Arato, Jean L Cohen Populism and Civil Society The Challenge To Constitutional Democracy (2) (1) (1) - 221212 - 102610

Populism and Civil
Society
The Challenge to Constitutional Democracy
A N D R EW A R AT O A N D J E A N L . C O H E N
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Arato, Andrew, author. | Cohen, Jean L., author.
Title: Populism and civil society : the challenge to constitutional democracy /
by Andrew Arato and Jean L. Cohen.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2022. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021031185 (print) | LCCN 2021031186 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197526590 (paperback) | ISBN 9780197526583 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780197526606 (updf) | ISBN 9780197526613 (epub) | ISBN 9780197526620 (oso)
Subjects: LCSH: Populism. | Civil society. | Political culture.
Classification: LCC JC 423.A6845 2021 (print) | LCC JC423 (ebook) |
DDC 320.56/62—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031185
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031186
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197526583.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by LSC Communications, United States of America
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Defining Populism 1
What Is Populism? How to Define the Phenomenon 2
What Is Populism: Immanent Critique 4
What Is Populism: Construction of the Ideal Type 7
Different Populisms: Mobilization, Party, Government, and Regime 14
The Plan of the Book 17
1. Populism: Why and Why Now? 25
The Long Term: The Fundamental Contradiction of
Modern Democracy 29
The Middle Term: Deficits of Representation 32
The Short Term: Bait and Switch, Populist Supply, and Media Strategies 39
The Turn to Mobilization 46
Populism and the Media 48
2. Populism as Mobilization and as a Party 53
Social Movements: Their Logic and Limits 56
Political Parties and Their Transformation 62
Populist Mobilization, Its Dynamics and Tensions: The Cases 68
Mobilization by or with Parties 70
Mobilization by a Government or a Chief Executive 73
Mobilization from below in Civil Society 74
Movement Parties and the Movementization of Parties 85
Populist Logic: Implications for Populist Parties and Democratic
Party Systems 89
The Pars Pro Toto Logic and the Relapse into Factionalism 90
The Friend–Enemy Political Logic and Affective Polarization 93
The Anti-Establishment Stance and the Permanent
Movementization of Anti-Party Parties 100
Conclusion 102
3. Populist Governments and Their Logic 107
Democracy Revisited 110
Populism in Government: Democracy Enhancing or Eviscerating? 122
Populist Government I: Qualified Authoritarianism? 130
The Threshold Issue 134
Populist Government II: Illiberal Democracy? 138
The Concept of Illiberal Democracy 139
The Populist Hybrid Regime 145
vi Contents
4. Populism and Constitutionalism 153

Introduction 153
Contesting the Balance between Popular Sovereignty
and Constitutionalism 156
Version 1. Popular Constitutionalism and Populism in Opposition 156
Version 2: Movements and Governments in Populist
Constitutional Replacement 160
Version 3: Constitution Replacement Dominated by Executives:
Peru and Hungary 165
Version 4: Constitutional Politics via Amendment and
Court Packing: Turkey and Poland 169
The Version after: Populist Treatment of New Constitutions 173
Is There a Populist Constitutionalism? 175
Inherited Constitutionalism 178
A New Balance? 178
Constitutional Instrumentalism? 179
Abusive Constitutionalism 179
Political Constitutionalism as Norm? 181
Constitutionalism of the Constituent Power 183
5. Alternatives to Populism 185
Popular, Plural, and Constitutionalist Democracy vs.
Populist Democratic Monism 186
The Popular vs. the Populist 186
Popular Sovereignty 187
From “Thin Ideology” to the Norms of Democracy 190
Toward a New Political Narrative 191
The Constituent Power, Democratic Constitutionalism,
and Consensus Democracy 195
Rescuing (Some of) the Host Ideologies 201
The Welfare Deficit and the Renewal of Social Democracy 202
The Cultural Gap: Status Deficits and the Renewal of Social Solidarity 209
Civil Society and a Dualistic Strategy 214
Notes 221
Bibliography 277
Index 295
Introduction: Defining Populism
Why publish another book on contemporary populism in an already increas-

ingly crowded scholarly field? As authors of several works on civil society, au-
thoritarian regimes, sovereignty, and democratization, we believe that on many
relevant issues we have new things to say, with more grounding theoretically
than most works on the subject. Indeed, we think that the tradition of critical
theory is not yet represented in the growing literature on contemporary pop-
ulism, amazingly enough given the early interest in authoritarian forms of the
founders of the critical theory tradition, and the later important work of the
second generation concerning the public sphere and the changing structure of
capitalism. We aim to fill this gap. More importantly, most existing works have
paid little attention to the subject of democratic alternatives to populist politics.
At best, many have assumed or even argued that the only alternative is to defend
liberal democracy as it is or to return to this form as it was. Others like Ernesto
Laclau, much more questionably, strongly imply, if never fully claim, that the al-
ternative must be a complete replacement of liberal dimensions of representative
democracy. We agree with neither of these options. All our chapters will be con-
cerned with the problem of the democratization of democracy1 and several will
consider alternatives under headings such as the expansion of the political role
of civil society and the reconstruction of social democracy. As critical theorists,
we believe that liberal democracy is by its nature an unfinished and incomplete
project. Accordingly, the contemporary halting or even reversal of its democratic
expansion plays a key role in opening the terrain to populist challenge in its var-
ious forms.
Thus the political reasons for writing our book are distinct. We doubt that,
even in the relatively short run, liberal democracy can be successfully defended
by a conservative relation to its contemporary forms, i.e., based on a desired
return to liberal parliamentarism or presidentialism as they were in the past.
Almost everywhere these are under strain, whether because of internal oligar-
chic tendencies of representative systems, the decline of party representation, or
strong external constraints, due to globalized capitalism, on the ability of dem-
ocratic states to deliver improvements of social welfare or equal life chances to
populations.2 We also do not believe that populism in any of its forms can suc-
cessfully address what we will call three deficits: those of democracy, welfare,
and social solidarity. We will argue, and hopefully show, that the very logic of
2 Populism and Civil Society
populism, as we define it and as it exists today in both left and right variants,
points to political authoritarianism and inconsistent, arbitrary, poorly thought
out, or clientelistic economic and social policies even where, empirically, various
tendencies, including populism’s organizational forms that we will note, produce
countervailing tendencies.3 Furthermore, as in the case of liberal democracy that
we wish to defend through its further democratization, we do not wish to deny
that contemporary populism has a point that should be taken seriously. This we
see in its critical dimension, especially in the early phase when populism is a
movement in civil society. Thus our attitude to both liberal democracy and pop-
ulism is that of immanent criticism:4 in one case we wish to defend the counter-
factual norms against existing forms of institutionalization and in the other the
critical dimension against strong authoritarian tendencies that are almost always
fully evident when populism achieves political power. Our perspective therefore
is to learn from the crises of liberal democracy, of which populism is perhaps the
most important if not the only symptom, and to begin to outline alternatives to
both liberal conservatism (represented even by many recent forms of social de-
mocracy) and populist authoritarianism.
This introduction consists of five sections. First, we will consider the method-
ological tools needed to define the phenomenon of populism. Next, we generate
a preliminary definition of the topos through an immanent critique of Ernest’s
Laclau’s theory of the same. This will be followed by an attempted correction of
the first results through ideal typical construction using three empirically de-
rived criteria: reliance on elections, orientation to constitutional politics, and
the utilization of “host ideologies” that are present in virtually all contemporary
populisms if they become politically relevant or successful. After having pro-
duced an expanded middle-range definition, that in our view leads to the dis-
tinct populist logic, we consider four organization forms populism can take that
should not be seen as an inevitable stage model: mobilization, party, govern-
ment, and regime. We end the introduction with our plan for the five chapters
of the book.
What Is Populism? How to Define the Phenomenon
Almost everyone acknowledges that populism is a contested and often polemical

