failed to gain traction in national THE AME Pitchfork Politics elections. On the left, the countercultural protest movements of the 1960s and The Populist Threat to 1970s challenged the status quo but didn’t secure institutional representa- R I Liberal Democracy tion until their radicalism had subsided. C As the political scientists Seymour AN DISTEMPER Yascha Mounk Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan famously observed, during the postwar years, the party structures of North America and ince Roman times, virtually every western Europe were “frozen” to an type of government that holds unprecedented degree. Between 1960 Scompetitive elections has experi- and 1990, the parties represented in the enced some form of populism—some parliaments of Amsterdam, Copenhagen, attempt by ambitious politicians to Ottawa, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna, mobilize the masses in opposition to an and Washington barely changed. For a establishment they depict as corrupt or few decades, Western political establish- self-serving. From Tiberius Gracchus and ments held such a firm grip on power the populares of the Roman Senate, to the that most observers stopped noticing champions of the popolo in Machiavelli’s just how remarkable that stability was sixteenth-century Florence, to the Jacobins compared to the historical norm. in Paris in the late eighteenth century, Yet beginning in the 1990s, a new to the Jacksonian Democrats who stormed crop of populists began a steady rise. nineteenth-century Washington—all Over the past two decades, populist based their attempts at mass mobilization movements in Europe and the United on appeals to the simplicity and goodness States have uprooted traditional party of ordinary people. By the mid-twentieth structures and forced ideas long regarded century, populism had become a common as extremist or unsavory onto the political feature of democracy. agenda. The influence of populists has But then, during an extended been especially striking in the past few period of spectacular economic growth months. In May, Euroskeptical and stretching roughly from the aftermath far-right parties demonstrated unprec- of World War II to the late 1970s, the edented strength in elections to the political establishments of most Western European Parliament, even topping the democracies managed to banish their polls in France and the United Kingdom. populist rivals to the innocuous fringes Meanwhile, in the United States, the of political discourse. On the right, Tea Party has sparked a civil war within populists occasionally made incursions at the Republican Party: the most recent the local or regional level but inevitably casualty was the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, an influential party power YASCHA MOUNK is the author of Stranger in broker who was defeated in a primary My Own Country: A Jewish Family in Modern election in June by a previously obscure Germany. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Harvard University’s Government Department and a archconservative challenger. The move- Fellow at the New America Foundation. ment is now poised to make major September/October 2014 27 Yascha Mounk advances in November’s midterm elections scene in 2009. It was initially driven by and will likely be able to hold Congress alarm over Barack Obama’s decisive hostage with its obstructionist tactics for victory in the presidential election of the foreseeable future. 2008 and by an intense hostility to the Members of the Western political health-care reform Obama advocated. establishments have explained away this But the movement has since broadened populist wave by pointing to recent its mission into a frontal assault on “big events: the financial crisis of 2008 and government.” Its targets now include not the Great Recession that followed, they only Democrats but also any Republican say, account for the growing impatience whom Tea Party purists consider too with the status quo. But that interpreta- moderate. Thanks to its success in radical- tion underestimates the significance of izing the Republican mainstream, the these electoral shifts. Far from reflecting Tea Party has now gained so much influ- a temporary crisis, the rise of populism ence in the House of Representatives stems from a set of long-term challenges that it can exert an effective veto over that have diminished the ability of the entire legislative machinery of the democratic governments to satisfy their United States. citizens. These problems, including a Populists are well on their way toward long-term stagnation in living standards holding similar power on the other side and deep crises of national identity, will of the Atlantic. In countries across not go away anytime soon—not even if Europe, populists of all stripes have the economies of the Western democra- transformed domestic politics in recent cies experience an unforeseen boom in decades and now threaten the very exis- the coming years. The fact is that the tence of the eu. In Austria during the past two decades have represented not 1990s, Jörg Haider, an ultraconservative a populist moment but rather a populist nationalist, won millions of sympathizers turn—one that will exert significant with denunciations of immigrants and influence on policy and public opinion thinly veiled nostalgia for the Third Reich. for decades to come. During the following decade, in the To avoid the serious damage that Netherlands, Pim Fortuyn gained a populists could inflict on democracy, loyal following by warning that Muslim political establishments on both sides of immigrants were undermining liberal the Atlantic must find a way to channel Dutch traditions. populist passions for good. To do so, they More recently, in Italy, the Five Star need to give voice to the justified griev- Movement, a party founded just a few ances that fuel populism while convincing years ago by Beppe Grillo, a former voters that the simple solutions offered comedian, attracted the third-largest up by the populists are bound to fail. share of the vote in national elections last year with a platform grounded in NO MERE BLIP Grillo’s demand that “the political caste Perhaps the most visible sign of populism’s go fuck itself.” In the United Kingdom, rebirth is the rise of the Tea Party in the uk Independence Party won the the United States. The movement first largest share of British votes in May’s exploded onto the American political elections for the European Parliament 28 foreign affairs Pitchfork Politics Flare-up: demonstrating at the European Parliament, in Brussels, April 2013 by fusing a radical rejection of the eu with Cas Mudde has pointed out, right- inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants wing populists in Europe did as well from eastern Europe. It was the first time in national elections between 2005 and in over a century that a British party 2008, before the euro crisis began, as other than Labour or the Conservatives they did in the years of acute economic triumphed in a national election. turmoil, from 2009 to 2013. Traumatic Members of the European establish- as it was, the Great Recession did not ment have reassured themselves with bring about an obvious inflection point: the belief that these populist successes the growth in the political strength of will start to fizzle once the economic populist parties began during the rela- effects of the Great Recession and the tively prosperous 1990s and has continued euro crisis subside. But although politi- at a fast but steady pace since then. cal scientists have tried to prove the hypothesis that recessions or spikes in IDENTITY CRISIS the unemployment rate have a direct If short-term fluctuations in economic influence on the strength of populist factors cannot explain the rise of popu- REUTERS / FRANCOISREUTERS/ LENOIR parties, most such studies have come lism, its underlying causes must operate up inconclusive. In some countries and on a longer time scale. And indeed, during some time periods, moments of there do seem to be two fundamental acute economic crisis have coincided developments that match the timeline with a strong showing by populist move- of the populist rise and help explain the ments. But just as often, populists have particular shape populist politics have stagnated or even lost support during taken in recent decades: a decline in living recessions. As the Dutch political scientist standards from one generation to the September/October 2014 29 Yascha Mounk next and the perceived threat to national to their national identities. In the wake identity posed by immigration and the of the ethnic cleansings and mass depor- growth of supranational organizations. tations of the first half of the twentieth The liberal democracies of the West century, most European countries became have always been subject to the ups and highly homogeneous. Even when decolo- downs of markets. But for all the extreme nization and the economic boom of the booms and recessions they have experi- 1950s and 1960s began to attract massive enced, one crucial economic fact has numbers of immigrants to Europe, the remained remarkably constant: except influx did not pose a real threat to national for during brief moments of extreme identity, since most European govern- crisis, the average citizen of a Western ments told their citizens that the recent democracy has, since the start of the arrivals were merely temporary visitors Industrial Revolution, enjoyed a higher who would willingly return home once standard of living than his or her parents. they had taken advantage of short-term The typical citizen could expect to have economic opportunities. more money, to live longer, and to spend But that promise began to ring hollow a greater portion of his or her life at when, in the decades that followed, leisure. According to an extensive body millions of immigrants gained the right of research pioneered by the economists to remain in their adoptive countries and Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, started to demand that they be accepted that is no longer the case.