Why do populists scorn compromises (and how do they live with them)?

ABSTRACT

Both political theorists and scholars working on populism with an ideational approach have frequently noted that populists are averse to compromise. However, the negative relationship between populism and compromise has not been analyzed in detail. In this paper, we offer a comprehensive account of the reasons behind this oft-repeated conflict between populist narratives and the practice of compromise, disentangling the various dimensions of such incompatibility and exploring their connections. We rely on theoretical and empirical research on populism, supplemented by illustrative examples and references to political theory with an anti-pluralist coloration and the opponents thereof. We compare populist objections with Baume and Papadopoulos’s typology of objections to political compromises. We demonstrate that populist objections only partly overlap with those inventoried in the typology, notably along the moral and antagonistic dimensions, while the populist claim that compromises denature the unmediated expression of the popular will has not been considered before. Through an exploratory case study, we further reflect on how populists justify compromises when they are in power, notwithstanding their ideological reluctances. Our paper enriches the study of the ideational elements of populism while advancing research on the perception of compromises in democratic politics.

Introduction

Several works have shown that populists often contest the politics of compromise, and the aversion to compromise of populist parties and leaders has been noted both in scholarship on the ‘ideational’ characteristics of populism¹—the currently hegemonic strand in populist studies²—and by political theorists – who mostly rely on that kind of work.³ The ideational approach to populism considers ‘populism to be, first and foremost, about ideas in general, and ideas about “the people” and “the elite” in particular’.⁴ Scholars using that approach therefore have analyzed the key ideological traits that are displayed more or less prominently by heterogeneous parties and movements.⁵ However, as suggested by Rostbøll, the incompatibility between populism and compromise remains vague and undertheorized.⁶ Compromise is also largely absent as a topic in empirical analyses of populist discourse⁷; in this paper, we endeavor to remedy that gap and push theorization forward. We mainly rely on theoretical and empirical research on populism, supplemented by references to political theory with populist and anti-pluralist coloration (and to some of its opponents), and by illustrative examples from some populist leaders and parties across the political spectrum, including a case study. We thereby contribute to distinct fields of study:

• - Our paper advances research on the perception of compromises in democratic politics: while the political theory literature assesses the merits and disadvantages of compromises – usually defined as voluntary mutual adjustments to settle a conflict—⁸ we seek to capture the nature of ideological resistance to that practice.

• - Furthermore, our paper enriches the ideational approach to populism by zooming in on the articulation of compromise rejection with the core defining elements of populist worldviews. We consider the study of populist resistances to compromise as a synecdotal way to apprehend—pars pro toto—the ideological component of the populist phenomenon.

• - The paper also contributes to the discussion of the ‘inclusion-moderation’ thesis about populist parties.⁹ We present an exploratory case study that allows us to reflect on how populists may come to justify compromises when they are in power, notwithstanding their ideological reluctances, and therefore on the articulation between discourse and practice.

In our paper, we offer a comprehensive and systematic account of the reasons behind the oft-repeated conflict between populist discourse and the practice of compromise, disentangling the various dimensions of such incompatibility and exploring how these dimensions connect. We seek to identify what is distinctive about populist objections and compare them for that purpose with Baume and Papadopoulos’s typology, which singled out five general objections to political compromises as they have emerged in the scholarly literature.¹⁰ Two objections pertain to respect for values. An anti-relativist objection asserts that compromises are made at the expense of universal moral principles; moreover, an objection concerned with integrity is animated by the fear that the outcomes of compromises infringe on principles by which we must consistently abide.¹¹ Two other objections concern the risk of domination, either because compromise may be detrimental to less audible claims and thereby reduce the pluralism of political debates or because compromises may reproduce or generate inequalities by disadvantaging less powerful groups.¹² The last objection in the typology is grounded in the incompatibility between compromise and the allegedly irreducible agonistic dimension of politics.¹³

We posit in this paper that there are four core aspects of populist worldviews hindering the development of compromises: antagonism between the people and the elites, homogeneity of the people, moralism, and immediacy in political decision-making, which do so for different but complementary reasons. Taken individually, each of the four ideational features that rule out compromises is not specific to populism: antagonisms are at the core of Marxist class struggle and nationalist doctrines, homogeneity is valued in different variants of illiberal thought, moralism characterizes hardliners and ‘purists’ more generally, and decisional immediacy is favored by participationists and radical democrats. However, the combination of these multifaceted but highly ramified features is indeed specific to populism, and we argue that it explains the tenacity of populists’ ideological aversion to compromises.

We also assume that the ideational features – which serve to delegitimize compromise – are common to populist subtypes notwithstanding their diversity across the left – right divide, with right-wing populism being associated with nativism and left-wing populism with egalitarianism/anti-capitalism.¹⁴ Antagonism between homogeneous people and elites is central to populism, although conservative nativist versions tend to equate people with the whole nation, while progressive populists usually restrict their definition to good ordinary people.¹⁵ Moralism also transcends the left-right cleavage, with the nuance that nativists question the morality of not only ‘cosmopolitan’ elites but also even more so of populations of immigrant origin.¹⁶ Immediacy can be expressed in plebiscitary relations (even more so in autocratic versions of populism), various kinds of participatory mechanisms, or a combination of both. Populist organizations show different patterns in this respect, actually independent of the left-right distinction and with the common aim of circumventing, or at least weakening, the mechanisms of representative democracy.¹⁷

As we shall see with the case of the SYRIZA-led government in Greece, the justifications that populists use when they nevertheless compromise partially draw on the same body of arguments as when they refute compromise. Most notably, the antagonistic perspective allows for a degree of discursive continuity. However, other justifications used are less specific and can be observed in different situations in which compromisers act against their expressed values.

The paper is structured as follows. In the next four sections, we discuss every ideological source of populists’ reluctance to compromise before studying the articulation of discourse and practice in the case of SYRIZA. We conclude with a synthesis of the paper’s core contributions and some suggestions for further research.

Antagonism against compromises

When we examine why populists might reject compromise, the antagonistic dimension immediately emerges as an ideological brake on compromise. Scholars broadly agree that populist discourse revolves around an antagonistic relationship between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, and antagonism is even considered a ‘core’ element of populism that ‘undermines the capacity of democracy for negotiation and compromise’.¹⁸ The antagonistic mind-set and rhetoric create a climate of disrespect for political opponents, turning them into enemies of the people.¹⁹ In Turkey, Erdoğan’s party (the AKP) ‘conceived normalization-cum-democratization in zero-sum terms, which entailed a tendency to not only monopolize power but also degrade the rest, defined as the elite or White Turks’.²⁰ With the opposing party being delegitimized, compromise cannot be valued as principled – ‘when we act on the belief that we owe it to others to concede something to their position’.²¹ As discussed below in our exploratory case study, when populists nevertheless do engage in compromise practices, the justifications that they give are mostly pragmatic: ‘goal-based’.²²

The antagonistic matrix is a core feature insofar as the other defining features of populism – non-core characteristics, according to Mansbridge and Macedo²³—do not exist independently from it. First, the concomitant emphasis of the populist perspective on intragroup cohesiveness (homogeneity) rules out the existence of moderate ‘brokers’ who would be able to bridge intergroup differences precisely because antagonism is irreducible.²⁴ Second, the virtues associated with the people and the vices related to the elites are integral elements of their antagonism and denote a Manichean view of politics (moralism). Hence, antagonism is coupled with the idealization of the people and a ‘demonization’ of the elites, a ‘devil shift’ regarding the perception of opponents.²⁵ Third, antagonism calls for a mode of decision-making that bypasses any intermediary bodies likely to filter and thus undermine the expression of popular sovereignty (immediacy), with majoritarian decisions or a direct plebiscitary relationship between the masses and the populist leader as its legitimate expression.

Social contestations that are a priori fragmented are gradually articulated in populist discourse through what Laclau calls ‘chains of equivalence’, which aggregate disparate demands into more general claims against the existing ‘hegemonic’ power.²⁶ This logic of equivalence reduces the number of political positions in circulation, ‘simplifies political struggle into an antagonism between “us” and “them”, good and evil’,²⁷ and excludes compromises, especially if this logic goes together with the demonization of adversaries.