concept and given the many historical and now ideological forms that have been
listed under this term, the great difficulty involved in coming up with a definition
that includes neither too much nor too little. There is today a certain conver-
gence among attempts to minimally identify the phenomenon, but this in itself
does not produce sufficient conceptual clarity.
Introduction 3
In previous writings, we have relied on two methodologies to help define

populism: immanent critique and ideal typical construction. As for the first,
following above all Marx’s critique of political economy, we select the best af-
firmative or ideological theory of a social phenomenon and try to use its main
components to develop a new theory that both uncovers dimensions suppressed
by the original (“defetishization”) or confronts their normative assumptions with
their false realization (“immanent critique of ideology”). Here we have an easier
time than Marx, since in his case there were many significant theories of the
emerging capitalist economy among which he had to choose the best, according
to his judgment and background historical knowledge. In our case populism,
whether of the right or the left, seems to have lacked many significant affirma-
tive theorists.5 Fortunately, Ernesto Laclau’s work,6 and the related but different
studies of Margaret Canovan and Chantal Mouffe, fill this theoretical or ideolog-
ical lacuna.
It is important for us, insofar as we have always been very critical of popu-
lism in light of its supposed authoritarian tendencies, that Laclau, Mouffe, and
Canovan all affirm populist politics, if in three different ways, as a significant
radical democratic alternative. Our study too is committed to the values of dem-
ocratic politics, and we study populism with the background assumption, based
on cases, that it represents a challenge and even a danger to these very values.
We do not however wish to presuppose authoritarianism on a definitional level.
Building our definition on elements derived from Ernesto Laclau first and fore-
most, should protect us against the charge of tautology based on normative
commitments. Only if our critical treatment can uncover, on the level of ar-
gumentation, the presence of an authoritarian logic that can be demonstrated
in terms of most relevant cases, will we be justified in rejecting the democratic
claims these authors repeatedly make.
Especially Laclau and Mouffe, but also Canovan, open themselves to a critique
resembling defetishization, by systematically suppressing the key dimension of
populism in governmental power, which must be recovered to understand the
telos or “the logic” of the phenomenon better and more deeply. When this is
done, the way is open to the critique of ideology. The democratic norms of pop-
ulist theorists, which seem to be implicit in their critique of really existing liberal
democracies, can and should be confronted with the strongly authoritarian ten-
dencies of populist governments and regimes, already decipherable in populist
movements.
The second methodological move we undertake is more dependent on Max
Weber than Karl Marx. Like Weber, we do not endorse Marx’s Hegelian confi-
dence in grasping the essence of the phenomenon in a relatively few develop-
mental elements. Aided by the historical experience of many cases, and their best
recent analyses, we can both re-emphasize those elements from the criticized
ideologies that yield a coherent picture of the phenomenon and add to them if
it turns out that the immanent criticism of populist theory and ideology left out
important dimensions of the phenomenon. Such omissions are likely because
Laclau, being mainly a philosopher, has neglected social scientific as well as his-
torical treatments of the phenomenon.7 The resulting combination then must
again be tested against both theoretical explorations of origins and causes, as well
as the history and tendencies of significant contemporary phenomena often re-
ferred to as “populist.”
We know, as did Weber, that empirical cases cannot be understood at all
without the construction of ideal typical concepts of interpretation, but also
that historical experience will rarely fully correspond to the conceptual type.
Nevertheless, we do not believe that the selection of cases so interpreted can
take place in a value-free manner. For us, the value that guides our effort is a
commitment to political democracy, to liberal democracy as a developmental
form, leading us to select those cases where this value has become an impor-
tant stake in the struggle, whether electoral or on the level of opposing social
movements in civil society. It is this relation to value (Weber’s Wertbeziehung)
combined with historical knowledge of different contexts that will be essential
if the set of types we construct is not to have so few elements as to include too
many cases8 and thus risk losing the distinction between populist and popular
politics, nor too many and thus exclude important ones where democracy is
under challenge.
What Is Populism: Immanent Critique
Everyone will agree with the statement that populism is a political phenomenon.
Yet how to distinguish it from other political projects? The literature seems to
suggest four types of answers: as a strategy, as a style, as a set of organized ideas,
or as a discourse, in each version leading to a political logic, whether authori-
tarian or democratic in the view of specific analysts.9 Immanent critique is meth-
odologically linked to discourses, and it is here that we must therefore begin. It
is discursive elements that are stressed by Laclau and the so-called Essex School.
Following Laclau, we must understand discourse as involving both language and
action, the predominance of one or the other depending on context and populist
actors. We note that populists can but often do not call themselves by this name,
and can self-define according to other ideological borrowings (such host ideolo-
gies are discussed further later in the chapter).
Introduction 5
Our critique of Laclau’s text and its theoretical foundations in the work of Carl
Schmitt has been carried out elsewhere,10 thus here we can restrict ourselves to
the list of the main elements of populism derived from Laclau’s and partially
Canovan’s complementary work:
1. An appeal to popular sovereignty as the fundamental norm violated by ex-

