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Populism



 
 
Populism is a discourse which supports "the people" versus "the elites." Populism may involve either a philosophy urging social and political system changes and/or a rhetorical style deployed by members of political or social movements competing for advantage within the existing party system.

emic and scholarly definitions of populism vary widely and, among both journalists and scholars, the term is often employed in loose, inconsistent and undefined ways to denote appeals to ‘the people’, ‘demagogy
Demagogy

Demagogy refers to a political strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the popular prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public ? typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using Nationalism or Populism themes....
’ and ‘catch-all
Big tent

In politics, a big tent party or catch-all party is a political party seeking to attract people with diverse viewpoints. The party does not require adherence to some ideology as a criterion for membership....
’ politics or as a receptacle for new types of parties whose classification observers are unsure of.






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Populism is a discourse which supports "the people" versus "the elites." Populism may involve either a philosophy urging social and political system changes and/or a rhetorical style deployed by members of political or social movements competing for advantage within the existing party system.

Academic definitions

Academic and scholarly definitions of populism vary widely and, among both journalists and scholars, the term is often employed in loose, inconsistent and undefined ways to denote appeals to ‘the people’, ‘demagogy
Demagogy

Demagogy refers to a political strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the popular prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public ? typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using Nationalism or Populism themes....
’ and ‘catch-all
Big tent

In politics, a big tent party or catch-all party is a political party seeking to attract people with diverse viewpoints. The party does not require adherence to some ideology as a criterion for membership....
’ politics or as a receptacle for new types of parties whose classification observers are unsure of. Another factor held to diminish the value of ‘populism’ in some societies is that, as Margaret Canovan notes in her 1981 study Populism, unlike labels such as ‘conservative
Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social term whose meaning has changed in different countries and time periods, but which usually indicates support for the status quo or the status quo ante....
’ or ‘socialist’, the meanings of which have been ‘chiefly dictated by their adherents’, contemporary populists rarely call themselves ‘populists’ and usually reject the term when it is applied to them by others . Some exceptions to this pattern of pejorative usage exist, notably in the United States, but it appears likely that this is due to the memories and traditions of earlier democratic movements (e.g. farmers' movements, New Deal
New Deal

The New Deal was the name that United States President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a sequence of central economic planning and economic stimulus programs he initiated between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving aid to the unemployed, reform of business and financial practices, and recovery of the Economy of the Unite...
 reform movements, and the civil rights movement) that were often called and called themselves populist or whether this is because of linguistic confusions of populism with terms such as "popular" .

In recent years, due to the heightened attention on populism in the academic world, scholars have made advances in defining the term in ways which can be profitably employed in research and help to separate between movements which are populist and those which simply borrow from populism. One of the latest of these is the definition by Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell who, in their volume Twenty-First Century Populism, define populism as pitting "a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice" . Rather than viewing populism in terms of specific social bases, economic programmes, issues or electorates, as discussions of right-wing populism have tended to do, this conception of populism seems to belong more to the tradition of scholars such as Ernesto Laclau, Pierre-Andre Taguieff , Yves Meny and Yves Surel who have all sought to focus on populism per se, rather than simply as an appendage of other ideologies.

Populism has also been examined as a rhetorical style; as such, the term "populist" may be applied to proponents of widely varying political philosophies
Political philosophy

Political philosophy is the study of questions about the city, government, politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what makes a The purpose of government, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what t...
. Leaders of populist movements in recent decades have claimed to be on both the left
Left-wing politics

In politics, left-wing, leftist, and the Left are terms applied to Social progressivism and Egalitarianism positions. Originally, during the French Revolution, left-wing referred to seating arrangements in parliament; those who sat on the left opposed the monarchy and supported Political radicalism reform....
 and the right
Right-wing politics

In politics, right-wing, rightist and the Right are terms applied to Conservatism and reactionary positions. Originally, during the French Revolution, right-wing referred to seating arrangements in parliament; those who sat on the right supported the monarchy and aristocracy....
 of the political spectrum
Political spectrum

A political spectrum is a way of modeling different politics positions by placing them upon one or more geometry coordinate axis symbolizing independent political dimensions....
, while some populists claim to be neither "left wing," nor "centrist
Centrism

In politics, centrism usually refers to the political idea of promoting moderate policies which land in the middle between different political extremes....
" nor "right wing."

A third group of recent scholars beginning with Lawrence Goodwyn’s Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America argues that populism is a “movement politics” of organizing for popular empowerment or civic agency -- the capacities of ordinary people to be architects and agents of their lives, shapers of their communities and the larger world, and collaborators with others from diverse backgrounds on common challenges . This organizing for civic agency necessarily includes many elements beyond formal political parties such as cooperatives, community organizations, trade unions, and popular adult educational and cultural activity. Scholars writing about European populist movements in this vein have described connections between populism and Scandinavian folk schools or folkbildning. Harry Boyte and other scholars in this tradition have traced connections between the populist farmers’ movement of the late nineteenth century, the “popular front” movement of the New Deal
New Deal

The New Deal was the name that United States President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a sequence of central economic planning and economic stimulus programs he initiated between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving aid to the unemployed, reform of business and financial practices, and recovery of the Economy of the Unite...
, the Southern civil rights
Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights ensuring things such as the protection of peoples' physical integrity; procedural fairness in law; protection from discrimination based on sexism, religious intolerance, Racism, Homophobia, etc; individual freedom of freedom of belief, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom...
 movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and recent examples of community organizing descended from the self-declared populist Saul Alinsky
Saul Alinsky

Saul David Alinsky was an American Community organizing and Writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern Community organizing in America, the political practice of organizing communities to act in common self-interest....
. Such scholars also argue that intellectual and scholarly criticism of populism is often rooted in "Enlightenment rationalism" and a growing separation of professional and intellectual classes from the culture and lives of common people.

Leaders of populist movements have most often attempted to counter what they consider undue corporate
Corporation

A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that form it. It is a legal entity owned by individual stockholders. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate ....
 power, as well as the prevalence of corruption in political leadership. Additionally, populists typically work to appeal to the lower income constituencies of the electorate - in their words, "putting people first" - with the eventual goals of "building a cooperative commonwealth
Commonwealth

The England noun commonwealth dates from the fifteenth century. The original phrase "common-wealth" or "the common weal" comes from the old meaning of "wealth," which is "well-being." The term literally meant "common well-being." Thus commonwealth originally meant a state or nation-state governed for the common good as opposed to an autho...
."

By its very nature, Populism incorporates anti-regime politics at a time when it asserts it is due. Because populism motivates people to oppose a ruling class, it has sometimes been maligned and used as a tool by some regimes in combination with nationalism
Nationalism

Nationalism refers to an ideology, a feeling, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. While there is significant debate over the historical origins of nations, nearly all Expert accept that nationalism, at least as an ideology and social movement, is a Modernity phenomenon originating in Europe....
, jingoism
Jingoism

Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy". In practice, it refers to the advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what they perceive as their country's national interests, and colloquially to excessive bias in jud...
, racism
Racism

Racism, by its simplest definition is the belief that Race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race....
 or religious fundamentalism
Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism refers to a belief in, and strict adherence to a set of basic principles , a reaction to perceived doctrine compromises with Modernism and political life....
, Populist movements, as with many political movements, can be maligned, if definitions of "the people" are used that are different than prevailing ones.

