Populism As a Common Challenge / [Edited by Claudia Crawford, Boris Makarenko, Nikolay Petrov]
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УДК 32 ББК 66.0 Concept and coordination: Claudia Crawford, Evgeniya Löhken (Konrad Adenauer Foundation), Evgeny Gontmakher, Nikolay Petrov (European Dialogue Expert Group) Review: Andrei Melville English translation: Anastasia Repko, Daniel Repko, Andrew Romeo German translation: Valery Kusavlev Populism as a Common Challenge / [edited by Claudia Crawford, Boris Makarenko, Nikolay Petrov]. – Moscow : Political encyclopedia, 2018. – 126 р. ISBN 978-5-8243-2210-1 This collection of essays is the result of work on the project “Populism in Russia and in the World” implemented in 2017 by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in cooperation with the Expert Group “European Dialogue”. The project was interna- tional and interdisciplinary, and the proposed book claims not so much to exhaus- tive coverage of the subject as to its delineation from different perspectives and the invitation of other researchers to a serious dialogue. The book is intended for students, teachers, expert and scientific community, as well as all readers interested in political parties and movements. The authors are responsible for the content of the articles. УДК 32 ББК 66.0 ISBN 978-5-8243-2210-1 © Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V., 2018 © Political encyclopedia, 2018 CONTENTS Foreword . 4 Preface . 6 Boris Makarenko, Nikolay Petrov. Introduction: Populism in Russia and in Europe . 8 Werner J. Patzelt. Populism – and How to Handle It . .16 Boris Makarenko. Populism and Political Institutions: A Comparative Perspective . 27 Andrey Ryabov. The Reasons for the Rise of Populism in Developed Countries and Its Absence in the Post-Soviet Space . .37 Andrey Medushevskiy. Populism in the West and in Russia: A Comparative Perspective of Similarities and Differences . .47 Karsten Grabow. Right-Wing and National Populism in Western Europe . 58 Alexis Berelowitch. Three Populists – Putin, Berlusconi, Sarkozy. 67 Lev Gudkov. Populism and Its Place in Russian Society: Roots, Peculiarities, Perspectives. .79 Nikolay Petrov. The Evolution of Populism in Russian Politics . 89 Alexander Kynev. Electoral Populism during Russian Elections . 101 Georgy Chizhov. Ukraine in the Embrace of Populism . 113 List of Authors . 123 FOREWORd How does one fight the growing distance between Russia and the European Union? How can we achieve mutual understanding even as our mutual mistrust grows? We believe this can be accomplished by en- couraging collaboration among those involved in the sciences, culture, the economy and society. It should occur in such a way that people are motivated to talk not about each other, but with each other, and therefore the best range of questions in this case is one that will be of interest to all parties. For the Moscow office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, one of these dialogue partners is the European Dialogue Expert Group, which is a union of Russian scholars from different areas of academia who study processes in the European Union from different angles and maintain di- alogues with their colleagues from European Union member-countries. A year ago, they contacted us offering a joint project on the study of the phenomenon of populism. In the past several years, populists have improved their standing in all European Union countries. Debates about the reasons for populism, and how to fight it, continue. However, populism has become quite highly noticeable in the political life of Eastern European countries as well, and no less in Russia. That is why it will be of interest to discover, whether the roots and traits of populism in Eastern Europe and the European Union are similar, and whether the methods of fighting against it are universally applicable. These and many other questions were discussed by experts from vari- ous countries during three workshops that took place in Moscow and Berlin. In order to make the results of these workshops available to the public, we supported the initiative of creating this publication. We pre- sent you with a compilation of articles that reveals the phenomenon of populism from many different points of view. It is also worth mentioning beforehand that populism is not a new phe- nomenon, and it is unlikely that it will ever disappear entirely. This is the case simply because populism grows when issues remain unresolved. That is why the best way to fight populism is by resolving these issues. Foreword 5 I express my gratitude to all the authors who participated in this pub- lication, and I hope the book achieves widespread readership, and it offers new food for thought for everyone who reads it. Claudia Crawford Director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Russia Moscow, November 2017 PREFACE There has been an ongoing collaboration between the European Dialogue Expert Group (founded in 2016), and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation since the Group’s founding. At that exact moment, at the peak of success for European populist parties and movements, they had the idea to conduct a joint research project using comparative-geograph- ical and comparative-historical analyses of the populism phenomenon in modern politics. