AP US History 6.7-6.8: Reform and Government Role

Populism

A contested political concept emphasizing the “common people” in opposition to a perceived elite. It is often associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment, but has been applied to diverse and sometimes contradictory movements.

Why is populism considered a vague or contested concept?

The term has been used across different countries, historical periods, and ideological contexts without a consistent definition. Its meaning has also shifted among political discourse, media, and academic scholarship.

How does populism differ from a complete political ideology?

Many scholars describe it as a “thin-centred ideology”: it provides a basic opposition between the people and the elite but lacks a comprehensive program. It can therefore attach itself to broader ideologies such as socialism, conservatism, or nationalism.

Early English use of “populism”

The word appeared in English in 1858 as an opposite of “aristocratic.” Its later political prominence came especially from the Russian narodniki and the United States People’s Party.

Russian narodniki

A left-leaning agrarian movement in the Russian Empire during the 1860s and 1870s, often translated as “populists.” They sought to transfer political power to peasant communes through radical agrarian reform.

United States People’s Party

A late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century movement that championed small farmers. It supported expansionary monetary policies and accessible credit and was relatively progressive for its time on women’s and minority rights.

Why should Russian and American populism not be treated as identical?

Although both movements are labeled populist, they differed in ideological content, social bases, and historical development. The shared label does not imply a common political program.

How did the meaning of populism change in early twentieth-century France?

It came to describe a literary genre that sympathetically portrayed the lives of lower-class people. In this usage, populism referred to literature rather than a political movement.

How did populism enter the political vocabulary of Latin America?

After World War II, it became associated with charismatic leaders who mobilized newly urbanized populations, including people displaced by rural-to-urban migration. The term could carry a positive meaning and was sometimes openly adopted by political actors.

What political change was associated with newly urbanized Latin American populations?

They became more involved in electoral politics and began escaping older clientelist systems such as controlled or publicly declared voting. Their participation helped reshape national political life.

Edward Shils’s contribution to the study of populism

In 1954, Shils broadened populism beyond the historical People’s Party by using it to describe anti-elite tendencies in U.S. society, particularly in his analysis of McCarthyism.

How did early U.S. scholars reinterpret the People’s Party?

Historians such as Richard Hofstadter and sociologist Daniel Bell portrayed it critically as an expression of status anxiety and irrationalism. This interpretation helped give populism a more negative academic connotation.

Why has scholarly consensus on populism remained elusive?

Researchers have defined it through competing ideological, class-based, discursive, performative, strategic, and economic frameworks. A 1967 conference of leading scholars failed to produce a unified theory.

What produced the modern “populist hype”?

Political upheavals in 2016, especially Donald Trump’s election and the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union, generated major public and academic attention. The term’s use in scholarship increased sharply afterward.

Why do some scholars argue that “populism” should be abandoned as an analytical category?

They contend that the term is too ambiguous and is often conflated with far-right nativism, racism, authoritarianism, or demagoguery. They also argue that it can be used as a stigmatizing label for political opponents.

Why do other scholars defend retaining populism as a concept?

They argue that a clearly defined concept can help compare political actors operating outside mainstream politics. It may also illuminate how claims to represent “the people” challenge established institutions.

What is the central claim of the ideational approach to populism?

Populism is a moralistic, thin-centred ideology dividing society into “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite.” It presents politics as the expression of a unified general will.

How does populism construct “the people” and “the elite” in the ideational approach?

The people are portrayed as virtuous, unified, sovereign, and guided by common sense, while the elite is depicted as a homogeneous and corrupt force. The boundaries of both groups may be vague and strategically altered.

General will in populist theory

The general will is the supposed authentic preference of the people, treated as superior to elite expertise or institutional knowledge. Populist rhetoric may favor direct mechanisms such as referendums as a way to express it.

How can populism both support and threaten democracy?

In opposition, it can mobilize excluded groups and force elites to address popular grievances. In government, claims to embody the only authentic popular will can undermine pluralism, minority rights, courts, media, and the rule of law.