Often populist movements employ dichotomous
Dichotomy

A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts.In other words, it is a partition of a set of a whole into two parts that are:...
 rhetoric, and claim to represent the majority of the people. Many populists appeal to a specific region of a country or to a specific social class, such as the working class
Working class

Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in specific fields or types of work....
, middle class
Middle class

Middle class is the group of people in contemporary society who are between the working class and nobility. This socioeconomic class includes professionals, highly skilled workers, and lower and middle management....
, or farmers
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
 or simply "the poor".

Styles and methods

Populism is characterized by a sometimes radical critique of the status quo
Status Quo

Status Quo, also known as The Quo or just Quo, are an England rock music band whose music is characterized by the twelve-bar blues....
, but on the whole does not have a strong ideological identity as either a left-wing or right-wing movement. Some scholars argue that populist politics as organizing for empowerment represents the return of older "Aristotelian" politics of horizontal interactions among equals who are different, for the sake of public problem solving . Populism has taken left-wing, right-wing, and even centrist forms, as well as forms of politics that bring together groups and individuals of diverse partisan views. In recent years, United States politicians have begun adopting populist rhetoric; for example, telling people to stand up to "the powerful trial lawyer
Tort

Tort law is the name given to a body of law that addresses, and provides remedies for, civil wrongs not arising out of contractual obligations. A person who suffers legal damages may be able to use tort law to receive compensation from someone who is liability, or "liable," for those injuries....
 lobby," "the liberal elite
Liberal elite

In the United States the term liberal elite is a political buzzword used by conservatives to describe affluent, politically left-leaning people....
," or "the Hollywood elite." Also in recent years, "left-wing" United States politicians have increasingly begun adopting populist rhetoric; the use of the term "two Americas" in the 2004 Presidential Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major party contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party . It is the oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world....
 campaign of John Edwards
John Edwards

Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician who served one term as United States Senate from North Carolina. He was the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in United States presidential election, 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in Democratic Party presidential prima...
 is an example of an attempt to employ Populist themes to persuade voters.

Populists are seen by some politicians as a largely democratic
Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which power is held directly or indirectly by citizens under a free electoral system. It is derived from the Greek language d?????at?a , "popular government" which was coined from d???? , "people" and ???t?? , "rule, strength" in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political syst...
 and positive force in society, even while a wing of scholarship in political science contends that populist mass movements are irrational and introduce instability into the political process. Margaret Canovan
Margaret Canovan

Margaret Canovan is an English political philosophy.Born in Carlisle in 1939, Canovan studied history at Girton College, Cambridge, where she subsequently completed a PhD on Joseph Priestley....
 argues that both these polar views are faulty, and has defined two main branches of modern populism worldwide — agrarian and political — and mapped out seven disparate sub-categories:

Agrarian
  • Commodity farmer movements with radical economic agendas such as the US People's Party
    Populist Party (United States)

    The Populist Party, also known as the People's Party, was a relatively short-lived political party in the United States in the late 19th century....
     of the late 19th century.
  • Subsistence peasant movements, such as the Eastern European Green Rising
    Green Army

    File:Darker green and Black flag.svgThe Green armies, Green Army , or Greens were armed peasant groups which fought against both the Red Army and the White Army in the Russian Civil War....
     militias, which followed World War I
    World War I

    World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
    .
  • Intellectuals who wistfully romanticize
    Romanticism

    Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution....
     hard-working farmers and peasants and build radical agrarian movements like the Russia
    Russia

    Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
    n narodnik
    Narodnik

    Narodniks was the name for Russian revolutionaries of the 1860s and 1870s. Their movement was known as Narodnichestvo or Narodism. The term itself derives from the Russian language expression "???????? ? ?????" ....
    i
    .
Political
  • Populist democracy, including calls for more political participation through reforms such as the use of popular referendum
    Referendum

    A referendum , ballot question, or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire Constituency is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal....
    s.
  • Politicians' populism marked by non-ideological appeals for "the people" to build a unified coalition.
  • Reactionary
    Reactionary

    Reactionary refers to any movement or ideology that opposes change or progress in society, and which seeks a return to a previous state . The term originated in the French Revolution, to denote the Counter-revolutionary who wanted to restore the real or imagined conditions of the Monarchy Ancien R?gime....
     populism, such as the white backlash harvested by George Wallace
    George Wallace

    George Corley Wallace Jr. , was a Governor of Alabama of Alabama for four terms . He ran for President of the United States four times, running officially as a Democratic Party three times and in the American Independent Party once....
    .
  • Populist dictatorship
    Dictatorship

    A dictatorship is usually defined as an Autocracy form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator, without hereditary ascension....
    , such as that established by Getulio Vargas
    Getúlio Vargas

    Get?lio Dornelles Vargas served as President of Brazil of Brazil from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 until his suicide in 1954....
     in Brazil.


Fascism and populism

Populist movements can be precursors for, or building blocks for, fascist
Fascism

Fascism is a Political radicalism, Authoritarianism Nationalism ideology that aims to create a single-party state with a government led by a dictator who seeks national unity and development by requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest of the nation or Race ....
 movements. Conspiracist scapegoating employed by various populist movements can create "a seedbed for fascism." National socialism populism interacted with and facilitated fascism in interwar Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
. In this case, distressed middle–class populists during the pre-Nazi
Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the colloquial English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party , which established a Totalitarianism dictatorship that existed from 1933 to 1945....
 Weimar period mobilized their anger at government and big business. The Nazis "parasitized the forms and themes of the populists and moved their constituencies far to the right through ideological appeals involving demagoguery, scapegoating, and conspiracism." According to Fritzsche:
The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of middle–class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization....Against "unnaturally" divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National Socialists cast themselves as representatives of the commonwealth, of an allegedly betrayed and neglected German public....[b]reaking social barriers of status and caste
Caste

Castes are hereditary systems of wikt:occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power, the assignment of individuals to places in the social hierarchy is determined by social group and culture....
, and celebrating at least rhetorically the populist ideal of the people’s community...


History in Europe


Classical Populism

The word populism is derived from the Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 word populus, which means people in English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 (in the sense of "nation," as in: "The Roman People" (populus Romanus), not in the sense of "multiple individual persons" as in: "There are people visiting us today"). Therefore, populism espouses government by the people as a whole (that is to say, the masses). This is in contrast to elitism
Elitism

Elitism is the belief or attitude that those individuals who are considered members of the elite—a select group of people with outstanding personal abilities, intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes—are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most...
, aristocracy
Aristocracy

Aristocracy is a form of government, in which a few of the most prominent citizens rule. This may be a hereditary elite, or it may be by a system of cooption where a council of prominent citizens add leading soldiers, merchants, land owners, priests, and lawyers to their number....
, synarchy or plutocracy
Plutocracy

Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth.In a plutocracy, the degree of economic inequality is high while the level of social mobility is low....
, each of which is an ideology that espouse government by a small, privileged group above the masses.