Of course, an emphasis on the conflictual nature of politics does not ipso facto preclude compromises. For instance, Austrian jurist Kelsen, a great advocate of compromise, considered that ‘practical politics are defined by conflicts of interest’.²⁸ Pluralism, of which he was also an advocate, presupposes the recognition of dissensus in the body politic. However, Kelsen appreciates compromises for their ability ‘to replace what breaks connections with what makes them’.²⁹

What is typical of the adversarial paradigm, as incorporated in the populist worldview, is not the recognition of conflict as such but its irreducible character. Moderation, as embodied in compromises, is not desirable because it erases the lines of confrontation. Chantal Mouffe – an advocate of left-wing populism in her later work³⁰—reminds us that politics cannot be reduced to the sheer competition between divergent interests likely to be aligned through elite deliberation or summit bargaining.³¹ In ‘Democratic Politics and Conflict: An Agonistic Approach’, Mouffe explains that conflict must persist in a democratic setting for four reasons.³² First, there is no possibility of finding rational and impartial solutions to political problems. Second, conflicts have an integrative role in democracies, and Mouffe probably refers to the construction of a synthesis from relatively close positions through the mechanism of chains of equivalence.³³ Third, political confrontation is a safeguard against the extension of conflict to nonnegotiable moral values or essentialist forms of identification. Finally, the absence of confrontation risks creating political apathy. Mouffe does acknowledge a limited need and space for consensus, especially on institutions, but it is worth noting that consensus seems more legitimate than compromise, which denotes the rule of elite deals.³⁴

Moreover, some features associated with antagonism in populist framing make it even more difficult for populists to leave room for compromise in their worldview; these features are a warlike rhetoric and the prevalence of emotions, especially anger and resentment. The adversarial paradigm is regularly accompanied by the use of a simplistic hyperbolic rhetoric to disqualify the opponent and militaristic terms to describe political processes.³⁵ Populist political entrepreneurs not only make use of ‘inflammatory rhetoric’³⁶ but also value confrontation.³⁷ Moreover, offensive populist rhetoric evokes particular emotions: according to the findings of Rico, Guinjoan and Anduiza, populism particularly appeals to angry citizens through its fierce moral and confrontational outlook and the externalization of blame.³⁸ In the next section, we shall see that the incompatibility of compromise with the populist worldview is due not only to the irreducibility of conflict between the people and the elite but also to the nonrecognition of the possible existence of conflicts among the ‘people’.

Homogeneity against compromises

Although the conflict between the people and the elite is at the core of the populist antagonistic view of politics, it is absent within the sphere of the people. The latter appear as a unified group, unaffected by diverging interests, values and preferences, and free from disagreements.³⁹ This is visible in the thought of Carl Schmitt, who is considered an authoritarian populist thinker.⁴⁰ Schmitt makes the confrontation between friend and foe the primary constitutive feature of politics but wishes to see such conflict vanish through the disappearance of divisive entities such as intermediary bodies and political parties and through the ensuing establishment of a plebiscitary relationship between the people and the Reichspräsident of the Weimar Republic.

In the populist worldview, the assumption of homogeneity of the people makes compromises illegitimate. In January 2015, in a speech held five months after his first election as Turkey’s Head of State, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared, ‘Whether it be against the Gezi protesters, parallel state members [Gülenists], or the domestic or foreign media, we will never compromise from the national will’.⁴¹ The assumption of homogeneity goes hand in hand with a distrust of pluralism, which presupposes that divergent interests and values exist within society and need to be acknowledged and moderated. Erdoğan’s party ‘casts political pluralism as a weakness that might endanger concentration of power in the hands of elected authorities and rejects the normative goals of compromise and consensus’.⁴² This party ‘neglected the importance […] to reconcile identity and interest differences through compromise and consensus’.⁴³

More generally, the ideational approach largely agrees on the monism and anti-pluralism that characterize populism and preclude compromises. For example, according to Crick, populism can be seen as reviving a Rousseauist conception of the ‘united general will’, in contradiction with ‘the political or Aristotelian way of looking at the world – whereby politics only arises because of differing interests and values that we must endure, harmonize or compromise creatively and educatively’.⁴⁴ Mudde even claims that pluralism is the direct opposite of populism, more so than elitism: ‘Whereas pluralism appreciates societal divisions and sees politics as “the art of compromise,” populism (and elitism) discards societal divisions, denounces social groups as “special interests,” and rejects compromise as defeat’.⁴⁵ Furthermore, Pappas includes among the core ‘illiberal’ properties of populism that are part of a minimal definition thereof its lack of acceptance of plurality in society.⁴⁶ Therefore, populists ‘assign little utility to institutions and mechanisms that include or protect different and pluriform social interests in an attempt to achieve consensus or compromise’⁴⁷; in reality, populists even view such institutions as illegitimate and as obstacles to their project.

Consequently, the anti-pluralist stance of populists implies a lack of consideration of the rights of minorities, which are considered an impediment to the promotion of the general interest.⁴⁸ As previously mentioned, minorities tend to be perceived as “‘special interests’, which (in its zero-sum game world) come at the expense of ‘the people’’.⁴⁹ In a statement after the Friday prayer on 17 July 2015, Erdoğan equated the integration of claims of the Kurdish minority with ‘cacophony’: ‘So, they [minority political groups] cannot argue that certain conditions have to be accepted as “the country’s inevitable circumstances” […] If you try forcing your terms on each other, then you no longer have a symphony. You get a cacophony. But we’re trying to create a symphony’.⁵⁰

In contrast, the valorization of compromise in liberal democratic thought is associated with the protection of minority rights. The defense of compromise, as expressed by Kelsen but also more recently by Bellamy, stems from a concern for the rights of minorities and the expression of their voices. According to Kelsen, although compromises do not fully meet the interests of minorities, neither are they completely contrary to them.⁵¹ Compromise therefore not only provides a solution to conflict but also allows an approximation of a core democratic ideal, namely, the (partial) realization of the principle of self-determination. In the same spirit of inclusion, Bellamy defends compromise for its capacity to better reflect the heterogeneity of values and interests. In such a view, compromises account for a broader range of preferences than majority decisions do since the latter ‘fail to give due recognition to the diversity and multiplicity of individual citizens’ preferences’.⁵²

While the assumption of irreducible antagonism makes compromise with the elites harmful, the assumption of homogeneity renders compromises useless within the vast block of ‘the people’. If the people compose a homogeneous block, there is no reason to compromise, as this block is not affected by any internal conflict. Compromise presupposes disagreement, and as such, it clashes with the monistic conception of populism: ‘For populists there is no politics because (all) “the people” are one. There is no reason to have deliberation or compromise because if I am one of the people, then what I think is good, all other members of “the people” will think it is good too, as we all share the same core interests and values’.⁵³

This particular objection to compromise – that it clashes with a unified conception of the people – is again eloquently expressed by Schmitt as the view of an authoritarian populist. His grievances against compromises are largely due to their organically pluralist assumptions, which Schmitt condemns. Compromises are contrary to his ‘state ethic’ because, on the one hand, they reflect the division of the body politic and, on the other hand, they allow particular interests to capture and share collective benefits and resources among themselves. Schmitt graphically denounces the obsession of the organized actors of civil society with the pursuit of their own interests. He uses animal metaphors to illustrate the perverse mechanics of pluralism that lead through mimesis to the prevalence of clientelist considerations and practices, even in parties initially adhering to the public interest.⁵⁴

In the pluralist, multiparty context of industrial societies, compromise becomes the guiding principle of political parties. However, according to Schmitt, this pluralism weakens the independence and authority of the state by reducing it to the role of an agnostic arbitrator between competing partisan preferences.⁵⁵ In Schmitt’s view, political unity gives way to transactions resulting from partisan collusion or even blackmailing.⁵⁶ The conception of a unified people is antithetical to the spirit of compromise but also contrary to a liberal conception of representative government that recognizes the plurality of interests and values and the necessity for them to be voiced through competing political parties.