Tyranny of the majority

A danger in which the majority’s claimed will overrides protections for minorities and institutional limits on power. Populist concentration of executive authority can make this risk more pronounced.

What is the main criticism of the ideational definition of populism?

Critics argue that it imposes assumptions—such as a unified people and a strict moral division between people and elite—that may not fit all cases. If applied too broadly, it may encompass much ordinary political discourse.

How do class-based approaches explain populism?

They interpret populism as a product of social-class relations, mass mobilization, and political incorporation during periods of rapid modernization. Common features include personalist leadership, institutional weakness, and the entry of previously excluded groups into politics.

How does the Marxist class-based account connect populism to class equilibrium?

Populism may arise when the bourgeoisie can no longer dominate but the proletariat has not taken power. Political leadership gains relative autonomy, acts as an arbiter, and mobilizes a disorganized mass through charismatic authority.

What is the Marxist critique of populist incorporation?

Populist regimes may integrate workers through social benefits and labor reforms while limiting class struggle and placing unions under state control. Critics therefore view this incorporation as formally democratic but constrained within a bourgeois order.

How does the discursive approach define populism?

Associated especially with Ernesto Laclau, it treats populism as a political logic in which multiple unmet demands unite around a symbol representing a movement against an elite. The “people” are understood as contingent political constructions rather than a preexisting social group.

How does the discursive approach differ from the ideational approach?

It does not necessarily treat the people-versus-elite opposition as a moral conflict, nor does it require charismatic leadership. It focuses on how political identities are constructed through discourse.

Performative or socio-cultural approach

This approach views populism as a political style rather than a fixed ideology. It emphasizes rhetoric, gestures, clothing, imagery, staging, emotional expression, and norm-breaking performances that present leaders as culturally close to ordinary people.

Why does the performative approach emphasize transgression?

Populist actors often violate conventions of respectable political behavior and use irreverent, emotionally charged, or culturally popular styles. Such performances can make marginalized groups’ entry into public life appear disruptive.

Strategic approach to populism

The strategic approach defines populism as a method in which a personalist leader seeks power through direct, unmediated, and weakly institutionalized support from large numbers of mostly unorganized followers.

What is a major limitation of the strategic approach to populism?

Because it centers on personalist leadership, it may exclude populist parties and social movements that are not organized around one leader. Critics also argue that it can blur populism with demagoguery or opportunism.

Economic definition of populism

This definition identifies populism with irresponsible economic policymaking: governments expand public spending, often using foreign borrowing, then face inflationary crises followed by austerity. Critics say this reduces a broad political phenomenon to a pattern associated mainly with left-wing economic policy.

Why is the economic approach criticized for being incomplete?

It overlooks populism’s political and ideological dimensions and cannot explain leaders who combine populist rhetoric with neoliberal policies. It may also be used to stigmatize heterodox economic policies rather than analyze them neutrally.

Economic grievance thesis

This thesis links populist support to a “left-behind” precariat characterized by insecure employment, wage stagnation, and high inequality. Its proposed causes include deindustrialization, liberalization, deregulation, globalization, and economic crises.

Precariat in theories of populism

The precariat is a socially and economically insecure population marked by low job stability and uncertain living conditions. In the Global North it is often associated with deindustrialization and declining living standards; in the Global South it may reflect incomplete upward mobility into unstable work.

What evidence complicates the economic grievance explanation of populist support?

Economic hardship is associated with increased resentment toward out-groups and, in some cases, gains for far-right parties. However, individual-level studies find only limited direct evidence that personal economic grievances consistently produce support for populist candidates.

Modernization losers theory

This theory argues that aspects of the transition to modernity create groups who lose status, security, or social stability and consequently demand populist politics. Early scholars used it to interpret the People’s Party as a response to deep social transformation.

How can economic crises affect political attitudes relevant to populism?

Crises can intensify social resentment and increase support for movements portraying established elites as responsible for hardship. However, such effects do not prove that all populist support is driven by individual economic loss.