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation represented by the head of its Moscow office, Claudia Crawford, completely supported the concept. So, in December 2016, a high-level expert discussion was held for the project, gathering together key team members from the Russian side. Led by Professor of the Higher School of Economics, Nikolay Petrov, it included researchers such as Lev Gudkov (The Levada-Center), Boris Makarenko and Georgy Chizhov (Center for Political Technologies), Alexander Kynev and Andrey Medushevskiy (the Higher School of Economics), and Andrey Ryabov (Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences). Further discussions were held for six months in the form of workshops; in March, at the workshop in the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s Moscow office, German participants Werner J. Patzelt and Karsten Grabow joined the discussion. In May 2017, in Berlin, the project’s final conference took place. Here, in addition to the existing Russian-German group, Alexis Berelowitch, Magali Balent (France), Eugeniusz Smolar, Piotr Buras (Poland), Maxim Trudolyubov (Russia), Sabine Fischer (Germany) and a number of other specialists participated as well. This publication, which would not have been possible without the support of the Moscow office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and its head, Claudia Crawford, presents the findings of this project. The European Dialogue Expert Group aims to organize joint Russian- European discussions and research about the most critical issues cur- rently facing Europe as a whole, as well as those pertaining to its socio- political, economic and social spheres, of which Russia is certainly a part. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is one of European Dialogue’s most Preface 7 important partners, and we hope this relationship will lead to new pro- jects in 2018 and beyond. Evgeny Gontmakher, Professor, Doctor of Economics Member of the Coordination Council, European Dialogue Expert Group Boris Makarenko, Nikolay Petrov iNTROduCTiON: POPuLiSM iN RuSSiA ANd iN EuROPE This monographic collection of works offered for the reader’s perusal is a first attempt by a multinational and multidisciplinary team at discuss- ing a vital and extremely complex issue. In a way, it resembles the parable of the blind men and the elephant, the only difference being that, in our case, the men are not blind; their eyesight is simply focused on separate parts of the elephant. It would seem that everyone knows what populism is, but it turns out that it is not so simple to give it a clear definition, whether it be in the political, or scientific sense. Is a populist a demagogue? Indeed, the Greek word “δημαγωγία” (demagogía) means only “leading the people”, which is the profession of any political leader for whom the skill of convincing with words, making people follow, and believe in him or her and his or her actions, is a natural and necessary professional skill. Is populism the same thing as making unrealistic promises to people? Very few politicians, due to various reasons, manage to fully deliver what they promise before elections, and it is not easy to measure the coefficient of fulfilled promises. Is populism a way to make yourself look as if you are “close to the people”? It is a method certainly well-used by very dif- ferent politicians in many different contexts. The Whig leader William Gladstone loved posing in front of a camera with a lumberjack’s axe in his hands, showing that he understands the meaning of hard physical labor. Populism, as shown in the examples offered by this collection’s au- thors, can be “left-wing” or “right-wing”, can merge with both nationalism and xenophobia, and can be found both in stable democracies and in non- democratic regimes. It can be used by both incumbent politicians and by the opposition, by both the “rich” and the “poor”. Is there a “common de- nominator” for this phenomenon? If we single out the primary arguments from all the authors in this collection of works, then, perhaps, one can say that they have all uncovered some common features of this “elephant”. The first and the most important element of populism is anti-elitism: the opposition, often Manichaean, of “the people”, “the masses” versus Introduction: Populism in Russia and in Europe 9 “the elites”. Populism appears in the form of a denunciator, a defender, and savior of the commoner from the evil elite, whether political or finan- cial, local or global. The second, deriving directly from the first, is the plebiscitic tenden- cies shown by populist politicians. They appeal directly to the whole of society, bypassing parties and institutions, with the aim of concluding a virtual social contract. Accordingly, there exists a risk that institutions (in a democratic society) will end up on the sidelines of politics or will become the opposition to the plebiscitic populist leader, and in less demo- cratic regimes they will not receive proper development or will be lim- ited in power.