isting institutions whether liberal democratic or authoritarian.11
2. The rhetorical or ideologically thin construction of the empty signifier of
the people in such a way as to construct chains of imagined “equivalence”
among a wide heterogeneity of demands, grievances, and constituencies.12
3. The symbolic representation13 of the whole of this construct by a mobi-
lized part.14
4. The embodiment even of this part in a single charismatic leader, with
whom the mobilized part of the population has a highly emotional
relationship.15
5. The construction of a friend–enemy dichotomy16 (“the frontier of antag-
onism”17) between the people so defined and its “other” that is seen as the
establishment in power along with its beneficiaries and allies, both internal
and external.18
6. The insistence on a strong notion of politics or “the political” along with a
disinterest in mere “ordinary” politics or policy; this understanding of pol-
itics, often articulated in terms of the constituent (vs. “constituted”) power,
is based on will rather than social process as rationally understood.
We should stress from the outset, that each of these elements may and do ap-
pear in other political projects. It is the combination that is populist, in Laclau’s
understanding, and, as we will try to show, authoritarian in its logic.19 He has
strong though hardly incontrovertible arguments linking the six dimensions.
Popular sovereignty (element 1) as the fundamental norm cannot be politi-
cally relevant without the construction first and identification second of the
subject whose sovereignty is at stake, “the people.” Given societal plurality and
heterogeneity, the subject can be only discursively constructed, by a rhetorical
chain that equalizes various demands and injuries, a chain of equivalences (el-
ement 2). Mere rhetoric focusing on equality is however too weak to unify “the
friend” without the simultaneous construction (and “demonization”) of the
antagonist, “the enemy,” and of “the frontier of antagonism” (element 5). Only
then by a combination of inclusion and exclusion can the subject, the genuine
people, be identified. By its very nature given prior heterogeneity and new an-
tagonism it will only be a part of the population (element 3). Even that part
will be too large to speak and to act in a unified manner spontaneously. Thus
embodiment in a leader is needed (element 4), a single one if disunity is not to

re-appear in a collegium on top, and a charismatic one if it is to be able to gain
recognition from “the bottom,” the mobilized grassroots of the part. Finally,
fundamental antagonism is not only to enemy actors but to the system created
and dominated by them, often called “the establishment.” Thus (element 6),
the stress on the political (le politique), the foundational, or the constituent
power follows from the rest, dominated by the imagery of the united people
led by and embodied in a charismatic leader. Admittedly, it does not follow
that populists should be as disinterested in ordinary politics (la politique) as is
Laclau, but if so interested it would have to be for instrumental reasons. But it
does follow that the constituent power should not be a one-time act exhausted
by a constitution, but a permanent possibility often exercised even under a new
constitution.20
It is important for theoretical reasons to stress the combination of the elem-
ents in the definition. In our view some of them can exist apart from populism
under alternative interpretations. Meeting one or two of the criteria here, like the
related stresses on popular sovereignty (1) and the constituent power (6), may be
positive characteristics of democratic politics in other respects strongly opposed
to populism, charismatic embodiment, and friend–enemy antagonism. Almost
all versions of constitutional democracy allow and even promote popular (vs.
populist) leadership and leave room for the constituent power of citizens, which
can however be exercised in highly democratic ways involving pluralism and
self-limitation.21 Even the very common discourse referring to “the people”
(2) can be harmless or rhetorically productive if understood as a plurality rather
than a unified subject. It is its being combined with (3), (4), and (5), represen-
tation of the whole by a part, embodiment in a charismatic leader, and friend–
enemy relations that leads to the populist interpretation of these dimensions,
which are capable of alternative democratic interpretations.
Probably, many relevant cases will miss one of the elements: (1) and (6) are
the most likely candidates, based on empirical experience, though some argue
that charismatic leadership can also be dispensed with.22 It is the combination
of (3) part for the whole dialectic, (4) embodiment, and (5) friend–enemy jux-
taposition that is most central, and for some it may be enough for a “minimal
definition”23 usable for today’s main cases. But, logically, they need the scaf-
folding of a “thin ideology” rooted in the deep-seated imaginary of the dem-
ocratic age to be persuasive, and, at the very least when radically challenging
the existing system, the idea of re-foundation or appeal to the constituent
power is almost always implied.24 Certainly the logic of populism is inherent
in this combination. There is however also the question of which elements are
stressed in a given case, and this will vary depending in particular on whether
Introduction 7
the examined phase of populism is that of a movement, government, or regime.