Such a view continues to be shared by anti-liberal theorists: Patrick Deneen criticizes ‘the corrosive social and civic effects of selfinterest’ and the surrender of common good’ that ‘induces a zero-sum mentality’ and ‘a citizenry that is increasingly driven by private and largely material concerns’.⁵⁷ Adrian Vermeule, another contemporary critic of liberalism, having proclaimed his allegiance to Schmitt’s legal theory,⁵⁸ expresses his contempt for the liberal defense of the particular interest in his doctrine of common good constitutionalism.⁵⁹ Vermeule defines the common good negatively by opposing it to ‘aggregation’, where ‘the sum of separate private utilities, no matter how large, can never add up to the common good’.⁶⁰ Positively, Vermeule conceives of the common good as ‘unitary and indivisible’⁶¹ and as a ‘substantive vision of the good’.⁶² However, the anti-liberalism of Deneen and Vermeule does not lead to the explicit rejection of compromise, and Vermeule even considers them ‘necessary’ despite his acknowledged filiation with Schmitt.⁶³

Moralism against compromises

The populist worldview hinders the recognition of compromise for a third reason: the moralism that is also inherent in the populist narrative.⁶⁴ For instance, President Erdoğan stated during an electoral campaign on 19 April 2023, ‘We will not compromise on the people’s core values. We will not compromise on the people’s sacred values’.⁶⁵ Populists are animated by a ‘highly moralistic’ mind-set and ‘a strong conviction of moral self-righteousness’, leading them to believe that politics cannot involve compromises because society is ‘unequally, and unethically’ divided between two camps.⁶⁶ In this regard, Mansbridge and Macedo refer to ‘a Manichean opposition of absolute good versus absolute evil that can justify impatience with the necessary compromises and frustrations of pluralist democracy, the demonization of professional politicians, the delegitimization of ordinary politics, and the breaking of constitutional constraints’.⁶⁷ Placing the elites on the side of the corrupt and the people on the side of the pure ultimately suggest that compromises with elites are ‘Faustian’ bargains: ‘Populism presents a Manichean outlook, in which there are only friends and foes. Opponents are not just people with different priorities and values, they are evil! Consequently, compromise is impossible, as it “corrupts” the purity’.⁶⁸ Similarly, Rostbøll suggests that in populist discourse, the others are treated as enemies on whom we seek to impose our views rather than as fellow citizens to whom we owe concessions.⁶⁹ The confrontation between two opposed and homogeneous groups is therefore accentuated by the moral evaluation that positively qualifies the people and morally disqualifies the elites: antagonistic dynamics are amplified not only by monism but also by moralism.

Empirical works suggest the existence of a negative relationship between adherence to strong moral beliefs and the inclination to compromise.⁷⁰ For instance, Kreps, Laurin and Merritt observe that when audiences believe that leaders come to break their moral commitments, they deride these leaders as hypocritical and view them as less worthy of support.⁷¹ Moralizing objects or issues tends to shift political actors away from bargaining and thereby maximizing gains toward keeping their commitments and complying with the norms they claim to adhere to.⁷² Schmitt again criticized parliamentary democracy, in the words of Saward, because it ‘involved the embodiment of a certain “principled unprincipledness’’’ through the ‘unprincipled’ compromises that take place within it.⁷³ As Galston reminds us, if we present ourselves as the repository of virtue and consider the ‘other’ to be evil, then seeking to compromise is naturally delegitimized⁷⁴: it is unacceptable to compromise with an ‘out-group’ if it ‘is not just different but immoral’.⁷⁵ In a context in which making concessions to alternatives to what one sees as morally good or right (and supporting them thereafter) is immoral, compromising would be to undermine first-order truths or conceptions of the good.⁷⁶

Compromises can be criticized not only for undermining one’s values but also for generating inconsistencies with respect to the application of principles, thereby leading to arbitrary outcomes. ‘Standing for something’ – as phrased by van Willigenburg – is usually seen as a sign of integrity. According to Van Willigenburg, the integrity requirement that can preclude compromises contains two facets: morality (wholeheartedness) and consistency (or wholeness).⁷⁷ In the populist narrative, the moral dimension of integrity is more prominent than that of consistency. The latter remains usually implicit, unlike in the typology by Baume and Papadopoulos, which draws inspiration on that point from Richard Dworkin’s rejection of arbitrary ‘checkerboard’ laws.⁷⁸

Immediacy against compromises

Part of the populist reluctance to compromise is related to a negative view of the very process leading to compromise deals. This reluctance is a manifestation of populist malaise about the pragmatic face of democracy, which is likely to overshadow its ‘redemptive’ face, with the notion of popular power at the heart of the latter.⁷⁹ Compromises may result from processes that frequently lack transparency,⁸⁰ and they prevent the clear and direct expression of the will of the people: ‘compromise would be a betrayal of the “authentic” people’,⁸¹ and populists ‘denounce backroom deals, shady compromises, complicated procedures, secret treaties, and technicalities that only experts can understand’.⁸² Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro announced in his governmental plan: ‘[We propose a] government with no give and take, no spurious deals. A government made up of people who are committed to Brazil and to Brazilians’.⁸³ In a speech to his supporters on 19 April 2020, Bolsonaro further stated, ‘We don’t want to negotiate anything […]. It’s the people in power now’.⁸⁴ In a similar vein, Erdoğan declared in a TV session with journalists (30 March 2023): ‘Those on this table, worse than a coalition, are trying to pass their infighting, their compromises, as democracy’.⁸⁵

To remedy the risk of political decisions being unresponsive to people’s claims, populists manifest an ‘enthusiasm for direct democracy and unconstrained majoritarianism’,⁸⁶ which are both considered avenues for ‘a greater direct popular rule’.⁸⁷ However, we have seen that by equating the people with the majority, the views of minorities and the role of counter-majoritarian checks are delegitimized. The minority can even be portrayed as the ‘foe’, following the Schmittian opposition between friend and foe and indicating then a radicalization of the majoritarian principle.⁸⁸ Frequently, majoritarianism is associated with a preference for procedures of direct democracy, which – in a Rousseauist vein – are deemed to approximate the principle of self-government more closely than representative forms of government.⁸⁹ Furthermore, populists idealize the direct link that they claim exists between a – possibly charismatic – leader and his or her followers in personalistic and plebiscitary politics, with that leader then incarnating the popular will.⁹⁰ Campaigning for a referendum that he called to turn Turkey into a presidential democracy, Erdoğan stated on 25 March 2017, ‘Because the people form the government at the voting urn under the new system, the era of coalitions will come to an end, and stability will be guaranteed’.⁹¹

Again, this idealization is visible in Schmitt’s writings of the 1930s, in which he described the unmediated relationship in the Weimar Republic between the Reichspräsident and the people as the essence of democracy. Schmitt saw plebiscitary legitimacy as a shield against the destructive potential of pluralist party politics.⁹² The president’s independence from political parties and from the ‘various bearers of state pluralism’ makes him or her a guarantor of unity and order.⁹³ Whereas plebiscitary democracy rests on the presumption of political unity, liberal democracy, for Schmitt, enshrines plurality and discord, blurring the command relationship between citizens and the government.

The valorization of immediacy in the expression of the popular will, either through mechanisms of direct democracy or through the direct link between the people and the leader, is combined with the moral dimension to which we referred before. Mediations not only weaken the authenticity of the general will⁹⁴ but are also seen as possible opportunities for manipulation by the elite. Urbinati is right to assert that populists praise decisiveness and decisionism,⁹⁵ but it should be added that populist decisionism has less to do with the need to produce policy outputs effectively and more with being responsive to the ‘people’. Populist discourse manifests strong skepticism regarding both possible barriers and procedural opacity that might lead to distortions in the popular will.

Immediacy, as is supposed to be achieved with the ‘direct-majoritarianism’⁹⁶ that is embodied in referendum democracy or in plebiscitary relations between the people and the charismatic leader, tends indeed to be related to transparency in the populist narrative; this also has a Rousseauist coloration, transparency and immediacy being the virtues of ‘beautiful souls’ according to Rousseau.⁹⁷ Transparency is a relational mode devoid of artifice and refers to a space where actors behave sincerely.⁹⁸ The concomitant valorization of immediacy and transparency reinforces the moral dimension in populist discourse.⁹⁹

Justifications of compromise: the SYRIZA ‘somersault’

Although compromises are antithetical to the core features of populist ideology, this does not mean that populists never compromise in practice.¹⁰⁰ According to the ‘inclusion-moderation thesis’, incumbent populist parties tone down their rhetoric, as they need to signal to potential governmental partners that they are reliable actors open for negotiations and compromises. However, this thesis is not always confirmed,¹⁰¹ and especially whether and how populists justify their compromises and the kind of narratives that they develop for that purpose has hardly been explored. One can imagine, for instance, that populists reject compromises as part of electoral ‘politicking’ and produce a discourse signaling continuity to reassure their public but nevertheless negotiate backstage, as the thesis on the decoupling between the sphere of politics and the sphere of policy-making suggests.¹⁰² In a similar vein, according to the theory of ‘organizational hypocrisy’,¹⁰³ continuity can be rhetorically invoked to conceal and compensate for a gap with actual practice in situations in which the commitment to initial values collides with other requirements and pressures. One can also expect that populist and more managerial discourses cohabit, targeting audiences with different preferences. We would like to offer some initial tentative answers to such important research questions and rely for that purpose on the case of SYRIZA in Greece.

