Populism on the periphery of democracy: moralism and recognition theory

ABSTRACT

Moralism is an often-cited feature of populist politics; yet, as a concept, it remains under-theorised in current literature. This paper posits that to understand the threat that populism poses to democracy, it is necessary to develop this key feature of populism. Essential to discerning what moralism is is the difference between moralism, or moralistic blame, and moral criticism. While moral criticism is a restrained and thoughtful method of holding persons accountable for their actions, moralism amounts to a distinctly punitive form of exclusion: it seeks to undermine the equal moral status of the target of criticism. As a key feature of populism, then, moralism enables a political actor to solidify a conception of the ‘morally-pure‘ while normalising hate and disrespect for particular persons and groups in society. Populism – shaped by the features of anti-pluralism and moralism – therefore presents a clear threat to democracy, especially if we consider pluralism and recognition-respect as two basic principles underpinning democracy itself.

KEYWORDS:

• Populism
• moralism
• recognition
• respect
• democracy
• exclusion

Disclosure statement

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Notes

1. As noted by Moffitt (2020, pp. 25–28), how we perceive the relationship between populism and democracy depends on how we define this phenomenon – particularly on whether populism is presented as the opposite of pluralism. That said, Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser assert that anti-pluralism is a feature of populism while also labelling left-wing parties Podemos and Syriza ‘populist’ (see Moffitt, 2020, p. 27). Of the three approaches to populism outlined here, Müller’s definition is the most successful in drawing a line between democratic and populist politics by including anti-pluralism as a characteristic of populism.

2. Following Michael Freeden’s (2003, p. 98) analysis, Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser explain that thin-ideologies (e.g., populism and authoritarianism), unlike full ideologies (e.g., fascism, socialism and liberalism), have a ‘restricted morphology that relies on a small number of core concepts whose meaning is highly context dependent’ (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013, pp. 150–151). As a thin-ideology, then, populism can never exist in a pure full-ideological form, it must always be partnered with a superior full-ideology that establishes a particular system of ideas.

3. According to Jagers and Walgrave (2007, p. 323), this ‘thin’ definition of populism as a political-style aids our selection of discourse that may then be further scrutinised using ‘thicker’ definitions of populism that may contain elements such as anti-elitism and exclusion.

4. For example, right-wing populist groups, such as Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) and Orbán’s Fidesz, have blamed increasing levels of Islamisation and changing societal attitudes toward homosexuality, respectively, for the declining standards of economic (immigration), political (the establishment) and/or social (homosexuality) well-being of ‘the people’.

5. See also Pettit’s (2012, pp. 286–287, 290; 2013, p. 187) distinction between the constituting (the civic people) and the constituted people (the state): in contrast to the multiple wills of the constituting people, the will of the constituted people (the direction of the state) is formed following processes of interaction and deliberation among citizens, which materialise ‘under the direction of the norms they endorse at the different centres at which they and their representatives operate.’

6. In this sense, the exclusions made in a democratic society are less problematic (as they are not founded on discrimination against a particular group within the existing political community) than those heralded by populist actors.

7. To present how this moralistic presentation of the people and their will is embodied in real populist movements, Müller (2016b, p. 23) draws on the ideology of producerism: workers are of higher benefit to society than those who inherit their wealth and those at the ‘very bottom of society’, the people who ‘do not work and live like parasites off the work of others.’ This is also useful in early populism studies, as noted by Stavrakakis and Jäger (2017, pp. 12–13): the ‘moral priority’ of ‘the people’/farmers ‘who worked for a living and the vested interests who did not.’ (See Hofstadter, 1969, p. 13)

8. Recognition-respect is not to be confused with esteem-respect. Recognition-respect is not an evaluative form of recognition; it is not dependent on the feelings and emotions of the individual, nor the individual’s achievements in life, and it is not a comparative attitude that can be adopted around individuals whom are believed to be more ‘deserving’ than others (McBride, 2013, pp. 45–46).

9. The media may also be guilty of this type of moralism. For instance, on the 4^th of November 2016, ‘Enemies of the People’ featured as a headline of the British newspaper Daily Mail, condemning the actions of three judges who had ruled that the UK government required the consent of Parliament to invoke Article 50 (withdrawing from the EU).

10. While there does not exist concrete empirical evidence showing a clear causal relationship between populism and increasing levels of violence against the persons or groups that populist actors have directly targeted, it may well be argued that increasing exposure of communities and their members to populist politics will negatively impact – and certainly not improve – relations between citizens. Some evidence that gestures to the relationship between this style of politics and increasing violence against minority groups include an increase of 226% in reported hate crimes in counties that hosted Trump rallies compared to those that did not (Feinberg et al., 2019; Mindock, 2017), and the sharp rise in hate crimes against ethnic minorities following the Brexit referendum (BBC News, 2016b). Furthermore, some studies have suggested a link between populist blame frames/the strategic use of emotional communication and increasing levels of populist attitudes among citizens (Hameleers et al., 2017; Rico et al., 2017).

11. This rhetoric also features heavily among populist actors in Europe. Geert Wilders and Viktor Orbán have each attacked immigrants and refugees, with Wilders declaring Moroccan migrants ‘scum’ and Orbán, commenting on the ‘poison’ of migration, claiming Muslim refugees should instead be referred to as ‘Muslim invaders’ (Agerholm, 2018; McKie, 2017).

12. ‘Liberal democracy’ is used interchangeably with constitutional democracy (the dominant model of democracy found in Western states) in this paper as it is the terminology most used with regards to studies on populism and democracy.

13. Through the process of exclusion (which is necessary to the creation of political identity) and the creation of chains of equivalence, Laclau (2005, p. 74) views the beginnings of populism as the emergence of democratic demands that have not been met by the ruling elite. These demands begin as simple requests that, when combined with other groups’ requests, link together to form chains of equivalence with popular democratic demands. Populism is therefore described as democratic action: the unifying of multiple groups and requests (constituting the people) and the drawing of an antagonistic frontier between the people and the elite.

14. It should be noted that Mouffe focuses solely on contemporary emancipatory left-wing movements (like Podemos and Syriza) while overlooking historical examples of violent and destructive left-wing populism, exemplified by the USSR’s demonisation of Kulaks and Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian legacy which included an open disregard for basic human rights (Human Rights Watch, 2013). On a possibly more problematic note, the Essex School’s Chantal Mouffe (2005, p. 58) highlights the negative role of moralism, a post-political development, in the exclusion of populists from politics: ‘[T]oday’s good democrats are so confident they have the truth, and that their mission is to impose it on others … it is easier to present [populists] as a moral enemy, to be destroyed and eradicated.’ And yet, this is a feature of populist discourse that she does not address.