Populism has been a common political phenomenon throughout history. Spartacus
Spartacus

Spartacus , according to Roman historians, was a slave and gladiator who became the leader in the somewhat successful slave uprising against the Roman Republic known as the Third Servile War....
 could be considered a famous example of a populist leader of ancient times through his slave rebellion against the rulers of Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
. In fact, such leaders of the Roman Republic
Republic

A republic is a state or country that is not led by a hereditary monarch but in which the people have an impact on its government. The word originates from the Latin term res publica....
 as Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius was a Roman Republic general and politician elected consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic Marian Reforms of Roman legion, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens and reorganizing the structure of the legions into separate Cohort ....
, Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar

'Gaius Julius Caesar' , July 13, 100 BC ? March 15, 44 BC,) was a Roman Republic military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, and Caesar Augustus were called populares
Populares

Populares were aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who tended to use the Roman assemblies and Tribune in an effort to break the stranglehold of the Roman Senate on political power....
, as all used referendum
Referendum

A referendum , ballot question, or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire Constituency is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal....
s to go over the Roman Senate
Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the Greek historian Polybius, our principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government....
's head and establish the laws that they saw fit.

Early modern period

Populism rose during the Reformation
Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe. It is thought to have begun in 1517 with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses and may be considered to have ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648....
; Protestant
Protestantism

Protestantism is a movement within Christianity that originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the three principal traditions of Christianity, together with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy....
 groups like the Anabaptists formed ideas about ideal theocratic societies, in which peasants would be able to read the Bible themselves. Attempts of establishing these societies were made during the Peasants' War
Peasants' War

The Peasants' War was a popular revolt in late medieval Europe in the years 1524/1525. It consisted, like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, of a series of economic as well as religious revolts by peasants, townsfolk and nobility....
 (1524-1525) and the Münster Rebellion
Münster Rebellion

The M?nster Rebellion was an attempt by radical Anabaptists to establish a theocracy in the Germany city of M?nster. The city became an Anabaptist center from 1534 to 1535, and fell under Anabaptist rule for 18 months — from February 1534, when the city hall was seized and Bernhard Knipperdolling installed as mayor, until its fall in...
 (1534-1535). However, the peasant movement ultimately failed as cities and nobles made their own peace with the princely armies, which restored the old order under the nominal overlordship of the Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor

Image:HRR 14Jh.jpgThe Roman of the Emperor's title was a reflection of the translatio imperii principle that regarded the Holy Roman Emperors as the inheritors of the title of Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, a title left unclaimed in the West after the death of Julius Nepos in 480....
 Charles V
Charles V

Charles V may refer to:* Charles V of France , called the Wise* Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor , ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and the Netherlands...
, represented in German affairs by his younger brother Ferdinand
Ferdinand

Ferdinand is a Germanic language given name composed of the words for prepared/protection/safety and journey/boldness/recklessness ....
.

The same conditions which contributed to the outbreak of the English Revolution
English Revolution

The term "English Revolution" refers to the period of the English Civil Wars and Commonwealth of England period 1640-1660, in which Parliament challenged King Charles I of England's authority, engaged in civil conflict against his forces, and executed him in 1649....
 of 1642-1651, also known as the English Civil War
English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Roundhead and Cavalier. The First English Civil War and Second English Civil War civil wars pitted the supporters of Charles I of England against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the Third English Civil War saw fighting between supporters...
. It led to a proliferation of ideologies and political movements among peasants, self-employed artisan
Artisan

An artisan is a skilled manual labor worker who crafts items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewelry, household items, and tools....
s, and working class people in England. Many of these groups had a dogmatic Protestant religious bent. They included Puritans and the Levellers
Levellers

The Levellers were members of a mid 17th century England political movement, who came to prominence during the English Civil Wars. They were not a political party in the modern sense of the word, and did not all conform to any specific manifesto....
.

Religious revival

Romanticism
Romanticism

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution....
, the anxiety against rationalism
Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive" ....
, broadened after the beginnings of the Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an and Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....
s because of cultural, social, and political insecurity. Romanticism led directly into a strong popular desire to bring about religious revival, nationalism and populism. The ensuing religious revival eventually blended into political populism and nationalism
Nationalism

Nationalism refers to an ideology, a feeling, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. While there is significant debate over the historical origins of nations, nearly all Expert accept that nationalism, at least as an ideology and social movement, is a Modernity phenomenon originating in Europe....
, becoming at times a single entity and a powerful force of public will for change. The paradigm shift
Paradigm shift

Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Samuel Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science....
 brought about was marked by people looking for security and community because of a strong emotional need to escape from anxiety and to believe in something larger than themselves.

The revival of religiosity all over Europe played an important role in bringing people to populism and nationalism. In France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
, François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand

Fran?ois-Ren?, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a France writer, France during the 19th century. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature....
 provided the opening shots of Catholic
Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church, officially known as the Catholic Church is the world's largest Christianity Ecclesia , representing over half of all Christians and one-sixth of the world population....
 revivalism as he opposed enlightenment's materialism
Materialism

The philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to existence is matter, and is considered a form of physicalism....
 with the "mystery of life," the human need for redemption. In Germany, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German theology and philosopher known for his impressive attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Age of Enlightenment with traditional Protestant orthodoxy....
 promoted pietism
Pietism

Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptist, inspiring not only Anglicanism priest John Wesley to begin the Methodism, but also Alexander Mack to begin the Schwarzenau Brethren movement....
 by stating that religion was not the institution
Institution

Institutions are social structure and social mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior....
, but a mystical piety
Piety

In spiritual terminology, piety is a virtue. While different people may understand its meaning differently, it is generally used to refer either to religion or to spirituality, or often, a combination of both....
 and sentiment with Christ
Christ

Christ is the English language term for the Greek meaning "the anointing", which is a title given to the Reigning Messiah in the given age of the Zodiac....
 as the mediating figure raising the human consciousness
Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
 above the mundane to God
God

God is a deity in theism and deism religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
's level. In England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
, John Wesley
John Wesley

John Wesley was an Anglican cleric and Christian Christian theologian who founded the Arminianism Methodism. The Wesley Methodist Movement began when Wesley took over open-air preaching started by George Whitefield at Hanham, Kingswood, and Bristol....
's Methodism
Methodism

Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by John Wesley and his younger brother Charles Wesley that sought to keep Methodism as a Revivalism movement within the Church of England....
 split with the Anglican church because of its emphasis on the salvation of the masses as a key to moral reform, which Wesley saw as the answer to the social problems of the day.

Rejection of ultramontanism

Chateaubriand's beginning brought about two Catholic Revivals in France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
: first, a conservative revival led by Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre

Joseph-Marie, Count de Maistre was a French-speaking Savoyard lawyer, diplomat, writer, and philosopher. He was one of the most influential spokesmen for hierarchical authoritarism in the period immediately following the French Revolution of 1789....
, which defended ultramontanism
Ultramontanism

Ultramontanism is a religious philosophy within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. In particular, ultramontanism may consist in asserting the superiority of Papal authority over the authority of local temporal or spiritual hierarchies ....
, also known as the supremacy of the Pope
Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and head of state of Vatican City. The current pope is Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected April 19, 2005 in Papal conclave, 2005....
 in the church, and a second populist revival led by Felicite de Lamennais, an excommunicated priest. This religious populism opposed ultramontanism and emphasized a church community dependent upon all of the people, not just the elite. Furthermore, it stressed that church authority should come from the bottom-up and that the church should alleviate suffering, not merely accept it, both principles that gave the masses strength.