Together with Podemos in Spain and now with La France Insoumise, SYRIZA is the prototypical case of a (then) major left-wing party in Europe and the only left populist party to lead a government in a member-state of the European Union (EU).¹⁰⁴ However, this case has not been studied from the perspective of the inclusion-moderation thesis.¹⁰⁵ We conceive our illustration of the justifications of SYRIZA’s ‘kolotoumba’ in summer 2015 as a first exploratory contribution in that respect.¹⁰⁶ The inclusion-moderation thesis has not yet given much attention to the articulation between discourse and practice, and it attributes moderation to domestic political factors (essentially coalition strategies), while SYRIZA’s compromise took place under external (European) pressure, thus challenging the implicit ‘methodological nationalism’¹⁰⁷ of the relevant literature.

From the January 2015 Greek national election until the announcement of a deal with the European partners on 13 July 2015, a coalition government led by SYRIZA had been negotiating with the EU in the aftermath of the financial crisis. It did so ‘having pledged to end austerity, rewrite the bailout terms and achieve substantial debt relief’,¹⁰⁸ and in a speech held in the Greek parliament in February, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras literally said ‘we will not compromise’.¹⁰⁹ SYRIZA thus continued to stress its ‘defiant voluntarism’; however, the latter became essentially symbolic, as public statements on the restoration of the dignity of the Greek people did not substantially change the continuous imposition of austerity measures.¹¹⁰ Moreover, Tsipras pluralized his discursive repertoire as early as in the negotiation phase with the EU: while populist tones continued to prevail domestically, Tsipras emphasized his struggle against neoliberalism and austerity when targeting international audiences.¹¹¹

Although some SYRIZA hardliners positively saw a ‘Grexit’ from the Euro, the Greek negotiators were essentially hoping that the threat of the domino effect of ‘Grexit’ on the Eurozone would force their partners to make concessions. Later, Tsipras admitted that they had ‘illusions’,¹¹² and indeed, the outcome of the negotiations was the announcement of a third loan of approximately 80 billion euros to Greece, coupled with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which stipulated even more restrictive terms than the previous agreements between Greece and its creditors. Unexpectedly but consistently with his claims to ‘tear up the memorandums’ and end austerity, Tsipras called a (formally nonbinding) referendum. It was presented as a democratic move against the ultimatum by the European establishment. Following the recommendation of their government, the Greek voters rejected the draft MOU by more than 60%.¹¹³

Immediately after the referendum and despite its clear outcome, Tsipras ignored the popular de facto mandate and signed the MOU, although the prime minister initially rejected this document that violated the electoral pledges of his party.¹¹⁴ Certainly fearful of the dramatic consequences of a ‘Grexit’ for his country in the event of a nonagreement, Tsipras was able to ensure in practice with his signature that Greece would remain in the Eurozone. The more radical wing of SYRIZA vehemently protested that with his ‘somersault’, Tsipras transformed the ‘no’ of the Greek people to a ‘yes’,¹¹⁵ while those supporting the pragmatic turn emphasized the sense of responsibility of the head of government. A SYRIZA MP wrote a few years later: ‘However, the compromise was not just a demagogue’s somersault, it can also be seen as an act of responsibility, in the sense that Weber gives to the ethics of responsibility, as opposed to the rigid ethics of conviction’.¹¹⁶

How did Tsipras himself justify his U-turn? He asserted that he disagreed with the EU program and signed it under great pressure and that he would implement the memorandum in a way that softened its negative social consequences.¹¹⁷ The discursive strategy here consists of claiming that the agreement has been imposed under threat while minimizing the amplitude of the shift.¹¹⁸ Moreover, continuity in discourse served the abovementioned compensation function: Tsipras went as far as to refer to Lenin’s book ‘Left-wing’ Communism: an Infantile Disorder to present compromise as ‘an element of revolutionary tactics’.¹¹⁹

It is hard to say whether such justifications were credible. SYRIZA also continued to present the other major parties as the old and corrupt local establishment that devastated the country, and this moralizing repertoire became dominant to alleviate the trauma caused in public opinion by the compromise that followed the referendum and its policy consequences.¹²⁰ SYRIZA managed to win the general election that followed in September 2015, before the party lost power in 2019 and collapsed in 2023. According to an opinion poll, the reasons for voting SYRIZA in September 2015 were diverse, but a relative majority of respondents (26%) said they did so to give the party another chance:¹²¹ they were therefore forward-looking.

In the case of SYRIZA, its experience in power, which meant submitting to the constraints of ‘Realpolitik’, was accompanied by a series of strategies aimed at making compromise acceptable or turning attention away from it: an interpretation of compromise through the prism of agonism and with a framing of domination; emphasis on the incompatibility between responsibility and intransigence; discursive continuity despite changing practices whose impact was minimized; the pluralization of the discursive repertoire; and the constant reminder of the party’s virtues in relation to its competitors. We will return to these justifications in the conclusion to assess which are typical of a populist world view.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have highlighted four major ideational features of populism that make populists dislike compromises: antagonism, homogeneity, moralism and immediacy. These four properties combine to delegitimize compromises for different but complementary reasons.

Populist objections to compromise overlap only partially with the general objections inventoried by Baume and Papadopoulos.¹²² Among the objections to compromise that were initially singled out, antagonism and moralism are also essential ingredients of populist worldviews. However, the pluralist objection – as defined in the initial typology of objections – is reversed. Populists criticize compromises for undermining people’s political homogeneity, while Baume and Papadopoulos mentioned that compromises may not do justice to pluralism. It appears then that compromises can be criticized from both sides because they undermine either unity or pluralism. The objections based on inequality and inconsistency, which also appear in the initial typology, remain relatively marginal and quite implicit, respectively, in populist discourse. However, when compromises are claimed to denature the popular will, as they are subject to manipulation by the dominant elites, this can be considered a form of vertical inequality, as defined by Baume and Papadopoulos; according to these scholars, such inequalities occur when elites bargain to the detriment of other segments of society that have no access to the negotiating table.¹²³ Furthermore, since populists claim that people speak with one voice, it may be expected that inconsistencies will be avoided in political decisions, but this expectation is not prominent in the populist narrative. Finally, the populist claim that political decision-making should occur in an unmediated way does not emerge in the typology of Baume and Papadopoulos.

Therefore, our study of populism contributes to enriching and refining that typology. The fact that two objections that prima facie appear to be standard – the risk of inequality and especially that of inconsistency – do not constitute core features of populism pleads for the continued application of the mapping of objections to various kinds of narratives that oppose compromises. Since the objections in populist discourse appear interrelated, specific clusters or ‘families’ of objections that display elective affinities should be teased out. Finally, as an objection is reversed and a new objection appears, this constitutes an invitation to complete the initial mapping. Table 1 summarizes our findings.

Table 1. Objections to compromise in populist narratives compared with the original typology of objections by Baume and Papadopoulos (the objections are presented in the original order).

Standard objections to compromises (original typology)	Populist discourse	Degree of similarity	Comments
Anti-relativism	Moralization of politics (purity of the people versus malevolent elites): compromises corrupt the genuine popular will	Relative similarity	Relativism in the initial typology refers to a disrespect for universal values, which is different from the populist objection
Consistency		Implicit	As the people speak with one voice, inconsistencies should not occur
Antagonism	Antagonism between people and elites	Similarity	Finding of typology confirmed
Equality	Vertical inequality	Partial	Elites’ compromises are made at the expense of the interests of the homogeneous people
Pluralism	Anti-pluralism/homogeneity	Inversion	Compromises undermine unity rather than pluralism
Immediacy	Majoritarian and plebiscitary politics	New	Additional objection

At this point, we must remember that the drivers of populists’ resistance to compromise are interdependent. As mentioned earlier, antagonism, as a core defining feature of populism, is an unsurpassable obstacle to compromise, as it entails the irreducibility of conflict. The opposition between the elites and the people is reinforced by the homogeneity of the latter: people are united against those who unduly dominate them, and their unity makes internal compromises purposeless. Moreover, compromises between the antagonistic poles are immoral: the practice itself appears unprincipled, even more so given the malevolence or corruption of the elites. The same reasoning applies to processes that do not genuinely mirror the homogeneous popular will and even more so if these processes lack transparency. In a Rousseauist vein, intermediary bodies and counterpowers lead to the recognition of illegitimate claims and thereby denature the will of the people to the benefit of particular interests: immediacy is a guarantor of righteousness.

