polarized positions dominating the current debate. Reading Caesar’s Column ultimately shows that populism can be both a corrective and a danger to democracy, but not for the reasons usually stated in the literature.
ISSN:0725-5136
1461-7455
DOI:10.1177/0725513618813374