Thus element 1, leading to a critique of existing democracies, will be strongest
in the movement phase, while the insistence on foundation and re-foundation
may be the strongest when a populist government encounters or discovers the
need to form a new regime.
What Is Populism: Construction of the Ideal Type
Even if the six elements derived from Laclau have internal relations more
common to structural analyses, they also yield an ideal typical construction.
As such they raise two methodological questions from the point of view of em-
pirical social science: are there too many elements here to include all relevant
cases today and in history, and conversely are there very important regularities
that are not yet included? The first objection represents the point of view of Cas
Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, who strongly advocate a minimal definition,25
and is implicitly present in many interpreters own attempts, whether they stress
discourse, ideology, or strategy as the key to populism. These interpreters are
not entirely wrong, a construct with too many components would include too
few cases, tendentially only a single historical case.26 Social science, unlike his-
toriography, needs to be comparative and must analyze both the similarities and
differences of many cases. At the same time, there are strong theoretical and
normative-political objections to the proposal of minimalism. By excluding
the leader embodying the whole and the part/whole problem, Mudde and
Kaltwasser neglect the deep internal connection of these elements to what they
stress, namely to fundamental antagonism and speaking in the name of the ge-
neral will. Furthermore, too few criteria would necessarily lead to the inclusion
of too many cases, thus compromising the important differences between what
has been called pre-populism, classical, and contemporary forms. More impor-
tantly, on the level of politics many grassroots democratic forms would be in-
cluded, thus losing the possibility of distinguishing between the popular and the
populist. Yes, it may be necessary to distinguish (if possible) within populisms of
grassroots vs. top down origins,27 but even then it takes a consideration of other
criteria beyond what minimalism can provide to discover the different and even
contrary logics between populism from below and non-populist democratic
mobilizations in civil society.28
This brings us to the second possible objection to some definitions, namely
of leaving out too much that may be fundamental. Here alternative minimalist
explanations speak against one another, and necessarily so. Since some focus on
discourse generally or ideology and even style more narrowly, while others on
strategy and practice, we have the right to ask whether any of these dimensions
should be neglected by either side, and why a combination of discourse, ideology,
style, strategy, and logic should not be preferable. This is also an objection against
Laclau and our list of elements derived from him, because even if his notion of
discourse includes practice, it does not include strategy of coming to power.29 All
politics whether “normal” or “extraordinary” (“the political”)30 has a strategic
dimension, aiming at the weakening of the hold of rivals on power and/or dis-
placing them. The strategic dimension of populism has been defined variously.
According to Kurt Weyland, populism is best defined “as a political strategy
through which a personalistic leader seeks or exercises government power based
on direct, unmediated, un-institutionalized support from a large number of
mostly unorganized followers.”31 This too is a fairly minimal definition, whose
most important component is mobilization in the service of attaining or keeping
power. Yet, by excluding this dimension, the question of populism installed
in power does not even come up for Laclau, strangely enough, in spite of his
documented interest in advising and supporting populists in power, whether the
Kirchners or Chavez.32 The strategic dimension will be important for us in three
forms of power: party, government, and regime.33 Yet, minimal definitions based
on strategy or insistence on style34 may occlude the difference between populism
and other political forms: fascism in the case of strategy and mass cultural de-
mocracy in the case of (media) style. Thus advocates of the strategic conception,
like Kenneth Roberts, criticize minimalist self-limitation for blurring the dis-
tinction between populism and other forms of social and political mobilization.
His own definition (or one of them) of populism as an “appeal to popular sover-
eignty where political authority is widely deemed to be detached, unrepresent-
ative or unaccountable to the common people”35 is itself fairly minimal even if
complemented elsewhere by focusing on mobilization achieved through an anti-
elite, anti-establishment discourse. Nevertheless, the introduction of versions of
the strategic conception in a field dominated by discursive and ideational models
points us well beyond any version of minimalism.36
Thus the second objection, applicable to our own scheme derived from
Laclau, of leaving out too much, can only be answered by a full survey of the
literature that we cannot undertake, given its exponential growth even as we
write. So we focus on two additions, both related to the strategic dimension,
that at the very least can be seen as ultimately instrumental.37 One is the elec-
toral aspect linked also to constitutional politics, the other is the need for what
has been called host ideologies. Together these allow the differentiation of pop-
ulism from authoritarian doctrines of the past (and possibly the future). The
stress on host ideologies will also help to conceptualize the internal differences
among populisms.
Introduction 9
Undoubtedly, the insistence of contemporary populisms on competitive

elections as roads to power and as a practice in power is one key element and
sign that differentiates these from classical forms of authoritarian politics. While
it may be possible to derive the electoral demand from the notion of popular
sovereignty, we have to stress that the latter notion together with charismatic em-
bodiment, friend–enemy relations, and part–whole representation (that could
take symbolic rather than accountable forms) may do without electoral claims
and justifications. Laclau indeed adopts the notion of symbolic representation
from Hanna Pitkin’s list and nowhere stresses leaders exposing themselves to
tests (Manin’s “retrospective judgment”), or in her language “giving account.”38
Nevertheless, Federico Finchelstein is right, along with several others, in claiming
that the major distinction of populism from fascism since Peron at least lies in
this dimension.39 In his historical reconstruction, Finchelstein rightly attributes
populist self-differentiation to the strong post–World War II international taboos
against fascist extreme violence. Thus, according to him, leaders and parties with
clearly fascist origins, like Peron in Argentina and the Front National in France,
were able to redefine themselves in more benign terms by insisting on replacing
(at least partially!) collective violence by electoral competition.
The stress on the importance of elections for populism in acquiring and staying
in power, should be complemented by an even more surprising insistence on
constitutional politics, whether in the form of writing, amending, or interpreting
written constitutions. The stress is surprising, given the great emphasis of
populists on popular sovereignty, embodied in a leader or a government, and the
general hostility to constitutional restraints and limitations. It is however logi-
cally clear that elections with some competitive elements, even referenda, require
prior rules for their procedures, even if they may be violated in practice. Such
rules presuppose constitutions at least in the minimal sense that can be provided
by statutes or executive decrees. In general however the legitimacy of elections
and referenda, both domestic and international, requires written constitutional
and (materially constitutional!) electoral rules also under populist governments.
Here the difference to fascism is most striking,40 but populists are also very dif-
ferent from communist regimes to whom constitutions were a mere façade,
hiding rather than revealing the actual maps of power.41 Populist constitutions
are real power maps, “nominal constitutions” with the proviso that ultimately
they leave a great deal of discretionary space to the popular will embodied in the
government that can easily change or by-pass the formal rules in either emergen-
cies or episodes of constitution amending or replacement.
Populism need not break with all the characteristics of fascism, but there
must be a break that has visible marks or characteristics. Constitutional poli-
tics represents one such visible break. As we have seen, Finchelstein stresses the
rejection of extreme violence as complementary to the affirmation of elections,