Rostbøll sees populism and compromise as ‘rival forms of second-order political thinking and democratic ideologies’:¹²⁴ they are incompatible ways of thinking about how to make decisions with fellow citizens with whom we disagree on policy choices because they have different first-order (substantial) norms, interests and identities. The issue at stake is whether the others are treated as enemies on whom we seek to impose our views or as fellow citizens whom we owe concessions. In such a reading, disagreement is primarily about decision-making procedures and the underlying substantive norms that guide them.¹²⁵ Our study suggests that aspects of process and of outcome may be closely intertwined:¹²⁶ moralization relates both to procedures and to outcomes that are considered unacceptable, and the claim for decisional immediacy implies both procedural criticism and concerns about the distortion of the popular will.

Antagonism, unity, moralism and decisional immediacy are major ingredients of populist discourse that are familiar to students of the phenomenon. Our paper highlights how each feature rules out compromises and how they concur to delegitimize compromises in the populist framing of politics. This particular combination of reasons to object compromises makes the logic of populist reluctance to compromise distinctive. By identifying such a sui generis combination, we believe that we offer a valuable contribution to the theorization of populist disdain for compromise and that our approach advances the understanding of the ideational aspect of the phenomenon.

It may certainly be argued that populist narratives against compromises (also) serve strategic purposes: immediacy may serve to justify the power of a leader; polarization against the elite not only helps mobilize vast segments of the electorate but also defines the boundaries of the in-group that deserves to receive spoils related to incumbency, which are by definition scarce. However, for the purpose of our study, we do not think that whether disdain for compromises is deeply anchored in beliefs or purely instrumental is significant. It is indeed challenging to capture the actors’ true motivations, and the ideational approach does not solve that issue.

From this point of view, it is also difficult to determine whether actors adhere to the justifications of compromises that they make against their professed principles and values, or whether we are dealing with mere rhetorical strategies. Having said that, to further develop the ‘inclusion-moderation’ thesis, it would be useful to make a systematic inventory of the justifications of compromises that populists produce. We see the case study presented here as a first step in this direction. The agreement signed by Tsipras was justified by him in terms of domination (by foreign powers rather than by domestic elites), and he interpreted it through an agonistic lens. Moreover, the demonization of the other parties continued to be part of the moralist repertoire. Here, the justifications that populists offer when they make compromises resonate with the ideological sources of populist disdain for compromise. Other justifications, however, do not stem from the ideational features of populism, such as those that are typical of the ‘dirty hands’ scenario, which legitimizes pragmatism through consequentialist reasoning: abandoning principles is responsible behavior when it is necessary to preserve (or improve) the collective good¹²⁷; nor are (partial) discursive continuity and the minimization of the impact of compromises to appease purists typically populist. Further research is needed to establish a more robust empirical distinction between any justifications for compromise that are closely associated with populist worldviews and those that emerge more generally when pragmatists violate their ideological commitments.

Acknowledgments

For research assistance, we are grateful to Baris Can Kastas and to Augusto Sperb Machado. Previous versions of this paper were presented at the ECPR general conference, University of Innsbruck, 22–26 August 2022, at the UPCiDe internal seminar, University of Lausanne, 28 November 2022, and at the Political Theory Group of the Swiss Political Science Association, University of Basel, 3 February 2023. We thank the participants to those events for their very helpful exchanges on the topic. We are also grateful to the journal's anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under Grant 100017_200905.

Notes

1. See C. Mudde, ‘Populism: an ideational approach’, in C. R. Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. O. Espejo, and P. Ostiguy (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Populism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 27–47; K. A. Hawkins, R. Carlin, L. Littvay, and C. R. Kaltwasser, The Ideational Approach to Populism: Concept, Theory, and Analysis (London: Routledge, 2019).

2. G. Katsambekis, ‘Constructing “the people” of populism: a critique of the ideational approach from a discursive perspective’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 27 (2022), p. 58.

3. M. Canovan, ‘Taking politics to the people: populism as the ideology of democracy’, in Y. Mény and Y. Surel (Eds.) Democracies and the Populist Challenge (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 34; K. Abts and S. Rummens, ‘Populism versus democracy’, Political Studies, 55 (2007), p. 408; N. Urbinati, ‘The populist phenomenon’, Raisons Politiques, 51 (2013), p. 146; N. Urbinati, ‘Populism and the principle of majority’, in Kaltwasser et al. (Eds.), op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 571; T. S. Pappas, Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 213.

4. C. Mudde, ‘Populism’, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 29.

5. See C. Mudde and C. R. Kaltwasser, ‘Populism’, in M. Freeden and M. Stears (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 493–512. There is a relative consensus in the literature that populism is a ‘thin’ ideology, with the adjective denoting ‘those ideologies whose morphology, whose conceptual patterns and arrangements, were insufficient to contain the comprehensive solutions for the full spectrum of sociopolitical problems that the grand ideological families have customarily sought to provide’: M. Freeden, ‘After the Brexit referendum: revisiting populism as an ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 22 (2017), p. 2. As such, populism is ‘unable to stand alone as a practical political ideology’: B. Stanley, ‘The thin ideology of populism’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 13 (2008), p. 95. Therefore, populism almost always cohabits with other ideological features (frequently with nationalism and nativism but also with social progressivism and left-leaning egalitarianism). As noted by Stanley (ibid, p. 99), these seemingly contradictory empirical manifestations of populism do not preclude it from being identified as a distinct ideology; see, however, Freeden, who has ‘considerable doubts about the applicability of thin-centrism to populism’ and refers to the latter as a ‘phantom’ ideology: Freeden, ibid, p. 3, 10. Aslanidis argues that, given populism’s lack of coherence, it is wrong to consider it even a ‘thin’ ideology: P. Aslanidis, ‘Is populism an ideology? A refutation and a new perspective’, Political Studies, 64 (2016), pp. 88–104. Adapting Laclau’s work, Aslanidis prefers to treat populism as a discursive frame: see E. Laclau, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (London: Verso, 1985). However, the disagreements between the ideological and the discursive approach to populism should not be exaggerated: both agree on the antagonism between ‘the people’ and the ‘elite’ as a key feature of populism; see Katsambekis, ‘Constructing “the people” of populism’, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 59. Relatedly, we think that proponents of the ideational approach would not disagree that ‘populist discursive elements are scattered across the ideological spectrum and that their intensity varies with time’ (Aslanidis, ibid, p. 95) or that organizations exhibit different ‘grades’ of populism (Katsambekis, ibid, p. 59).

6. C. F. Rostbøll, ‘Second-order political thinking: compromise versus populism’, Political Studies, 69 (2021), pp. 559–576.

7. Aslanidis summarizes in a table all (17) works using content analysis of populist discourses, mostly quantitative but with different methodologies and textual data sources: see P. Aslanidis, ‘Measuring populist discourse with semantic text analysis: An application on grassroots populist mobilization’, Quality & Quantity, 52 (2018), pp. 1246–1247. Our review of this literature showed that compromise remains a neglected topic, and this is also true for more recent works, such as L. Bernhard and H. Kriesi, ‘Populism in election times: A comparative analysis of 11 countries in Western Europe’, West European Politics, 42 (2019), pp. 1188–1208; N. Ernst et al. (2019), ‘Favorable opportunity structures for populist communication: Comparing different types of politicians and issues in social media, television and the press’, International Journal of Press/Politics, 24 (2019), pp. 165–188; or J. Schwörer, and M. Koß, ‘”Void” Democrats? The Populist Notion of “Democracy” in action’, Party Politics, online view (2023). In their study of populist discourse in Slovakia, K. Deegan-Krause and T. Haughton do refer to the rejection, futility or even counter-productivity of cooperation or compromise by populists, but not on the basis of a systematic discourse analysis: see K. Deegan-Krause and T. Haughton, ‘Toward a more useful conceptualization of populism: types and degrees of populist appeals in the case of Slovakia’, Politics & Policy 37 (2009), pp. 821–841. In their framing analysis, Caiani and della Porta only tangentially mention statements about ‘cartel’ politicians or parties: see M. Caiani and D. della Porta, ‘The elitist populism of the extreme right: a frame analysis of extreme right-wing discourses in Italy and Germany’, Acta Politica, 46 (2011), pp. 180–202. Schwörer and Thomeczek explicitly test the thesis of populists’ moderation in government, but they do not focus on discursive changes with regards to compromising: see J. Schwörer, ‘Less populist in power? Online communication of populist parties in coalition governments’ Government & Opposition, 57 (2022), pp. 467–489 and J.P. Thomeczek, ‘Moderate in power, populist in opposition? Die Linke’s populist communication in the German states’, Journal of Political Ideologies, online view (2023), pp. 1–20.

