Populism Essay ⋆ Sociology Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Populism is a concept that is used in a variety of ways (as an economic, social and/or political term, a version of democracy or authoritarianism, etc.), to describe a variety of phenomena (governments, leaders, ideologies, economic systems, a type of discourse) in a variety of historical moments (most notably since the 1940s but with notable cases before as well). The concept of populism, therefore, is highly problematic to define as the same word is used to define a great variety of phenomena that have many important differences.

Despite the problems in solidifying a definition of populism, there are a number of key characteristics common to most usages of the term – the presence of a charismatic leader (for this reason participants in populist movements are often referred to as ”-istas” of the leader. For example, Peronistas in Argentina, Chavistas in Venezuela, and Correistas in Ecuador), the construction of an us/them dichotomy (the ”us” and the ”them” changes in each instance but the division of society into two opposing groups is relatively constant), and a general reorganization of the economic system (for example a shift to import substitution industrialization with Peron in Argentina, to neoliberalism with Fujimori in Peru, and to twenty-first century socialism with Chavez in Venezuela).

Above all, populism is characterized by a focus on ”the people” understood as the ordinary collective whose values are seen as more virtuous than those of the opposing elites. Such a loose definition, however, has been used to characterize extreme left, extreme right, and a variety of governments in-between.

Although populism has been used to describe phenomena ranging from movements of intellectuals in late nineteenth-century Russia to farmers in early twentieth-century USA, to scattered movements throughout Europe, it is most commonly used to characterize different political regimes and social movements in Latin America. For this reason, most of the prominent scholarship on populism has come out of, or been based on, Latin America.

In an effort to more clearly define the concept of populism, some authors have taken to differentiating various forms using terms such as neo-populism or radical populism to describe populist instanciations in various historical moments.

Bibliography:

Faletto, E. & Cardoso, F. H. (1979) Dependency and Development in Latin America, trans. M. M. Urquidi. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Laclau, E. (2005) On Populist Reason. Verso, New York.
de la Torre, C. (2000) Populist Seduction in Latin America. Ohio University Press, Athens, OH.