in principle non-violent forms of attaining and keeping power. Given the his-
tory of communist state terrorism and repression and the reduction of elections
to empty rituals, the same can be said, in our view, concerning the difference
with communism. The shift goes both ways. We need to understand the two
“totalitarian” forms as different from populisms in spite of their anticipations
of several of the dimensions of the conception we rely on: charismatic leader-
ship, friend–enemy relations, part–whole dialectic, and the implicit though not
explicit reliance on constituent power. Yes, even their forms of discourse often
sounded very populist indeed, as can be explicitly seen in the case of Mao.42
The fiction of the nation could be said to be a substitute for that of the people
and class could be explicitly complemented by references to the working people,
sometimes just “the people.”43 Both fascism and communism have used elec-
toral competition and tactics under the protections of inherited constitutions
before coming to power, which however always involved revolutionary or re-
gime changing results if not legal ruptures. Yet populisms too often claim to
have come to power in “legal” revolutions (Orbán’s revolution of the voting
booth; Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution) a term that is also relevant to the rise
of Mussolini and Hitler to power.44 While in the case of the Communists rev-
olutionary breaks or coups d’état were required, if we can speak of coups in the
populist victories, these are generally hidden by formal rule following or at least
validation by apex courts (Peron and Fujimori represent exceptions). What is
important here however is that both fascism and communism, once in power,
completely eliminate genuine electoral competition. Populisms on the other
hand not only maintain, almost without exception, the institution of at least
partially competitive elections but have in many cases dramatically increased
their frequency in several forms, ordinary and extraordinary, including but not
limited to plebiscites and referenda.45
Not only possibly reluctant rejections of fascism and communism or
concessions to liberal democracy are involved. Here the reference to a par-
ticular interpretation of popular sovereignty, in terms of embodiment of the
people’s will in the leader, may be helpful. As Max Weber has insisted, charisma
is a highly vulnerable form of legitimacy, but can be shored up under modern
conditions by plebiscitary acclamation that represents a sort of asymmetric dia-
logue between leaders and followers. Coupled with popular sovereignty claims,
the followers have to be expanded to a sufficiently large number to be able to
plausibly speak in the name of the people. Even demonstrations have limits in
terms of numbers. Here is the origin and reason of the populist preference for
plebiscites and referenda, where a numerical popular majority can be achieved.
Populisms are always majoritarian, as they have to be in divided and plural
societies where there is neither unity nor a single voice of the people.46 Yet
Introduction 11
populisms are also monist insofar as the people and their will is perforce unified
and embodied in a leader (charismatic or not) who incarnates their supposed
unity. Elections, even ordinary ones, are the solution to the apparent contradic-
tion. They turn the voice of the majority, however structured, into plebiscites
on individual leaders, rather than votes on alternative programs or past per-
formance, allowing those leaders to claim their identity with the people and
their will.47 Populism in other words does not abolish but decisively transforms
elections.
There is of course a risk. Completely free and fair elections can be lost, even by
a popular and charismatic leader, as Indira Gandhi found out in 1977 against her
expectations. There are however ways to diminish the risk, by limiting competing
parties, reducing the freedom of the press, attacking civil society institutions,
manipulating electoral rules to produce incumbent advantage, controlling elec-
toral commissions and eliminating exit polling, and even (as in Turkey recently)
changing the constitution from a parliamentary to a presidential one, since di-
rect elections of the head of state and government increases the plebiscitary di-
mension. While all populist incumbents engage in some of these tactics, it may
be difficult to find the threshold where elections are no longer competitive. Even
the term competitive authoritarianism refers to such a hybrid situation, with the
genus being authoritarian, and the differentia competitive.48 What is certain is
that populism, whether emerging from below, or much more likely from above,49
seeks to develop and maintain what has been called “plebiscitary linkage” at the
expense of genuine political competition that is however difficult to eliminate,
because plebiscitary legitimacy itself requires constant testing and refurbishing.
It is however generally easier to prevail in elections than to produce the results
that plebiscitary leaders almost always promise, generally without the ability to
deliver. Elections thus can be ways of avoiding rather than testing accountability.
Therefore, stress on competitive elections, absent in the neo-Bolshevik vision of
Laclau, but present in the work of Mouffe, should be added to the criteria devel-
oped here, as the seventh defining feature.50
Thus while historically and at times biographically related (e.g., in the cases of
Peron and Le Pen), once in power populism and fascism and populism and com-
munism can be differentiated most visibly by the electoral criterion. Given that
all these political forms can use elections to come to power, even more impor-
tant in our view is the ideological difference. In our definition the construction
of a chain of equivalence reliant on embodiment and intense antagonism yields
only what has been called a “thin ideology.”51 Fascism and communism possess
well-developed, “thick” ideologies linked to normative visions of the good so-
ciety, philosophies of history, sociological strata, and geo-political threats. Here
lies one reason for their mobilizational potential in their movement phase that
is not compromised by lost elections, nor does it require elections at all in the
governmental phase. The asymmetrical dialogue between leader and led is not
only charismatic but also ideological. Populism, to compensate, not only needs
electoral success but, as it has been well shown by Mudde and Kaltwasser, ideo-
logical alliances, host ideologies, without however transforming itself into purely
ideological movement or ideocratic rule. Being able to flexibly draw on host
ideologies, switching between them, even eclectically combining them is an im-
portant advantage of populist leaders and politics.
The conception of host ideologies also helps us differentiate among
populisms, those on the left, the right, and even those that deny the distinction
and eclectically draw on both traditions. Left and right populisms can of course
be distinguished under our criterion 5, according to who is defined as the
enemy: the country’s elites (“establishment”; oligarchy) only or also an under-
class, racial, religious, ethnic, or immigrant. But to exclude any of the latter
from the people is difficult to justify under an empty signifier, constructed by
a chain of supposed equivalences, in other words a thin ideology. Thus the idea
of a host ideology is an important contribution to both the internal differenti-
ation of populisms and the understanding of their motivational power.52 Here
too the historical link to fascism and authoritarian socialism again becomes ev-
ident, since ethno or cultural nationalism on the right and state socialism on
the left are the most important host ideologies, at least so far. But these are not
the only hosts possible. Religion too can play this role, mostly on the right, but
sometimes on the left,53 and as Chantal Mouffe’s recent work reveals, so can
imaginably liberal democracy understood as an ideology, rather than a set of
political procedures or even the enactment of enforceable civil or social rights.54
Social democracy and neo-liberalism too can become hosts as we have seen in
Latin America after World War II, for the first, and in the 1990s for the second.
As these examples indicate, there are always possible tensions between host and
parasite, most obvious in the case of populist attempts to rely on liberal democ-
racy, which lead to serious internal contradictions with the whole ideal type
derived from Laclau.55
The need to rely on host ideologies, some of which are evidently well devel-
oped and “thick,” does not vitiate the consequences of ideological thinness.
Assuming that there is always a need for a host, something Laclau does not ex-
plicitly admit, he is very clear,56 clearer than most populists, that it is relatively
easy to “float” in effect from one host to another. This is his very important theory
of the floating signifier that asserts the instability of a name like “the people” or
“the revolution” or even “the nation” allowing political shifts from one political
leadership to another, from one construction of the enemy to another, as his
example of the relation of communist electorate to the supporters of the Front
National in France (renamed in June 2018 as the Rassemblement Nationale by
Introduction 13
Marine le Pen) indicates. Populism has no developed normative theory, no phi-