8. See for example R. Bellamy, ‘Democracy, compromise and the representation paradox: Coalition government and political integrity’, Government and Opposition, 47 (2012), pp. 448–449. On the discussion of the value of compromises, see, among others, S.C. May, ‘Moral compromise, civic friendship, and political reconciliation’, Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy, 14 (2011), pp. 581–602; C. Lepora, ‘On compromise and being compromised’, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 20 (2012), pp. 1–22; P. van Parijs ‘What makes a good compromise?, Government and Opposition, 47 (2012), pp. 466–480; P. Jones and O’Flynn, ‘Can a compromise be fair?’, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 12 (2013), pp. 115–135; D. Weinstock, ‘On the possibility of principled moral compromise’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 16 (2013), pp. 537–556; F. Wendt, ‘In defense of unfair compromises’, Philosophical Studies, 176 (2019), pp. 2855–2875.

9. In short, the thesis suggests that populist parties have to make compromises when they come to power, especially as part of coalition governments: see among others T. Akkerman, S. de Lange, and M. Rooduijn M (Eds), Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe: Into the Mainstream? (London: Routledge, 2016). Bernhard refines the thesis by distinguishing the role of managerial as opposed to traditional leadership when populists come to power: L. Bernhard, ‘Revisiting the inclusion-moderation thesis on radical right populism: Does party leadership matter?’, Politics and Government, 8 (2020), pp. 206–218.

10. S. Baume and Y. Papadopoulos, ‘Against compromise in democracy? A plea for a fine‐grained assessment’, Constellations, 29 (2022), pp. 475–491.

11. On the anti-relativist objection, see C. Menkel-Meadow, ‘Ethics of compromise’, in A. Farazmand (Ed.) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance (Cham, CH: Springer International Publishing, 2016), p. 3; on the integrity objection, see R. Dworkin, Law’s Empire (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986).

12. See A. Ruser and A. Machin, Against Political Compromise: Sustaining Democratic Debate (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 12–28, 44.

13. See C. Mouffe, ‘The radical centre: a politics without adversary’, Soundings, 9 (1998), pp. 11–23.

14. On these differences see J.P. Thomeczek, ‘Moderate in power, populist in opposition?, op. cit. , Ref. 7, p. 3. The author also includes authoritarianism as a characteristic of far-right ideology, but this probably needs some qualification as right-wing populist parties are not necessarily authoritarian (especially in consociational polities such as in Switzerland and the Netherlands), while left-wing populists (especially in Latin American presidential systems) may also display authoritarian traits. See P. Ostiguy and M.E. Casullo, ‘Left versus right populism: Antagonism and the Social Other’, paper presented at the 67th PSA Annual International Conference, Glasgow, UK, 10–12 April 2017, and Mudde’s and Kaltwasser’s distinction between exclusionary (mostly European) and inclusionary (mostly Latin American) populism: C. Mudde and C.R. Kaltwasser, ‘Exclusionary v. inclusionary populism: Comparing contemporary Europe and Latin America’, Government & Opposition, 48 (2012), pp. 147–174.

15. See M. Canovan, ‘Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of democracy’, Political Studies, 47 (1999), p. 5. Left-wing populist PASOK in Greece opposed the elites to the ‘non-privileged’ people ‘that constitute the quasi-totality of society, presented under the form of an undivided social body’: Y. Papadopoulos, Dynamique du discours politique et conquête du pouvoir. Le cas du PASOK (Mouvement socialiste panhellénique): 1974–1981 (Bern, P. Lang, 1989), p. 284. Quotations originally in a language other than English have been translated by the authors and their research team.

16. Ostiguy and Casullo distinguish between ‘upward punching’ and ‘downward punching’ populisms, depending on who is to blame: see Ostiguy and Casullo, ‘Left versus right populism’ op.cit., Ref. 14, p. 8. Although the distinction is analytically useful, ‘downward punching’ populisms are also ‘upward punching’ as they tend to be critical of elites as well.

17. C. Mudde, ‘The populist Zeitgeist’, Government and Opposition, 39 (2004), p. 546.

18. J. Mansbridge and S. Macedo, ‘Populism and democratic theory’, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 15 (2019), p. 60.

19. J.-W. Müller, What is Populism? (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), p. 4.

20. M. Çinar and S. Çagkan Sayin, ‘Reproducing the paradigm of democracy in Turkey: Parochial democratization in the decade of Justice and Development Party’, Turkish Studies, 15 (2014), p. 376. On the populism of Erdoğan and of his party, see also S.E. Aytaç and E. Elçi (2019), ‘Populism in Turkey’, in D. Stockemer (ed.), Populism Around the World (Cham: Springer, 2019), pp. 89–108; A. Castaldo, ‘Populism and competitive authoritarianism in Turkey’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 18 (2018), pp. 467–487 and T. Erçetin and E. Erdoğan, ‘How Turkey’s repetitive elections affected the populist tone in the discourses of the Justice and Development Party leaders’, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 44 (2018), pp. 382–398. On Erdoğan’s aversion to compromise see also A. Ş. Görener and M.Ş. Ucal, ‘The personality and leadership style of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Implications for Turkish foreign policy’, Turkish Studies, 12 (2011), p. 370 and p. 376.

21. P. Jones, and I. O’Flynn, ‘Can a compromise be fair?’, op.cit, Ref. 8, p. 120.

22. ibidem.

23. Mansbridge and Macedo, ‘Populism and democratic theory’, op. cit., Ref. 18, p. 60.

24. C. M. Weible and D. Nohrstedt, ‘The advocacy coalition framework: coalitions, learning, and policy change’, in E. Araral, S. Fritzen, M. Howlett, M. Ramesh, and X. Wu (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Public Policy (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 125–137.

25. P. Sabatier, S. Hunter, and S. McLaughlin, ‘The devil shift: perceptions and misperceptions of opponents’, Western Political Quarterly, 40 (1987), pp. 449–476.

26. Laclau, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, op. cit., Ref. 5

27. Y. Stavrakakis, ‘Antinomies of formalism: Laclau’s theory of populism and the lessons from religious populism in Greece’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 9 (2004), p. 257.

28. H. Kelsen, The Essence and Value of Democracy, N. Urbinati and C. Invernizzi Accettti (Eds.), original edition 1929 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), p. 29.

29. H. Kelsen, Allgemeine Staatslehre (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1925), p. 324.

30. See H. Petersen and H. Hecker, ‘A critique of left-wing populism: critical materialist and social-psychological perspectives’, in M. Oswald (Ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Populism (Cham, CH: Springer International Publishing, 2022), pp. 85–100.

31. See Mouffe, ‘The Radical Centre’, op. cit., Ref. 13, p. 13.

32. C. Mouffe, ‘Democratic politics and conflict: An agonistic approach’, Política Común, 9 (2016), p. 3.

33. Mouffe, ibid, p. 4.

34. Westphal argues, however, that compromises can be useful even within an agonistic approach, when ‘counterhegemonic actors are in fact capable of building alliances that are powerful enough to decide the political struggle for hegemony in their favor’: M. Westphal, ‘Agonistic compromise’, in S. Baume and S. Novak (Eds.) Compromises in Democracy (Cham, CH: Springer International Publishing, 2020), p. 106.

35. P.-A. Taguieff, ‘La rhétorique du national-populisme: les règles élémentaires de la propagande xénophobe’, Mots, 9 (1984), pp.125–126.

