Populism: democracy's Pharmakon?

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to resolve one of the key tensions in the literature on populism: whether populism is a threat to democracy or the best means of renewing and deepening democracy. The author argues that, rather than defining populism in terms of certain definite outcomes, we should view populism as a symptom of crisis, and one capable of producing a variety of possible effects, some positive and some negative. The argument is pursued in terms of highlighting certain shortcomings in terms of the dominant approaches to the issue, and also through exploring recent Spanish politics, which has seen an increase in various kinds of populist parties and movements. The renewal of democracy in Spain is offered as an example of how populist initiatives can have beneficial outcomes, as well as detrimental ones.

KEYWORDS:

• Populism
• democracy
• Spain
• representation
• activism
• participation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Simon Tormey is Professor of Politics in the Department of Government and IR at the University of Sydney. He is the author of many books and articles on contemporary politics including Agnes Heller: Socialism, Autonomy and the Postmodern (2001), Anti-Capitalism (with Oneworld, 2004 and 2013), Key Thinkers from Critical Theory to Post-Marxism (2006) and The End of Representative Politics (2015). His most recent book, co-authored, is Refiguring Democracy: The Spanish Laboratory (2017). His latest book, Populism, will be published with Oneworld in 2019.

Notes

1. As well as the literature cited, this section relies on materials gathered during fieldwork in Spain between 2013 and 2016, particularly conversations with activists involved in the initiatives discussed. I am very grateful for their assistance and for Ramon Feenstra for facilitating the meetings and providing translations where required. A fuller account of these findings and the underpinning methodology of the fieldwork can be found in Feenstra et al. (2017).

2. These tensions are fully explored in the documentary Alcaldessa (2016) directed by Pau Faus which follows the lead up to the Municipal elections of 2015 in Barcelona, including video diaries by Ada Colau. See http://www.alcaldessa.com/en/.