losophy of history, no strong sociological anchoring in a class, and thus Laclau is
forced to imply that it will be highly contingent factors like charisma and rhetoric
(and perhaps the psychology of disappointment?) that will decide whether there
is floating or not in societies where there are many actual or potential political
actors. If his intention in developing the notion of the floating signifier was to
promote floating from right to left, or to block the reverse, he conspicuously fails
to provide a theory for how either is to be accomplished.
We are ready to present a second version of our ideal typical definition of
populism, the first having been the result of our immanent critique of Laclau’s
reconstruction of the populist construct of the people. Here that version is
supplemented by three key additions: the stress on a common strategic dimen-
sion, the inclusion of the need for host ideologies, and the need for electoral self-
justification. Accordingly, in a somewhat reduced version:
1. Populism is a strategy of political mobilization for attaining or retaining,

or at the very least strongly influencing, governmental power, by an
appeal to popular sovereignty as the fundamental norm said to be vio-
lated by existing or previous institutions whether liberal democratic or
authoritarian;
2. By the rhetorical or ideologically thin construction of the empty signifier of
the people in such a way as to construct “chains” of imagined “equivalence”
among a wide heterogeneity of demands, grievances, and constituencies—
to succeed, reliance on almost any available “thick” ideology as “host,”
whether nationalism, socialism, religion or neo-liberalism is required.
3. By the symbolic representation of the whole of “the people” by a mobi-
lized part.
4. By the embodiment even of this part, typically in a single charismatic leader
with whom the mobilized part of the population has a highly emotional re-
lationship and interaction.
5. By the construction of a friend–enemy dichotomy57 (“the frontier of an-
tagonism”58) between the people so defined and its “other” seen as the es-
tablishment in power along with its beneficiaries and allies, internal and
external.59
6. By insistence on a strong notion of politics, or “the political,” and a disin-
terest in mere “ordinary” politics or policy, which understanding of poli-
tics, often articulated in terms of the constituent (vs. “constituted”) power,
is based on will rather than social process as rationally understood.
7. By valorizing and maintaining electoral competition (elections, referenda,
plebiscites) or its plausible appearance.
Different Populisms: Mobilization,

Party, Government, and Regime
The ideal typical definition cannot disguise the existence of different populisms
as revealed by the “attaining or retaining” of element 1, the variety of possible
host ideologies of 2, the possibility of different types (and number) of enemies
in 5, and the difference between competitive elections and their appearance in
7. The most common differentiation in the literature is between populism of the
left and the right, which pertains to two issues: the choice of enemy and that of
a host ideology. Being left or right in terms of one of these criteria however does
not automatically imply the other, and we have now seen in France for example
a populism with two enemies, the “elite” and the immigrant subalterns, com-
bined with a strong defense of the welfare state at least as far as “genuine French”
citizens are concerned. Alberto Fujimori’s populism, conversely, combined a
neo-liberal economic strategy with appeals to the people including and even es-
pecially subaltern strata. Moreover, the fact of “floating” stressed by Laclau, the
claim of many populists of being beyond traditional political distinctions, and
the common eclectic borrowings from both traditions makes grouping between
left and right populisms very difficult, if politically almost unavoidable.
There are important interpreters who attempt to differentiate various
populisms on the bases of origins: mobilization from below and mobilization
from above.60 Even if we add a third possible origin, the in-between level of po-
litical parties, there are problems also with this form of making the distinction.
First, there is a debate on whether genuine populism should include both or all
three forms. We think it should include both forms of mobilization, as long as
the main criteria of our definition, its discursive and strategic dimensions are
satisfied. But, more importantly, if the distinction between left and right has be-
come difficult in the case of many populisms, the same is true for the question
of origins: whether a populism emerges from the grassroots or from a power
position above. While there may be cases of pure mobilization from either below
or, more commonly, above, in most significant cases both will be involved. One
might imagine a sequence between initial mobilization from below, followed by
expansion led by parties, governments, or both. The sequence then would be
movement (or: mobilization), party, government, and regime.61 A movement
would then come first, followed by party formation, and then assuming electoral
victory, a populist government. Finally, only a populist government is in the po-
sition to create a new regime while keeping the populist discourse, first a hybrid
one and then, at least potentially, an outright authoritarian regime, possibly in
new historical forms.
In reality the process can start from above or from the in-between level.
An initial, independent movement stage rarely emerges, while mobilization
Introduction 15
resembling movement forms can be created by an already existing party, as with