Latin America

Populism has been an important force in Latin America
Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages ? particularly Spanish language and Portuguese language, and variably French language ? are primarily spoken....
n political history. In Latin America, many charismatic leaders have emerged since the 20th century.Populism in Latin America has been traced by some to concepts taken from Perón's Third Position. Populist practitioners in Latin America usually adapt politically to the prevailing mood of the nation, moving within the ideological spectrum from left to right many times during their political lives. Latin American countries have not always had a clear and consistent political ideology under populism. Most of these countries cannot be as clearly and easily divided between liberals and conservatives, as in the United States, or between social-democrats and Christian-democrats as in European countries. Nevertheless, the more recent pattern that has emerged in Latin American populists has been decidedly socialist populism that appeals to masses of poor by promising redistributive policies and state control of the nation's energy companies.

Populism has been fiscally supported in Latin America during periods of growth such as the 1950s and 1960s and during commodity price booms such as in oil and precious metals. Political leaders could gather followers among the popular classes with broad redistributive programs during these boom times. Populism in Latin America has been sometimes criticized for the fiscal policies of many of its leaders, but has also been defended for having allowed historically weak states to buy off disorder and achieve a tolerable degree of stability while initiating large-scale industrialization
Industrialization

Industrialization is the process of social and economic change whereby a human group is transformed from a pre-industrial society into an industry one....
. Thus though specific populist fiscal and monetary policies may be criticized by economic historians, populism has also allowed leaders and parties to co-opt the radical ideas of the masses so as to redirect them in a non revolutionary direction.

Often adapting a nationalist vocabulary and rhetorically convincing, populism was used to appeal to broad masses while remaining ideologically ambivalent. Notwithstanding, there have been notable exceptions. 21st Century Latin-American populist leaders have had a decidedly socialist bent.

When populists do take strong positions on economic philosophies such as capitalism
Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are private property and controlled rather than commonly, publicly, or state-owned and controlled....
 versus socialism, the position sparks strong emotional responses regarding how best to manage the nation's current and future social and economic position. Mexico's 2006 Presidential election was hotly debated within Mexicans who supported and opposed populist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Inequality

Populism in Latin American countries has both an economic and an ideological edge. The situation is similar in many countries with the legacies of poor and low-growth economies: highly unequal societies in which people are divided between a relative few wealthy families and masses of poor (with some exceptions such as Argentina
Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city....
, where strong and educated middle classes are a significant segment of the population).

Other perspectives trace inequality to the formation of Latin America's governments and institutions, which were shaped by the Spanish crown upon the conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards. Latin America was not meant to be a colony for the settlers to live in and develop, like the United States, but a source of resources for the Spanish crown. After the nations obtained their independence, many colonial legacies survived.

Populists can be very successful political candidates in such countries. In appealing to the masses of poor people prior to gaining power, populists may promise widely-demanded food, housing, employment, basic social services, and income-redistribution. Once in political power, they may not always be financially or politically able to fulfill all these broad promises. However, they are very often successful in stretching to provide many broad and basic services.

Economics debate on populism and socialist populism

In Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
, Brazil
Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the List of countries by population country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world....
 and Argentina
Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city....
 in a relatively short period of time, populist leaders were perceived to have delivered more to their lower class constituents than previous governments. Critics of populist policies point to the infamous consequences of spending and lack of reform on these countries' respective finances involving growing debt, pressured currencies, and hyperinflation, which in turn led to high interest rates, low growth, and debt crisis. The 1980s in Latin America became referred to as a lost decade during which the region experienced low economic growth and few if any reductions in poverty while the Asian Tigers have been consistently developing through high rates of savings, investments, and educational achievements. Supporters of past economic policies would point to the uncontrollable economic consequences of high oil prices to much of the world economy during the 1970s and the unanticipated fall in commodity prices that would later complicate financing past spending.

Reacting to the legacy of the debt-crisis and slow growth during the 1980s, many Latin American governments privatized
Privatization

Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of business from the public sector to the private sector . In a broader sense, privatization refers to transfer of any government function to the private sector including governmental functions like revenue collection and law enforcement....
 state-owned enterprises, such as electricity
Electricity

Electricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena such as lightning and static electricity, but in addition, less familiar concepts such as the electromagnetic field and electromagnetic induction....
 and telecommunications during the wave of privatizations that occurred in those countries in the 1990s, and opened to trade. This has also been done outside Latin American from Britain and the U.S. (during the Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher Order of the Garter, Order of Merit, Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Fellow of the Royal Society was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990....
/Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California . Born in Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s, where he was an actor, president of the Screen Actors Guild , and a spokesman for General Electric ....
 years) to Russia and China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
's (accelerating economic liberalization during the 1990s) to speed economic growth and employment.

In the Argentinian Corralito
Corralito

Corralito was the informal name for the economic measures taken in Argentina at the end of 2001 by Minister of Economy Domingo Cavallo in order to stop a bank run, and which were fully in force for one year....
 crisis, the government was forced to withdraw after three days of popular riots. In Mexico, tortilla price increases have sparked protests demanding price-controls which the leadership instead handled with a gentleman's agreement with major manufacturers capping prices for a fixed time period.

The economic debate continues as reforms to weak and closed Latin American economies opened up to external shocks and competition such as through privatizations and NAFTA in Mexico and other trade agreements and privatizations throughout Latin America. While orthodox economics point to longer term gains for quickly modernizing countries like Chile
Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
, slower moving countries have considered retracting from the initial shocks. Some blame a "neo-liberal" economic model favored by an unpopular US government. The "neo-liberal" name, along with the "Washington Consensus
Washington Consensus

The term Washington Consensus was initially coined in 1989 by John Williamson to describe a set of ten specific economic policy prescriptions that he considered to constitute a "standard" reform package promoted for Economic crisis developing country by Washington D.C based institutions such as the International Monetary Fund , World Bank an...
" have been used to criticize harsh economic policies on the one hand, and on the other hand some have used to demonize modern economic science and policies by tying them directly to the unpopular U.S. government which faces widespread distrust in Latin America. Indeed throughout the world, orthodox economists generally agree that the older socialist policies favored by many populists have hindered Latin American economies and that today further neo-liberal economic reforms would be needed to compete in the international arena for more jobs and faster growth. Support for socialism continues within economic circles that rely on pro-socialist works such as "Whither Socialism" by Stiglitz..

It should however be noted that the latter part of the last paragraph represents ideologically-based opinions rather than facts (eg. it is highly debatable if there is indeed any clear consensus among even orthodox economists "throughout the world" that universal prescriptions of even deeper trade liberalisation would indeed be "needed" in order for developing countries to achieve economic growth).

US policy

US international policies have intervened in Latin American governments in many occasions where populism has threatened its interests: the interventions in Guatemala
Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize and the Caribbean to the northeast, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast....
, when the populist Arbenz government was overthrown by a coup backed by the American company United Fruit and the American ambassador in 1954, and Augusto Pinochet's Chilean coup in 1973 are just two cases of American intervention. Daniel Ortega
Daniel Ortega

Jos? Daniel Ortega Saavedra is the former 79th and current 83rd President of Nicaragua between 10 January 1985 and 25 April 1990 and from 10 January 2007....
's Sandinista government in Nicaragua was also viewed as a threat to US foreign policy during the Cold War
Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
, leading the United States to place an embargo on trade with the Sandinista's Soviet-sponsored regime as well as support anti-Sandinista rebels. One last example of US intervention has been seen in Colombia
Colombia

Colombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a country in north-western South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the north west by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean....
 particularly since the assassination of Populist leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán

File:Jorge Eli?cer Gait?n Ayala.jpgJorge Eli?cer Gait?n was a politician, a leader of a populism movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister and Labor Minister , List of mayors of Bogot? of Bogot? and chief of the Colombian Liberal Party ....
 on April 1948 who supported land reform and other socialist initiatives which posed a threat to American interests; it is for this reason that Gaitan's assassination is alleged to have been a CIA plot. To this day Colombia continues to be the US most important ally in the region with continuos military aid under Plan Colombia
Plan Colombia

The term Plan Colombia is most often used to refer to controversial U.S. legislation aimed at curbing drug smuggling by supporting different War on Drugs activities in Colombia....
.

