University of Kentucky UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy Philosophy 2021 Metaphor and the Struggle between Populism and Liberal Democracy Daniel Cole University of Kentucky, [email protected] Author ORCID Identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9547-6850 Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2021.157 Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Cole, Daniel, "Metaphor and the Struggle between Populism and Liberal Democracy" (2021). Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy. 29. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/philosophy_etds/29 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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Daniel Cole, Student Dr. Eric Sanday, Major Professor Dr. Tim Sundell, Director of Graduate Studies METAPHOR AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN POPULISM AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY ________________________________________ DISSERTATION ________________________________________ A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky By Daniel Cole Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Eric Sanday, Professor of Philosophy Lexington, Kentucky 2021 Copyright © Daniel Cole 2021 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9547-6850 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION METAPHOR AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN POPULISM AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY Populist movements have emerged the world over, appearing even in countries in which it had long been assumed that liberal democracy was unassailable. Scholars have been grappling with the concept of populism for decades, but as populists have won victories close to home, the research has taken on a heightened sense of urgency. Two of the common theses that have appeared in the recent literature are, (a) populism is opposed to liberal democracy, and (b) populism is linked to a democratic tradition of thought that originates with Rousseau. While I am willing to grant (a), I argue in this dissertation that populism, at least in the United States and some European countries, has a much stronger connection to the classical liberal tradition than many scholars would like to admit. More specifically, the populist notion of ‘the people’ is indebted to a notion of self-interest and an instrumental conception of government. This dissertation examines the democratic and liberal traditions through their orienting metaphors. The most important metaphor of is that of mechanism, which guides both of their notions of government. While liberalism has advocated for a notion of good government as a well-balanced machine, whose impartial procedures yield either maximal liberty or equality, the supposedly democratic populism insists on government as a tool for the people as voiced by a single leader. But this conception of the people as using a tool has less to do with Rousseau’s notion of the general will and more to do with taking the economic conception of the individual as a metaphor for the people. Or in other words, populism treats the entire people as a single, self-interested individual writ large. Underlying the approach to the problem through guiding metaphor is a concern with a notion of politics as involving public world-creation. That is, ‘politics’ as a technical term deals with the ways in which humans are spontaneous world-shapers who are not merely conditioned by the world but also can condition it in turn. I contend that the mechanistic metaphor, even in its liberal form, cannot adequately evoke this sense of public power as something to be preserved. This is because liberal theory often proposes a notion of good government as procedural, regulated, and divided by competing powers. Any spontaneity of the individual is relegated to the private sphere, while the public sphere remains the purview of elected representatives subordinated to ‘independent’ laws. KEYWORDS: Liberalism, Populism, Democracy, Politics, Metaphor, Tradition Daniel Cole (Name of Student) 04/25/2021 Date METAPHOR AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN POPULISM AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY By Daniel Cole Dr. Eric Sanday Director of Dissertation Dr. Tim Sundell Director of Graduate Studies 04/25/2021 Date TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. POLITICS AND METAPHORS FOR DEMOCRACY .............................. 1 1.1 Framing Political Issues ....................................................................................... 4 1.2 Metaphor, Populism, and Liberalism ................................................................... 7 1.2.1 Metaphor ....................................................................................................... 8 1.2.2 Populism ..................................................................................................... 10 1.2.3 Liberalism ................................................................................................... 14 1.2.4 The Metaphors of Liberal Democracy ........................................................ 19 1.3 Three Concepts: Freedom, Authority, Unity ...................................................... 22 1.4 Roadmap ............................................................................................................. 25 CHAPTER 2. POLITICS AND DEMOCRACY.............................................................. 28 2.1 The Political and the Social ................................................................................ 36 2.1.1 A Brief History of Social and Political Freedoms ...................................... 37 2.1.2 Analysis of Political Action and Social Behavior ....................................... 43 2.1.3 Political Community ................................................................................... 49 2.1.4 Social Groupings within the Political Community ..................................... 57 2.1.5 Democracy and Its Liberal-Populist Interpretations ................................... 64 2.2 Sovereignty and Orders of Power ...................................................................... 68 2.2.1 Constituted and Constituent Power ............................................................. 73 2.2.2 Representation and Identification ............................................................... 74 2.2.3 The Problem of Sovereignty in Democracy ................................................ 76 2.2.4 Mediating Powers: Freedom, Authority, Unity .......................................... 80 2.2.5 Hermeneutics of Constituted Power ........................................................... 81 2.3 A Political Conception of Democracy ............................................................... 83 2.3.1 Community Is the Performance of Unity with Difference.......................... 84 2.3.2 Society Performs Disunity with Difference ................................................ 86 2.4 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 90 CHAPTER 3. THE MECHANISTIC METAPHOR OF POLITICAL UNITY IN LIBERALISM AND POPULIST AUTHORITARIANISM ............................................ 93 3.1 Populism, Party Politics, and State Power ......................................................... 95 3.1.1 Populism and Authoritarianism .................................................................. 97 3.1.2 Liberalism as the Anti-Authoritarian Alternative to Populism ................. 102 3.1.3 Political Parties and the Use of Public Power ........................................... 104 3.2 The Liberal Tradition and the End of Liberal Government ............................. 108 iii 3.2.1 Populist Authoritarianism and Liberal, Negative Freedom ...................... 110 3.2.2 The Conditions of Modernity and the Economic Turn ............................. 115 3.2.3 Rights as an End and Economics as a Model ..........................................