Populism Thirteen Wikipedia Articles
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Populism Thirteen Wikipedia Articles PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Fri, 17 May 2013 02:09:34 UTC Contents Articles Populism 1 Liberal elite 15 Conspiracy theory 17 Scapegoating 28 Demagogue 31 Fascism 34 Nazism 63 Nazi Germany 83 Black populism 119 Neo-populism 121 Anti-intellectualism 122 Poporanism 133 Right-wing populism 133 References Article Sources and Contributors 139 Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 145 Article Licenses License 148 Populism 1 Populism Populism has been viewed as a political ideology, political philosophy, or as a type of discourse. Generally, populists tend to claim that they side with "the people" against "the elites". While for much of the twentieth century, populism was considered to be a political phenomenon mostly of Latin America and India, since the 1980s populist movements and parties have enjoyed degrees of success in First World democracies such as Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Il Quarto Stato by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, Scandinavian countries and the USA. 1901 Academic definitions Academic and scholarly definitions of populism have varied widely over the past centuries and the term has often been employed in loose and inconsistent ways to denote appeals to ‘the people’, ‘demagogy’ and ‘catch-all’ politics or as a receptacle for new types of parties whose classification is unclear. A factor traditionally held to diminish the value of ‘populism’ as a category has been that, as Margaret Canovan notes in her 1981 study [1] Populism, unlike conservatives or socialists, populists rarely call themselves ‘populists’ and usually reject the term when it is applied to them.[2] Nonetheless, in recent years academic scholars have produced definitions of populism which enable populist identification and comparison. Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell define populism [3] as an ideology that "pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who were together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice".[4] Rather than viewing populism in terms of specific social bases, economic programs, issues, or electorates — as discussions of right-wing populism have tended to do[5] — this type of definition is in line with the approaches of scholars such as Ernesto Laclau,[6] Pierre-Andre Taguieff,[7] Yves Meny and Yves Surel,[8] who have all sought to focus on populism per se, rather than treating it simply as an appendage of other ideologies. Although in the US and Europe, it currently tends to be associated with right-wing parties, the central tenet of populism that democracy should reflect the pure and undiluted will of the people, means it can sit easily with ideologies of both right and left. However, while leaders of populist movements in recent decades have claimed to be on either the left or the right of the political spectrum, there are also many populists who reject such classifications and claim to be neither "left wing", "centrist" nor "right wing."[9][10][11] Although "populist" is often used pejoratively in the media and in political debate, exceptions to this do exist, notably in the United States. In this case, it appears likely that this is due to the memories and traditions of earlier democratic movements (for example, farmers' movements, New Deal reform movements, and the civil rights movement) that were often called populist, by supporters and outsiders alike.[12] Styles and methods Some scholars argue that populist organizing for empowerment represents the return of older "Aristotelian" politics of horizontal interactions among equals who are different, for the sake of public problem solving.[13] Populism has taken left-wing, right-wing, and even centrist[14] forms, as well as forms of politics that bring together groups and individuals of diverse partisan views.[15] The use of populist rhetoric in the United States has recently included references such as "the powerful trial lawyer lobby",[16][17] "the liberal elite", or "the Hollywood elite".[18] Examples of populist rhetoric on the other side of the political spectrum is the anti-corporate greed views of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the theme of "Two Americas" in the 2004 Presidential Democratic Party campaign of John Populism 2 Edwards. Populists are seen by some politicians as a largely democratic and positive force in society, while a wing of scholarship in political science contends that populist mass movements are irrational and introduce instability into the political process. Margaret Canovan argues that both these polar views are faulty, and has defined two main branches of modern populism worldwide—agrarian and political—and mapped out seven disparate sub-categories: Agrarian • Commodity farmer movements with radical economic agendas such as the US People's Party of the late 19th century. • Subsistence peasant movements, such as the Eastern European Green Rising militias, which followed World War I. • Intellectuals who romanticize hard-working farmers and peasants and build radical agrarian movements like the Russian narodniki. Political • Populist democracy, including calls for more political participation through reforms such as the use of popular referendums. • Politicians' populism marked by non-ideological appeals for "the people" to build a unified coalition. • Reactionary populism, such as the white backlash harvested by George Wallace. • Populist dictatorship, such as that established by Getúlio Vargas in Brazil.[19] In addition to Canovan's list that only lists right-wing political populist reactions, leftist movements such as the Cultural Revolution and Cambodia's "Year Zero" campaign would also be examples of political populism. Fascism and populism Scholars have argued that populist elements have sometimes appeared in far-right authoritarian or fascist movements.[20][21][22][23][24][25] Conspiracist scapegoating employed by various populist movements can create "a seedbed for fascism."[26] National socialist populism interacted with and facilitated fascism in interwar Germany.[27] In this case, distressed middle–class populists during the pre-Nazi Weimar period mobilized their anger at government and big business. The Nazis "parasitized the forms and themes of the populists and moved their constituencies far to the right through ideological appeals involving demagoguery, scapegoating, and conspiracism."[28] According to Fritzsche: The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of middle–class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization....Against "unnaturally" divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National Socialists cast themselves as representatives of the commonwealth, of an allegedly betrayed and neglected German public....Breaking social barriers of status and caste, and celebrating at least rhetorically the populist ideal of the people's community...[29] In Argentina in the 1940s, a local brand of fascist populism emerged known as Peronism, after its leader Juan Perón. It emerged out of an intellectual fascist movement in the 1920s and 1930s that delegitimized democracy.[30] History in Europe Classical populism The word populism is derived from the Latin word populus, which means people in English (in the sense of "folk", "nation", as in: "The Roman People" (populus Romanus), not in the sense of "multiple individual persons" as in: "There are people visiting us today"). Therefore, populism espouses government by the people as a whole (that is to say, the masses). This is in contrast to elitism, aristocracy, synarchy or plutocracy, each of which is an ideology that espouse government by a small, privileged group above the masses. Populism 3 Populism has been a common political phenomenon throughout history. The Populares were an unofficial faction in the Roman senate whose supporters were known for their populist agenda. Some of the best known of these were Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Marius, Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, all of whom eventually used referendums to bypass the Roman Senate and appeal to the people directly. Early modern period Populism rose during the Reformation; Protestant groups like the Anabaptists formed ideas about ideal theocratic societies, in which peasants would be able to read the Bible themselves. Attempts to establish these societies were made during the German Peasants' War (1524–1525) and the Münster Rebellion (1534–1535). The peasant movement ultimately failed as cities and nobles made their own peace with the princely armies, which restored the old order under the nominal overlordship of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, represented in German affairs by his younger brother Ferdinand. The same conditions contributed to the outbreak of the English Revolution of 1642–1651, also known as the English Civil War. Conditions led to a proliferation of ideologies and political movements among peasants, self-employed artisans, and working-class people in England. Many of these groups had a dogmatic Protestant religious bent. They included Puritans and the Levellers.[citation needed] Religious revival Romanticism, the anxiety against rationalism, broadened after the beginnings of the European and Industrial Revolutions because of cultural, social, and political insecurity. Romanticism led directly to a strong popular desire to bring about religious revival, nationalism and populism. The ensuing