Strength and current socialist tendency

Populism has nevertheless remained a significant force in Latin America. Populism has recently been re-appearing on the far left with promises of far-reaching socialist changes as seen in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez
Hugo Chávez

Hugo Rafael Ch?vez Fr?as is the current President of Venezuela. As the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Ch?vez promotes a political doctrine of participatory democracy, socialism and Latin American and Caribbean cooperation....
. These socialist changes have included policies nationalizing energy companies such as oil, and consolidation of power into the hands of the President so as to enable a socialist "transformation." The Venezuelan government often spars verbally with the United States and accuses it of attempting to overthrow its president Hugo Chavez after supporting a failed coup against him. Chavez himself has been one of the most outspoken and blunt critics of U.S. foreign policy. Nevertheless, the Venezuelan and U.S. governments continue to rely on each other for oil sales from Venezuela to the United States.

In the 21st century, the large numbers of voters in extreme poverty in Latin America have remained a bastion of support for new populist candidates. By early 2008 governments with varying forms of populist governments with some form of left leaning social democratic or democratic socialist platform had come to dominate virtually all Latin American nations with the exceptions of Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico. This political shift includes both developed Nations such as Brazil with its ruling Workers' Party
Workers' Party (Brazil)

The Workers' Party is a center-left Social democracy political party in Brazil. It is recognized as one of the largest and most important Left-wing politics leadership movements of Latin America....
, Argentina's Front for Victory
Front for Victory

The Front for Victory is a centre-left political party and electoral alliance in Argentina. Formally it is still a faction of the Justicialist Party ....
 and the Socialist Party of Chile
Socialist Party of Chile

The Socialist Party of Chile is part of the ruling Coalition of Parties for Democracy coalition. Its historical leader was the late President of Chile Salvador Allende Gossens, deposed by General Augusto Pinochet....
 Populist candidates have been defeated in middle-income countries such as Mexico, in part by comparing them to Venezuela's controversial Hugo Chavez, whose socialist policies have been used to scare the middle class. Nevertheless, populist candidates have been more successful in poorer Latin American countries such as Bolivia (under Morales), Ecuador (under Correa), and Nicaragua (under Ortega). By the use of broad grassroots movements populist groups have managed to gain power from better organized , funded and entrenched groups such as the Bolivian Nationalist Democratic Action
Nationalist Democratic Action

Nationalist Democratic Action is a right-wing party in Bolivia led by Jorge Quiroga. ADN was founded on March 23 1979 by the military dictator Hugo Banzer after he stepped down from power....
 and the Paraguayan Colorado Party
Colorado Party (Paraguay)

The National Republican Association ? Colorado Party is a political party in Paraguay, founded in 1887 by Bernardino Caballero. It is usually known as the Colorado Party....
 

Wherever governments in Latin America maintain high rates of poverty and yet support unpopular privatizations and more orthodox economic policies without quickly delivering gains to enough people, they will continue to come under pressure from populist politicians who accuse them of focusing on securing more benefits for the upper and upper-middle classes rather than the people as represented by those in poverty and extreme poverty, and for being allied to foreign and business interests.

Mexico

In Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador is a Mexico politician who held the position of Head of Government of the Federal District from 2000 to 2005, before resigning in July 2005 to contend the Mexican presidential election, 2006, representing the Coalition for the Good of All, a Partido de la Revoluci?n Democr?tica-led coalition that also includes th...
's candidacy sparked very emotional debates throughout the country regarding policies that affect ideology, class, equality, wealth, and society. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's most controversial economic policies included his promise to expand monthly stipends to the poor and elderly from Mexico City to the rest of the country and to re-negotiate NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) to protect the Mexican poor. The ruling party in Mexico, known as the PAN rayhrahraey (Spanish acronym for the National Action Party) portrayed him as a danger to Mexico's hard-earned economic stability. In criticizing his redistributive promises that would create new entitlement programs somewhat similar to social security in the US (though not as broad in scope) and his trade policies that would not fully uphold prior agreements (such as NAFTA), the economic debate between capitalists and socialists became a major part of the debate. The PAN candidate portrayed himself as not just a standard-bearer for recent economic policy, but rather more fully as a more pro-active candidate so as to distance himself from the main criticisms of his predecessor Vicente Fox regarding inaction. He labeled himself the "jobs president" and promised greater national wealth for all through steady future growth, fiscal prudence, international trade, and balanced government spending. During the immediate aftermath of the tight elections in which the country's electoral court was hearing challenges to the vote tally that had Calderon winning, Obrador showed the considerable influence over the masses that are a trademark of populist politicians. He effectively led huge demonstrations filling the central plaza with masses of sympathizers who supported his challenge. The demonstrations lasted for several months and eventually dissipated after the electoral court did not find sufficient cause from the challenges presented to overturn the results.

The PRI party had 40 plus years of uninterrupted rule in Mexico with Populist roots. Mexico moved away from conventional democracy toward fascism, but kept tabs on the people through promises to clean up corrupt government and greasing the wheel of malcontents. The PRI party used their control of Mexican government to secretly move voting booths and other electoral fraud to ensure victory.

United States


Later there was the Greenback Party
United States Greenback Party

The Greenback Party was an United States political party that was active between 1874 and 1884. Its name referred to paper money, or "US Dollar," that had been issued during the American Civil War and afterward....
, the Single Tax movement of Henry George
Henry George

Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "Single Tax" on Land ....
, the Progressive Party of 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)

In the United States, the Progressive Party of 1918 was a political party created by a split in the Republican Party in U.S. presidential election, 1912....
 led by Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt , also known as T.R., and to the public as Teddy, was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States....
, the Progressive Party of 1924
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)

The United States Progressive Party of 1924 was a continuation of the 1912 Progressive party with few changes in leadership at the state or local levels, and keeping many of the same officers nationally....
 led by Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

Robert Marion La Follette, Sr. nicknamed "Fighting Bob" La Follette was an American politician who served as a United States House of Representatives, the 20th Governor of Wisconsin , and Republican Party United States Senate from Wisconsin ....
, and the Share Our Wealth
Share Our Wealth

Share Our Wealth was a movement begun during the Great Depression by Huey Long, a governor of Louisiana and later United States Senator from Louisiana....
 movement of Huey Long
Huey Long

Huey Pierce Long, Jr. , nicknamed The Kingfish, was an United States politician from the U.S. state of Louisiana. A Democratic Party , he was noted for his Radicalism populism policies....
 in 1933-35.

George Wallace
George Wallace

George Corley Wallace Jr. , was a Governor of Alabama of Alabama for four terms . He ran for President of the United States four times, running officially as a Democratic Party three times and in the American Independent Party once....
 of Alabama led a populist movement that carried five states and won 13.5% of the popular vote in the 1968 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1968

The United States presidential election of 1968 was a wrenching national experience, conducted against a backdrop that included the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr....
. Campaigning against intellectuals and liberal reformers, Wallace gained a large share of the white working class vote in Democratic primaries in 1972.