36. Mansbridge and Macedo, ‘Populism and democratic theory’, op. cit., Ref. 18, p. 65.

37. A. Krasteva and G. Lazaridis, ‘Far right. Populist ideology, “othering” and youth’, in M. Ranieri (Ed.) Populism, Media and Education (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 9–25.

38. G. Rico, M. Guinjoan, and E. Anduiza, ‘The emotional underpinnings of populism: how anger and fear affect populist attitudes’, Swiss Political Science Review, 23 (2017), pp. 444–461.

39. Katsambekis finds the homogeneity assumption as well as moralism (see below) problematic because they would imply that populism is a danger for democracies. He therefore recommends dropping ‘the homogeneity and morality theses as defining elements of populism’: Katsambekis, ‘Constructing “the people” of populism’, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 69. We do not make any normative inferences in our paper but only explain why the assumption of the homogeneity of the people and moralism make compromises respectively useless and blameworthy in the eyes of populists. Moreover, Katsambekis (ibid, p. 54) rightly argues that moralism is not specific to populism; see also S. Kim, ‘Taking stock of the field of populism research: are ideational approaches “moralistic” and post-foundational discursive approaches “normative”?’ Politics, 42 (2022), pp. 492–504. This argument, however, does not render irrelevant the inclusion of moralism among the key populist features. Finally, the discursive approach inspired by Laclau has its own normative bias: it tends to be more positive about left-wing populism than about right-wing populism.

40. ‘[Schmitt’s] conception of representation as a form of antiliberal authorization that reconstructs the authority of the state against partisan divisions is certainly inspirational for a populist, salvific leader’: N. Urbinati, Me the People: How Populism Transforms Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), p. 119. See also L. Vinx, ‘Carl Schmitt on the limits of direct democracy’, History of Political Thought, 42 (2021), pp. 157–183.

41. ‘Milletin iradesinden asla taviz vermeyeceğiz’, Anadolu Ajansı (2015), https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/turkiye/milletin-iradesinden-asla-taviz-vermeyecegiz/79215 (accessed 12 March, 2024). Erdoğan precisely sees elites as ‘hijackers’ of the national will: E. Erdoğan, T. Erçetin, and J.P. Thomeczek, How the populist Zeitgeist controls the Turkish electoral campaign 2018 (Essay published in Regierungsforschung.de), p. 4.

42. Çinar and Çagkan Sayin, ‘Reproducing the paradigm of democracy in Turkey’, op. cit., Ref. 20, p. 367.

43. ibid, p. 376.

44. B. Crick, ‘Populism, politics and democracy’, Democratization, 12 (2005), p. 631.

45. Mudde, ‘Populism’, op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 34–35.

46. Pappas, Populism and Liberal Democracy, op. cit., Ref. 3, Chapter 1.

47. V. Ellenbroek, M. J. Meijers, and A. Krouwel, ‘Populist but pluralist? Populist attitudes and preferences for political pluralism in parliament and government’, Parliamentary Affairs, 76 (2023), p. 128.

48. This is less true for left-wing populism (see Katsambekis, ‘Constructing “the people” of populism’, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 60), but even left populism sees the elite as an illegitimate minority (the ‘few’ or the ‘haves’).

49. C. Mudde, Are Populists Friends or Foes of Constitutionalism? Policy brief, The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society (Oxford: Oxford University, 2013), p. 3.

50. ‘Mutabakatın yeri parlamentodur’, Anadolu Ajansı (2015), https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/turkiye/mutabakatin-yeri-parlamentodur/25324 (accessed 12 March, 2024).

51. H. Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State, original edition 1945 (Clark, NJ: The Law Book Exchange, 2007), p. 288.

52. R. Bellamy, ‘Majority rule, compromise and the democratic legitimacy of referendums’, Swiss Political Science Review, 24 (2018), p. 318; see also P. Overeem, ‘Compromise and majority rule: how their dynamic affects democracy’, in S. Baume and S. Novak (Eds.) Compromises in Democracy (Cham, CH: Palgrave/MacMillan, 2020), p. 53.

53. C. Mudde, ‘Populism in Europe: an illiberal democratic response to undemocratic liberalism’, Government and Opposition, 56 (2021), p. 581.

54. C. Schmitt, ‘The guardian of the constitution’, in The Guardian of the Constitution: Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt on the Limits of Constitutional Law, edited and translated by Lars Vinx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 143. See also S. Baume, ‘Carl Schmitt’s multifaceted rejection of political compromises’, The Review of Politics, (2024), online view.

55. C. Schmitt, ‘State ethics and the pluralist state’, in A. J. Jacobson and B. Schlink (Eds.) Weimar: A Jurisprudence of Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 303.

56. Schmitt, ‘The guardian of the constitution’, op. cit., Ref. 54, p. 142.

57. P. J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), p. 29.

58. Notably in A. Vermeule, ‘Our Schmittian Administrative Law’, Harvard Law Review, 122 (2009), pp. 1095–1149. See D. Dyzenhaus, ‘Schmitten in the USA’, Verfassungsblog (April 4, 2020), verfassungsblog.de/schmitten-in-the-usa/ (accessed 28 February, 2024).

59. A. Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022).

60. Vermeule, ibid., p. 33, original emphasis.

61. Vermeule, ibid, p. 12.

62. Vermeule, ibid, p. 40. On Vermeule’s constitutionalism, see also F. Wolkenstein, ‘Hans Kelsen on political Catholicism and Christian Democracy’, European Journal of Political Theory, (2023), online view, pp. 15–16.

63. Vermeule speaks of ‘necessary’ compromises that may be adversely affected by transparency and public deliberation: A. Vermeule, Mechanisms of Democracy: Institutional Design Writ Small (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 196.

64. Morality is seen by Mudde as ‘the essence of the populist division’: Mudde, ‘Populism’, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 29. In line with Mansbridge and Macedo, we see antagonism as the core characteristic of populism, and we tend to see moralism, following Pappas, as a secondary, perhaps also variable, property of populism. See Mansbridge and Macedo, ‘Populism and democratic theory’, op. cit., Ref. 18; Pappas, Populism and Liberal Democracy, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 37–38.

65. ‘Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: Milletin asli değerlerinden, kutsallarından taviz vermeyeceğiz’, TRT Haber (2023), https://www.trthaber.com/haber/gundem/cumhurbaskani-erdogan-milletin-asli-degerlerinden-kutsallarindan-taviz-vermeyecegiz-761738.html (accessed 12 March, 2024).

66. Pappas, Populism and Liberal Democracy, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 218.

67. Mansbridge and Macedo, ‘Populism and democratic theory’, op. cit., Ref. 18, pp. 65-66.

68. Mudde, ‘The populist Zeitgeist’, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 544, original emphasis.

69. Rostbøll, ‘Second-order political thinking’, op. cit., Ref. 6, p. 562.

70. See L. J. Skitka, C. W. Bauman, and E. G. Sargis, ‘Moral conviction: another contributor to attitude strength or something more?’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88 (2005), pp. 895–917; T. A. Kreps, K. Laurin, and A. C. Merritt, ‘Hypocritical flip-flop, or courageous evolution? When leaders change their moral minds’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113 (2017), pp. 730–752; T. J. Ryan, ‘No compromise: political consequences of moralized attitudes’, American Journal of Political Science, 61 (2017), pp. 409–423.

71. Kreps, Laurin, and Merritt, ibid.

72. Ryan, ‘No compromise’, op. cit., Ref. 70.

73. M. Saward, The Representative Claim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 107; see also F. R. Ankersmit, Political Representation (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 98–99. Vermeule asserts that ‘all legislation is necessarily founded on some substantive conception of morality, and that the promotion of morality is a core and legitimate function of authority’: Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism, op. cit., Ref. 59, p 40.

74. W. A. Galston, ‘The populist challenge to liberal democracy’, Journal of Democracy, 29 (2018), p. 13.

75. S. E. Anderson, M. Potoski, A. DeGolia, D. Gromet, and D. Sherman, ‘Mobilization, polarization, and compromise: the effect of political moralizing on climate change politics’, Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC., August 28–30, 2014, p. 5.

76. We may refer here to the epigraph to Morley’s book On Compromise: ‘It makes all the difference in the world whether we put Truth in the first place or in the second place’: J. Morley, On Compromise, original edition 1886 (London: Macmillan, 1908).