the FN or now RN in France and FIDESZ in Hungary, or by a government, as
in the case of Chavismo in Venezuela. This is why we now prefer to speak about
populism as mobilization rather than movement. We do not dismiss the pos-
sibility of genuine self-mobilization from below, but insist that this “stage” can
be skipped altogether. More rarely, the same can be said about even a party, at
least in presidential settings like Peru and Ecuador, where a charismatic figure
could win election without a genuine, organized party. And, assuming coming to
power through rupture like a coup d’état, a party or a movement leader can im-
mediately begin the construction of a hybrid populist regime without having to
put up with the conflicts of other branches and constitutional safeguards.
In a word, origins help us to understand the nature and specific type of the
populist challenge but do not provide clear enough distinction among forms of
populism. But they do fortunately call our attention to the different organiza-
tional forms that give us better clues to the logic of differentiation. A grassroots
movement or even a mobilization that resembles its forms are different from
an electorally organized party, and the possession of one or another power of
government in a liberal democratic regime is different from the occupation of
all power institutions in hybrid and authoritarian regimes. A movement type
of organization that even mobilization from above often mimics is a relatively
loose network of mobilized or mobilizable individuals, who may participate
for heterogeneous reasons. Whether emerging from below or created from
above, movements can have very different components ideologically and nor-
matively. What unites them are rhetorics or narratives that always involve op-
position to an antagonist whether itself a movement, a party, or a government.
All populism involves a critique of established political forms, but this crit-
ical dimension especially of liberal democracy (or: oligarchy) is particularly
strong in populist mobilization. We leave political parties and their definition
for later discussion, but note here only the obvious dimensions of greater or-
ganizational coherence, the maintenance of greater discursive uniformity than
movements, and in particular the defining role of strategy for attaining power,
generally through elections but possibly in preparation for a coup or a “rev-
olution.” The strategic orientation that is more important than the discursive
one for parties, is even more in focus when populists achieve governmental
power. If this is achieved in elections under a given constitution, populist
governments have to try to control and defeat other inherited branches and
institutions of guarantee. As long as some kind of even partially competitive
elections are retained for the legitimating of mobilizing purposes, we can speak
of governmental forms of populism. This as we will see can take two forms: “in”
government vs. “the” government.62 If only the executive is fully captured, as in
the United States in most of the Trump era, populism is only “in” government,
though according to its unitary definition of the embodied people will contest
or try to capture other governmental branches. Such conquest can be achieved
whether by electing a new (usually constituent) assembly as in Venezuela and
Ecuador, court packing as in Poland, or the combination of these methods as
in Hungary and Turkey. However the result is achieved, we can speak of popu-
lism as “the” government. At this point, the threshold is in the process of being
crossed from a democratic to a hybrid populist political system. But only when
the (originally) populist government can no longer lose an election,63 when no
fundamental rights are respected, and no political alternatives can be articu-
lated at all, can we speak of a shift to an authoritarian regime, generally also a
hybrid one in the sense of retaining elections and documentary constitutions
on the purely formal level.
We have already said that despite the logic and even empirical examples of
a sequence among these four forms, we are not postulating a stage model.
Empirically at least, stages can be both reversed or skipped in our understanding
of the many relevant cases. The sequence of mobilization or movement, party,
“in” government, “the” government, and regime, is at best a logical one. Given
populist discourse, and especially the stress on the unity of the people and its
uncompromising hostility to an enemy, a populist mobilization even from below
logically implies becoming a party, the party, the government, and the govern-
ment a regime. The individual stages as we said may be followed or skipped or fail
to be realized. But even in the latter case, such simple logical relations between
the forms hide essential continuities, or the combination of replacement with the
preservation of the other forms. A movement, especially when organized from
above, can already have a core of a proto-party within its ranks, trying to stim-
ulate greater organizational integrity, hierarchy, and discursive homogeneity.
Populist parties, as we will show in chapter 2, are typically movement parties
that organize activist members and voters according to looser hierarchical links
and greater ideological freedom than the party’s core or vanguard. The latter
is already an anticipation of the government executive within most parties.
Populist governments, even when they come to power without a genuine party,
try to create such an organization as well as to maintain or even create the move-
ment, but generally controlled and directed from above. Interestingly, the di-
mension critical of previous political forms, dominant for populist movements,
is maintained not only for populist parties in opposition, but even populist
governments that often blame previous administrations, or hidden powers like
the now famous “deep state,” for their inevitable failures. Thus movement and
party forms are maintained for populist governments for electoral, justificatory,
and legitimating purposes. Only with populist regimes that have crossed the
threshold to an authoritarian regime can this logic of cancellation–preservation
be possibly suspended. Yet, there is no current case of a consolidated populist
Introduction 17
regime that has broken its continuity with populism as the government. With
these considerations in mind, our book stresses organizational forms of popu-
lism and their relationships to one another. We will show both that each of these
forms has a somewhat different relationship to the normative problems of de-
mocracy, democratization, and the possibility that populism in all its forms ulti-
mately signifies an authoritarian turn that must and can be resisted.
The Plan of the Book
We have addressed the difficulties surrounding the contested concept of pop-

ulism, explicated our methodology, and provided a working definition of the
phenomenon in this introduction. We turn next, in chapter 1, to the question
of how we got here. Populism is, first and foremost, a response to the political
contradictions of modern constitutional democracy (i.e., of representative gov-
ernment), but we maintain that populisms do and indeed must respond to some
combination of cultural and economic deficits, resorting to various host ideolo-
gies in order to do so. Populist projects are thus co-terminus with modern de-
mocracy, emerging and re-emerging intermittently, at times generating large
mobilizations and gaining access to power. At other times however, populists fail
to garner real support or to enter government. Thus it is important to ask why
populist movements and parties are so prevalent and so successful in the con-
temporary period. Accordingly, we proceed in c hapter 1, “Why and Why Now?”
by analyzing three time frames for assessing the long term (structural phe-
nomena), middle term (crisis tendencies), and short term (contextual) factors
that constitute the political opportunity structure for populist mobilizations to
emerge and succeed (or fail). And we focus on three levels of “contradiction”
in modernity, political, cultural, and economic, approaching populist mobiliza-
tion in terms of “supply” and “demand” with respect to existing grievances and
frames for articulating them.64
We argue that on the long-term, structural level, there is a permanent opening
in modern democracy for populism to emerge thanks to the inevitable tension
between projects to realize and concretize both popular sovereignty and con-
stitutionalism. Since representative democracy can always be made more dem-
ocratic, more inclusive, more just, populism’s point of entry is in the gaps, the
slowness, and the possible reversals in the dynamic of democratization. The se-
ductiveness of populist politics lies in claims by political entrepreneurs that they
can close the gaps through direct representation, full inclusion of the “authentic
people,” and the return of their sovereignty to them. They gain support for their
imagined rejection of limits to the democratic people’s will, rhetorically pit-
ting popular sovereignty against constitutionalism. The medium term pertains
2
Populism as Mobilization and as a Party
As indicated in c hapter 1, a key element in populist success at coming to power is