Populism continues to be a force in modern U.S. politics, especially in the 1992 and 1996 third-party presidential campaigns of billionaire Ross Perot
Ross Perot

Henry Ross Perot is an United States businessman from Texas, who is best known for seeking the office of President of the United States in U.S....
. The 1996, 2000 and the 2004 presidential campaigns of Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader is an American attorney at law, author, lecturer, political activism, and perennial candidate for presidency as an independent candidate for President of the United States in United States presidential election, 2004 and United States presidential election, 2008, and a Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000....
 had a strong populist cast. The 2004 campaigns of Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich

Dennis John Kucinich is a United States Democratic Party member of the United States House of Representatives and was a candidate for the Democratic National Convention in the U.S....
 and Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton

Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr. is an United States American Baptist Churches USA minister, political and African-American Civil Rights Movement /social justice activist, and Talk radio host....
 also had populist elements. The 2004 and 2008 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards
John Edwards

Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician who served one term as United States Senate from North Carolina. He was the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in United States presidential election, 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in Democratic Party presidential prima...
 has been described by many (and by himself) as a populist.In the 2008 presidential elections Governor Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee

Michael Dale "Mike" Huckabee is a Republican Party politician, Former Arkansas Governer and political commentator for Fox News Channel who served as Governor of Arkansas of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007....
 had an economic populist message supporting main street America and supporting the fairtax. Senator John McCain
John McCain

John Sidney McCain III is the senior senator United States United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential election....
 and his running-mate Governor Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin

Sarah Louise Palin is the List of Governors of Alaska of the United States state of Alaska. Palin was a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996 and the city's mayor from 1996 to 2002....
 also ran on a populist platform pledging to clean up corruption and clean up wall street. Senator Hilary Clinton with her promise of universal healthcare ran with a populist message and President Barack Obama
Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the List of Presidents of the United States and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office....
 also ran with a populist meesage promising tax cuts to 95% of American families.

Comparison between earlier surges of Populism and those of today are complicated by shifts in what are thought to be the interests of the common people. Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Jacob Goldberg is an United States syndicated columnist and author. Goldberg is known for his contributions on politics and culture to National Review, where he is the editor-at-large....
 and others argue that in modern society, fractured as it is into myriad interest groups and niches, any attempt to define the interests of the "average person" will be so general as to be useless.

Over time, there have been several versions of a Populist Party
Populist Party (United States)

The Populist Party, also known as the People's Party, was a relatively short-lived political party in the United States in the late 19th century....
 in the United States, inspired by the People's Party of the 1890s. This was the party of the early U.S. populist movement in which millions of farmers and other working people successfully enacted their anti-trust agenda.

In 1984, the Populist Party name was revived by Willis Carto
Willis Carto

Willis Allison Carto is a longtime figure on the American far right. He describes himself as Thomas Jefferson and populism, but is primarily known for his promotion of antisemitic canard and Holocaust denial....
, and was used in 1988 as a vehicle for the presidential campaign of former Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan is the name of several past and present secret domestic militant organizations in the United States, originating in the southern states and eventually having national scope, that are best known for advocating white supremacy and acting as terrorists while hidden behind conical hats, masks and white robes....
 leader, and later member of both the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major party contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party . It is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP....
 and the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major party contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party . It is the oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world....
, David Duke
David Duke

David Ernest Duke is an American white nationalist, former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, former Republican Party Louisiana House of Representatives, and a perennial candidate in presidential primaries....
. Right-wing Patriot movement organizer Bo Gritz
Bo Gritz

James Gordon "Bo" Gritz was a United States Army Special Forces officer during the Vietnam War whose post-war activities notably attempted POW rescues in conjunction with the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue have proven controversial....
 was briefly Duke's running mate. This maligned incarnation of Populism was widely regarded as a vehicle for white supremacist recruitment. In this instance, populism was maligned using a definition of "the people" which was not the prevailing definition.

Another populist mechanism was the initiative and referendum driven term-limits movement of the early 1990s. In every state where the people were able to bypass the established power structure and put term-limits on the ballot, the measure to limit incumbency in Congress passed. The average margin of victory was 67%, giving this populist insurgency a landslide by American electoral standards. It was fitting, perhaps, that the unelected, irremovable, life-tenured U.S. Supreme Court would be the agent of resistance, in 1995 striking down all the congressional term limits enacted by the people. U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton
U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton

U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Ray Thornton, Case citation ,was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states cannot impose qualifications for prospective members of the U.S....
.

In 1995, the Reform Party
Reform Party of the United States of America

The Reform Party of the United States of America is a political party in the United States, founded by Ross Perot in 1995 who said Americans were disillusioned with the state of politics?as being corrupt and unable to deal with vital issues?and desired a viable alternative to the United States Republican Party and United States Democratic Pa...
 (RPUSA) was organized after the populist presidential campaign of Ross Perot in 1992. In the year 2000, an intense fight for the presidential nomination made Patrick J. Buchanan the RPUSA standbearer. Since then the party's fortunes have markedly declined.

In the 2000s, new populist parties were formed in America, including the Populist Party of Maryland
Populist Party of Maryland

The Populist Party of Maryland originated as a vehicle for ballot access for the Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004. Unlike such groups in other states, the PPMD organization has survived beyond 2004, laboring to field candidates for local political offices....
, which ran candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. Senate and state delegate in the 2006 elections, Populist Party of America
Populist Party of America

The Populist Party of America, founded in 2002, is an "anti-statist", libertarian political party which claims to offer "real solutions" to American problems through the establishment of what they have termed "constitutional democracy"....
 in 2002, and the American Populist Renaissance in 2005. The American Moderation Party, also formed in 2005, adopted several populist ideals, chief among them working against multinational neo-corporatism.

Germany

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was a Germany Prussian gymnastics educator and nationalist. He is commonly known as Turnvater Jahn, roughly meaning "father of gymnastics" Jahn....
, a Lutheran
Lutheranism

Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century Germans Reformer Martin Luther....
 Minister, a professor at the University of Berlin and the "father of gymnastics
Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility and coordination. Artistic Gymnastics is the best known and most popular of the gymnastics sports governed by the F?d?ration Internationale de Gymnastique ....
," introduced the Volkstum, a racial nation that draws on the essence of a people that was lost in the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....
. Adam Mueller went a step further by positing the state as a bigger totality than the government institution. This paternalistic vision of aristocracy
Aristocracy

Aristocracy is a form of government, in which a few of the most prominent citizens rule. This may be a hereditary elite, or it may be by a system of cooption where a council of prominent citizens add leading soldiers, merchants, land owners, priests, and lawyers to their number....
 concerned with social orders had a dark side in that the opposite force of modernity was represented by the Jews, who were said to be eating away at the state. Populism also played a role in mobilizing middle class support for the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany.. In this case, distressed middle–class populists during the pre-Nazi Weimar period mobilized their anger at government and big business. According to Fritzsche:
The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of middle–class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization....Against “unnaturally” divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National Socialists cast themselves as representatives of the commonwealth, of an allegedly betrayed and neglected German public....[b]reaking social barriers of status and caste
Caste

Castes are hereditary systems of wikt:occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power, the assignment of individuals to places in the social hierarchy is determined by social group and culture....
, and celebrating at least rhetorically the populist ideal of the people’s community...