77. T. van Willigenburg, ‘Moral compromises, moral integrity and the indeterminacy of value rankings’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 3 (2000), pp. 385–404. See also D. M. Dudzinski, ‘Integrity: principled coherence, virtue, or both?’ The Journal of Value Inquiry, 38 (2004), pp. 299–313.

78. Dworkin, Law’s Empire, op.cit., Ref. 11.

79. Canovan, ‘Trust the people!’, op.cit. , Ref. 15, p. 10.

80. S. Baume and S. Novak, ‘Compromise and publicity in democracy: an ambiguous relationship’, in S. Baume and S. Novak (Eds.) Compromises in Democracy (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020), pp. 69–94.

81. Freeden, ‘After the Brexit referendum’, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 8.

82. Canovan, ‘Trust the people!’, op. cit., Ref. 15, p. 6.

83. ‘O caminho da prosperidade: proposta de plano de governo’ https://divulgacandcontas.tse.jus.br/candidaturas/oficial/2018/BR/BR/2022802018/280000614517/proposta_1534284632231.pdf (accessed 5 April, 2024), p. 2.

84. Jornal O Globo, ‘Bolsonaro discursa em ato com pedidos de intervenção militar e aglomeração de manifestantes’, YouTube (April 19, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=553D8VHI8Mo (accessed 11 March, 2024). On Bolsonaro’s populism see W. Hunter and T.J. Power, ‘Bolsonaro and Brazil’s illiberal backlash’, Journal of Democracy, 30 (2019), pp. 68–82 and F. Louault, ‘Populism and authoritarian drift: the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’, in A. Dieckhoff, C. Jaffrelot, and E. Massicard (Eds.), Contemporary Populists in Power (Cham: Springer, 2022), pp. 93–111.

85. ‘Erdoğan: Demirtaş ve Öcalan’ı kurtarmaktan bahsediyorlar’, Rûdaw (2023), https://www.rudaw.net/turkish/middleeast/turkey/300320232 (accessed 11 March, 2024).

86. Pappas, Populism and Liberal Democracy, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 45.

87. Mansbridge and Macedo, ‘Populism and democratic theory’, op. cit., Ref. 18, p. 64.

88. Urbinati, Me the People, op. cit., Ref. 40, p. 14.

89. C. Mudde and C. R. Kaltwasser, Populism: A Very Short Introduction (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 17.

90. K. Weyland, ‘Clarifying a contested concept: populism in the study of Latin American politics’, Comparative Politics, 34 (2001), p. 14.

91. ‘Yönetim Sistemimizi Ülkemizin ve Milletimizin Geleceği için Değiştiriyoruz’, Presidency of the Republic of Turkey (2017), https://www.tccb.gov.tr/haberler/410/73466/yonetim-sistemimizi-ulkemizin-ve-milletimizin-gelecegi-icin-degistiriyoruz (accessed 12 March, 2024).

92. C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, original edition 1931 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2016, 5^th edition), p. 159

93. Schmitt, ibid., p. 63.

94. Stanley, ‘The thin ideology’, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 104–105.

95. Urbinati, ‘Populism and the principle of majority’, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 571.

96. J. S. Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic Reform (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).

97. J. Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, la transparence et l’obstacle (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), p. 310.

98. Starobinski, ibid, pp. 37–38.

99. ‘Populist political theorists emphasize also the political directness, sincerity, and transparency of ordinary people versus the indirection and opacity of representative institutions; they oppose the “purity” of political purpose of the many against the bargaining games played by the politicians, who are part of the few and the elite’: Urbinati, ‘Populism and the principle of majority’, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 571.

100. Müller, What is Populism? op. cit., Ref. 19, p. 37.

101. See the discussion in J.P. Thomeczek, ‘Moderate in power, populist in opposition?’, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 3–5 and the four scenarios for populist parties in government: M. Caiani and P. Graziano, ‘The three faces of populism in power: polity, policies and politics’, Government and Opposition, 57 (2022), pp. 569–588.

102. See Y. Papadopoulos, Democracy in Crisis? Policy, Governance and Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 234–240.

103. Brunsson, Nils, The Consequences of Decision-Making (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 111–134.

104. Y. Stavrakakis and G. Katsambekis (2014), ‘Left-wing populism in the European periphery: the case of SYRIZA’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 19 (2014), pp. 119–142; G. Katsambekis, ‘The populist radical left in Greece. Syriza in opposition and in power’, in G. Katsambekis and A. Kioupkiolis (Eds.), The Populist Radical Left in Europe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), pp. 21–46.

105. J.P. Thomeczek, ‘Moderate in power, populist in opposition?’, op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 5, 13.

106. The literal translation of ‘kolotoumba’ is ‘somersault’: see G. Tsebelis, ‘How can we keep direct democracy and avoid “kolotoumba”’, Homo Oeconomicus, 35 (2018), pp. 81–90.

107. U. Beck, ‘The cosmopolitan condition: why methodological nationalism fails’, Theory, Culture & Society, 24 (2007), pp. 286–290.

108. P. Aslanidis and C. Rovira Kaltwasser, ‘Dealing with populists in government: The SYRIZA-ANEL Coalition in Greece’, Democratization, 23 (2016), p. 1080.

109. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-31508208 (accessed 1 April, 2024).

110. Katsambekis, ‘The populist radical left in Greece’, op. cit., Ref. 104, p. 35.

111. Aslanidis and Kaltwasser, op. cit., Ref. 108, p. 1080.

112. ‘Τσίπρας: Το 2015 είχαμε αυταπάτες’, Τα Νέα, 15th September 2019. https://www.tanea.gr/2019/09/15/politics/antipoliteysi/kamia-aytokritiki-tsipra-gia-ti-diakyvernisi-syriza/ (accessed 27 March, 2024).

113. See Tsebelis’s ‘analytical narrative’ of the Greek crisis: G. Tsebelis, ‘Lessons from the Greek crisis’, Journal of European Public Policy, 23 (2016), pp. 25–41.

114. A. Crespy and S. Ladi, ‘In the name of “the people”? Popular sovereignty and the 2015 Greek referendum’, Journal of European Integration, 41 (2019), pp. 871–885.

115. Katsambekis, ‘The populist radical left in Greece’, op. cit., Ref. 104, p. 37.

116. N. Xydakis, ‘Το δικαίωμα και το καθήκον να μιλώ: 2015–2019’, efsyn.gr, 24th March 2024. https://www.efsyn.gr/nisides/ena-blemma/427004_dikaioma-kai-kathikon-na-milo-2015–2019 (accessed 28 March, 2024).

117. Katsambekis, ‘The populist radical left in Greece’, op. cit., Ref. 104, p. 35; Tsebelis, ‘Lessons from the Greek crisis’, op. cit., Ref. 113, p. 33.

118. Jair Bolsonaro initially rejected compromises with the old clientelist parties, but then had to compromise with them and appoint party candidates in exchange for support in Congress to avoid impeachment. He sought to reassure his voters by emphasizing the existence of safeguards, thus downplaying the impact of these compromises. See I. Soares, ‘Cargos foram dados, sim’, diz Bolsonaro sobre arranjo com Centrão’, Correio Braziliense, 11^th April 2022, sec. Política.

https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/politica/2022/04/4999796-cargos-foram-dados-sim-diz-bolsonaro-sobre-arranjo-com-centrao.html (accessed 12 March, 2024).

119. Interview to Sto kokkino, a radio station close to SYRIZA: https://jacobin.com/2015/08/greece-memorandum-austerity-coup-tsipras-syriza-interview/ (accessed 1 April, 2024).

120. Katsambekis, ‘The populist radical left in Greece’, op. cit., Ref. 104, pp. 37–38.

121. https://www.publicissue.gr/criterion-2015/ (accessed 6 April, 2024).

122. Baume and Papadopoulos, ‘Against compromise in democracy?’ op. cit., Ref. 10.

123. Baume and Papadopoulos, ibid, pp. 481–482.

124. Rostbøll, ‘Second-order political thinking’, op. cit., Ref. 6, p. 560.

125. Rostbøll, ibid., p. 561.

126. On the theoretical distinction between procedural and end-state compromises with regards to their fairness see Jones and Flynn, ‘Can a compromise be fair?’, op. cit., Ref. 8, pp. 122–128.

127. S. Dovi, ‘Guilt and the problem of dirty hands’, Constellations, 12 (2005), pp. 128–146.