In France, the populist and nationalist picture was more mystical
Mysticism

Mysticism is the pursuit of communion with, Unio Mystica with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, Spirituality, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight....
 and metaphysical
Metaphysics

Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics....
 in nature. Historian Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet

Jules Michelet was a France historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions....
 fused nationalism and populism by positing the people as a mystical unity who are the driving force of history in which the divinity
Divinity

Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems ? and even by different individuals within a given faith ? to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power, or its attributes or manifestations in the world....
 finds its purpose. For Michelet, in history, that representation of the struggle between spirit and matter, France has a special place because the French became a people through equality
Social equality

Social equality is a society state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect....
, liberty
Freedom (political)

Political freedom is the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression. The members of a free society would have full dominion over their public and private lives....
, and fraternity
Brotherhood

Brotherhood, with the direct meaning of the state of being a brother come first* A social organization for undergraduate students, see Fraternities and sororities...
. Because of this, he believed, the French people can never be wrong. Michelet's ideas are not socialism
Socialism

Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating public or state ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equality for all individuals, with a fair or Egalitarianism method of compensation....
 or rational politics, and his populism always minimizes, or even masks, social class differences. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution
French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudalism for the aristocracy and Roman Catholic Church clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Age of Enlightenment principles of cit...
, though led by wealthy intellectuals, could also be described as a manifestation of populist sentiment against the elitist excesses and privileges of the Ancien Régime
Ancien Régime

Ancien R?gime refers primarily to the aristocracy, sociology, and politics system established in France under the Valois Dynasty and House of Bourbon dynasties ....
. In the 1950s, Pierre Poujade
Pierre Poujade

Pierre Poujade , born in Saint-C?r?, was a France populism politics after whom the Poujadist movement was named.After studies in a Roman Catholic private school, Poujade joined as a teenager the Parti Populaire Fran?ais of Jacques Doriot....
 was the leader of the right-wing populist movement UDCA. Jean Marie Le Pen (who was UDCA's youngest deputy in the 1950s) can be characterized as right-wing populist.

politicans claimed to be Populists

  • Glenn Beck
    Glenn Beck

    Glenn Beck is an United States radio personality and television host, Conservatism in the United States political commentator, author, and entrepreneur....
  • Niel Boortz, radio host
  • Sen. Hilary Clinton
  • Lou Dobbs
    Lou Dobbs

    Louis Dobbs , is a CNN news anchor and managing Editing for Lou Dobbs Tonight. He is a conservative editorial columnist and broadcast syndication radio show host....
  • Sen. John Edwards
    John Edwards

    Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician who served one term as United States Senate from North Carolina. He was the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in United States presidential election, 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in Democratic Party presidential prima...
  • Bo Gritz
    Bo Gritz

    James Gordon "Bo" Gritz was a United States Army Special Forces officer during the Vietnam War whose post-war activities notably attempted POW rescues in conjunction with the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue have proven controversial....
  • Rep. Marcy Kaptur
    Marcy Kaptur

    Marcia Carolyn "Marcy" Kaptur is a Democratic Party politician in the United States House of Representatives for the Ohio's 9th congressional district of Ohio....
  • Rep. Dennis Kucinich
    Dennis Kucinich

    Dennis John Kucinich is a United States Democratic Party member of the United States House of Representatives and was a candidate for the Democratic National Convention in the U.S....
  • Gov. Mike Huckabee
    Mike Huckabee

    Michael Dale "Mike" Huckabee is a Republican Party politician, Former Arkansas Governer and political commentator for Fox News Channel who served as Governor of Arkansas of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007....
  • Rep. Duncan Hunter
    Duncan Hunter

    Duncan Lee Hunter is an United States politician. He was a United States Republican Party member of the United States House of Representatives from California's 52nd congressional district from 1981 to 2009....
  • Rush Limbaugh
    Rush Limbaugh

    Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an United States radio personality and Conservatism in the United States political commentator. His radio syndication talk radio, The Rush Limbaugh Show, airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks....
  • Sen. John McCain
    John McCain

    John Sidney McCain III is the senior senator United States United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential election....
  • Ralph Nader
    Ralph Nader

    Ralph Nader is an American attorney at law, author, lecturer, political activism, and perennial candidate for presidency as an independent candidate for President of the United States in United States presidential election, 2004 and United States presidential election, 2008, and a Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000....
  • Gov. Sarah Palin
    Sarah Palin

    Sarah Louise Palin is the List of Governors of Alaska of the United States state of Alaska. Palin was a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996 and the city's mayor from 1996 to 2002....
  • Rep. Ron Paul
    Ron Paul

    Ronald Ernest Paul is a Republican Party United States Congressman, who gained widespread attention during his campaign for the 2008 Republican Party presidential nomination....
  • Ross Perot
    Ross Perot

    Henry Ross Perot is an United States businessman from Texas, who is best known for seeking the office of President of the United States in U.S....
  • Gov. Mitt Romney
    Mitt Romney

    Willard Mitt Romney is an American businessman and former Governor of Massachusetts. Romney was a candidate for the Republican Party nomination in the 2008 United States presidential election....
  • Michael Savage
    Michael Savage (commentator)

    Michael Alan Weiner , better known by his pseudonym Michael Savage, is an American radio personality, author, and Conservatism in the United States pundit ....
  • Rep. Betty Sutton
    Betty Sutton

    Betty Sue Sutton is a politician from Ohio. She is currently the Congresswoman for Ohio's 13th congressional district of Ohio in the United States House of Representatives, serving since 2007....


See also

  • Black populism
    Black populism

    Following the collapse of Reconstruction era of the United States, African Americans created a broad-based independent political movement in the South: Black Populism....
  • Bolivarian Revolution
    Bolivarian Revolution

    The ?Bolivarian Revolution? refers to a social movement and political process in Venezuela led by Venezuelan president Hugo Ch?vez, the founder of the Fifth Republic Movement....
  • Communitarianism
    Communitarianism

    Communitarianism, as a group of related but distinct philosophies, began in the late 20th century, opposing in its opinion exalted forms of individualism while advocating phenomena such as civil society....
     — a partially related political philosophy
  • Charismatic authority
    Charismatic authority

    The sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him." Charismatic authority is one of three forms of authority laid out in Weber's tripartite classification of au...
  • Christian Democracy
    Christian Democracy

    Christian democracy is a political ideology that seeks to apply Christian principles to public policy. It emerged in nineteenth-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social teaching, and it continues to be influential in Europe and Latin America, though in a number of countries its Christian ethos has been diluted by secular...
  • Christian Socialism
    Christian socialism

    Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated....
  • Christian right
    Christian right

    The Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe a spectrum of right-wing politics Christian political and social movements and organizations characterized by their strong support of Conservatism social conservative and Republican Party values....
  • Conservatism
    Conservatism

    Conservatism is a political and social term whose meaning has changed in different countries and time periods, but which usually indicates support for the status quo or the status quo ante....
  • Cultural production and nationalism
    Cultural production and nationalism

    Literature, visual arts, music, and scholarship have complex relationships with ideological forces....
  • Demagogy
    Demagogy

    Demagogy refers to a political strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the popular prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public ? typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using Nationalism or Populism themes....
     — as an abstract kind of untruthful speech
  • Fascism
    Fascism

    Fascism is a Political radicalism, Authoritarianism Nationalism ideology that aims to create a single-party state with a government led by a dictator who seeks national unity and development by requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest of the nation or Race ....
  • Far right
    Far right

    Far right, extreme right, hard right, ultra-right or radical right are terms used to discuss the Qualitative research or Quantitative research position a group or person occupies within a political spectrum....
  • Giuseppe Garibaldi
    Giuseppe Garibaldi

    Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italians military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and had to flee Italy after a failed insurrection....
  • Giuseppe Mazzini
    Giuseppe Mazzini

    Giuseppe Mazzini , the "Soul of Italy," was an Italian patriot, philosopher and politician. His efforts helped bring about the modern Italian state in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the 19th century....
  • Gaullism
    Gaullism

    Gaullism is a Politics of France based on the thought and action of Charles de Gaulle....
  • Jacobin (politics)
    Jacobin (politics)

    In the context of the French Revolution, a Jacobin originally meant a member of the Jacobin Club , but even at that time, the term Jacobins had been popularly applied to all promulgators of revolutionary opinions....
  • Jim Hightower
    Jim Hightower

    James Allen "Jim" Hightower is a syndicated columnist, liberal commentator, populism activism and author....
  • José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia
    José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia

    Dr. Jos? Gaspar Rodr?guez de Francia y Velasco was the first leader of Paraguay following its independence from Spain. He ran the country with no outside interference and little outside influence from 1814 to 1840....
  • Kemalist ideology
    Kemalist ideology

    Kemalist Ideology, "Kemalism" or also known as the "Six Arrows" is the principle that defines the basic characteristics of the Republic of Turkey....
     (Kemalism) — one of its principles is populism
  • Liberation theology
    Liberation theology

    Liberation theology is a school of theology within Christianity, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church. It emphasizes the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism....
  • List of revolutions and rebellions
    List of revolutions and rebellions

    This is a list of revolutions and rebellions. A list of coups d'?tat and coup attempts can be found here: List of coups d'?tat and coup attempts....
  • Mahatma Gandhi
    Mahatma Gandhi

    Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha?resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence?which led India to Indian independence movement and inspired movements for civi...
  • Marxism
    Marxism

    Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism holds at its core a Marxist analysis of Critique of capitalism and a theory of social change....
  • Muhammad Ali Jinnah
    Muhammad Ali Jinnah

    Muhammad Ali Jinnah Urdu language: }} , a 20th century politician and statesman, is generally regarded as the father of the state of Pakistan. He served as leader of the Muslim League and served as Pakistan's first Governor-General of Pakistan....
  • Nationalism
    Nationalism

    Nationalism refers to an ideology, a feeling, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. While there is significant debate over the historical origins of nations, nearly all Expert accept that nationalism, at least as an ideology and social movement, is a Modernity phenomenon originating in Europe....
  • Nazism
    Nazism

    Nazism, officially National Socialism , refers to the ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Workers? Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945....
  • Nehru
  • Neo-populism
    Neo-populism

    Neo-populism or Neopopulism, also known as media populism or new populism, is a cultural and political movement emergent in the early 21st century, especially in Latin American countries....
  • Orator
    Orator

    An orator, or oratist, is a speaker.An orator may also be called an oratarian - literally, "he who orates".Etymology...
  • People's Party
    People's Party

    The People's Party, Peoples Party, or Popular Party, is any of several political party claiming to speak for the nation.People's Parties in various countries run the gamut from left to right ....
  • Poujadism
  • Producerism
    Producerism

    Producerism, sometimes referred to as "producer radicalism," refers to a syncretic politics ideology of populism economic nationalism which holds that the productive forces of society - the ordinary worker, the small businessman, and the entrepreneur, are being held back by parasitism at both the top and bottom of the social structure....
  • Progressivism
    Progressivism

    The term progressive has varying meanings in different countries.In some countries, the word refers to left-wing politics. For instance, in the United States, the term progressive emerged in the late 19th century into the 20th century in reference to a more general response to the vast changes brought by industrialization: an alternativ...
  • Religious left
    Religious left

    Religious left is a term referring to religious movements with a left-wing or liberal agenda. For more information, see:*Christian left*Jewish left...
  • Right-wing populism
    Right-wing populism

    Right-wing populism is a political strategy and rhetorical style combining far right ideology with populist propaganda and campaigning. The term in particular refers to the movements connected with neoliberalism which first rose to prominence during the 1980s....
  • Sarkozy
  • Social Democracy
    Social democracy

    Social democracy is a political philosophy of the left-wing politics or centre-left that emerged in the late 19th century from the socialism movement and continues to exert influence worldwide....
  • Socialism
    Socialism

    Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating public or state ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equality for all individuals, with a fair or Egalitarianism method of compensation....
  • Thatcherism
    Thatcherism

    Thatcherism is the "distinctive ideology, political style and programme of polices of the British Conservative Party after Margaret Thatcher was elected leader in 1975"....
  • Union Organizer
    Union organizer

    A union organizer is a specific type of trade union member or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers....
  • Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto


Europe

  • Betz, Hans-Georg. 1994. Radical Right-wing Populism in Western Europe, New York: St. Martins Press. ISBN 0-312-08390-4, ISBN 0-312-12195-4
  • Fritzsche, Peter. 1990. Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505780-5
  • Fritzsche, Peter. 1998. Germans into Nazis. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.


United States

  • Berlet, Chip and Matthew N. Lyons. 2000. Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN 1-57230-568-1, ISBN 1-57230-562-2
  • Dobratz, Betty A, and Stephanie L. Shanks–Meile. 1988. “The Contemporary Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party: A Comparison to American Populism at the Turn of the Century.” Humanity and Society, 20–50.
  • Evans, Sara M. and Harry C. Boyte. 1986. Free Spaces: The Sources of Democratic Change in America. New York: Harper & Row.
  • Ferkiss, Victor C. 1957. “Populist Influences on American Fascism.” Western Political Quarterly 10(2):350–73.
  • Fink, Leon. 1983. Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
  • Goodwyn, Lawrence. 1976. Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America. New York and London: Oxford University Press.
  • Goodwyn, Lawrence. 1978. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. New York and London: Oxford University Press.
  • Hahn, Steven. 1983. Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890. New York and London: Oxford University Pres
  • Jeffrey, Julie Roy.1975. "Women in the Southern Farmers Alliance: A Reconsideration of the Role and Status of Women in the Late 19th Century South." Feminist Studies 3.
  • Kazin, Michael. 1995. The Populist Persuasion: An American History. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-03793-3, ISBN 0-8014-8558-4
  • Marable, Manning. 1986. "Black History and the Vision of Democracy," in Harry Boyte and Frank Riessman, Eds., The New Populism: The Politics of Empowerment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  • Palmer, Bruce. 1980. Man Over Money: The Southern Populist Critique of American Capitalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
  • Rupert, Mary. 1997. "The Patriot Movement and the Roots of Fascism." Pp. 81-101 in Windows to Conflict Analysis and Resolution: Framing our Field, Susan Allen Nan, et al., eds. Fairfax, Va.: Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.
  • Stock, Catherine McNicol. 1996. Rural Radicals: Righteous Rage in the American Grain. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3294-4
  • Miscoiu, Sergiu, Craciun, Oana, Colopelnic, Nicoleta. 2008. Radicalism, Populism, Interventionism. Three Approaches Based on Discourse Theory. Cluj-Napoca: Efes.


External links

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