the emergence of political entrepreneurs, mobilization leaders, and parties who
supply the appropriate rhetoric, worldview, and strategy to generate support. We
discussed the role played by the bait and switch tactics of establishment parties in
preparing the ground for populists to capitalize on the pent up “demand” for po-
litical representation, or voice—left unarticulated and unsatisfied by established
parties. At issue are not only rhetoric or even the plausibility and seductiveness
of the narratives offered but also the dynamics produced by anti-establishment
populist mobilizations and parties seeking to fill the available political space.
This chapter focuses on those dynamics by analyzing the distinctive logic of
populist mobilization and party formation. Our concern is the impact of suc-
cessful populist projects on parties, party systems, and the political norms
and practices of political competition and cooperation in democratic polities.
Populists situate themselves in the democratic imaginary and purport to im-
prove the quality of democracy by creating party forms that are supposedly more
democratic and more responsive to “the people” than established parties. But we
will argue that the populist worldview and logic involve the creation of a spe-
cific form of anti-establishment, anti-party party and a mode of party politics
that undermines instead of enhancing democracy. This is so whether populist
parties emerge “from below” out of social initiatives, from above through the
machinations of skilled political entrepreneurs, or both.
The relevant features of the populist worldview and logic are its Manichean
framing of “the people” as good and entrenched elites as evil; its pars pro toto
logic whereby the populist party (and its leader) poses as the sole voice and rep-
resentative embodiment of the will of the sovereign people; its friend–enemy
conception of politics that sews distrust of other parties and movements; and
its anti-establishment, anti-elitist stance that favors movement type dynamics
and hollow organizational party forms. Populist mobilizations are certainly not
the first to claim to speak in the name of “the people.” Nor are populist parties
(that also make that claim) the first anti-establishment parties with an anti-
party rhetoric to succeed in mobilizing supporters and in entering legislatures
or governments. But populist mobilization has a telos of power and thus tends
to morph into political parties, while populist leaders and parties, even without
an initial social movement background, are impelled to rely on movement type
mobilization within civil society (typically managed from above) to main-

tain their anti-party, anti-establishment posturing. Yet populists did not invent
the party form that they invariably gravitate toward—the movement party—
although their version of it has distinct features and dynamics specific to pop-
ulism. Put differently, since only they purportedly represent the “authentic
people,” a claim that needs periodic acclamatory affirmation, populist parties
cannot normalize or de-radicalize their populist movement style rhetoric even
when in government, while remaining populist. Instead they blur the logic of
movements and parties undermining the democratic roles of both.1 Thus even
when they cooperate with other parties in government, they do so for strategic
instrumental reasons but cannot really accept the legitimacy of the opposition
or even of their coalition partners. If populist parties are the sole voice of the
authentic people, they are the part that purports to be the whole, and thus their
logic militates strongly against the acceptance of party pluralism and of the op-
position except for strategic or instrumental reasons. Our thesis is that the pop-
ulist worldview and logic leads populist parties to assume a form and political
dynamic that undermine rather than improve the quality of democratic party
systems and democratic norms of political competition and behavior.
The analytic distinction between political parties and social movements and
how they do or ought to interrelate in a democratic polity is thus important.
But it has been a relatively neglected topic by political scientists and democratic
theorists in part because of the division of labor between sociologists who study
movements and political scientists who study parties.2 Accordingly, to make our
case, we first discuss social movements as a specific form of politically oriented
contentious collective action. (1) We analyze the logic of social movements—that
of influence—taking as our baseline the new social movements that emerged in
the West in the 1960s and 1970s. Much like the movements of that epoch, con-
temporary populist mobilizations typically criticize “the establishment,” and
challenge traditional political parties as elitist usurpers of popular sovereignty.
They too, invoke people power and argue against hierarchical party relations,
often in favor of horizontal linkages, participatory forms of democratic inclu-
sion of ordinary citizens in politics, and direct “unmediated” relations with their
“representatives” as an alternative to elite organizational forms and control of the
political system.3
Certainly, the relation of movements to parties and the party system can be
democracy enhancing.4 Populist mobilizations occupy the same space as so-
cial movements insofar as they emerge in civil society and organize around ne-
glected demands. But we will argue that despite similarities to the rhetoric and
anti-establishment stances of the new social movements, populist mobilizations
(and political entrepreneurs) differ insofar as they are driven by their logic to
Populism as Mobilization and as a Party 55
seek power and hence to enter the party political arena either as new parties or by
capturing existing ones.5
The question, then, becomes what type of political party populists form and
how this impacts the party system in democracies. (2) We discuss the ideal typ-
ical forms of political parties that have emerged since the late 19th century—
the party of notables, the mass party, the catch-all party, the cartel party, and
the movement party—focusing on the West but with relevance elsewhere.
Our interest is twofold: first in how the evolving structure of the catch-all and
cartel party (among other factors)—in particular their “hollowing out” and
movementization compared with the mass party—provide the political oppor-
tunity structure for populist electoral movements and leaders to emerge and
succeed as anti-party parties and/or to capture existing parties. Second, we look
at how these types provide the elements for the particular party form created
by contemporary populists. We show that populist parties combine key features
of the catch-all party type with the movement party form: Populist parties are
typically catch-all movement parties. Insofar as they construct what Laclau calls
chains of equivalence across a wide variety of demands and interests so as to ap-
peal to a majority of voters, they resemble catch-all parties. But they also invari-
ably adopt the movement party form, although their appeal is neither restricted
to a single issue nor wed to programmatic goals, as is typical of non-populist
movement parties. And while they can be hollow in ways similar to cartel parties,
they certainly do not join cartels.
After considering the ideal types of contemporary movements and parties and
their relation to populism in the abstract, (3) we turn to the three possible causal
relations of these forms within the populist phenomenon: origins of mobiliza-
tion from above, below, and from an in-between level of oppositional parties.
Focusing on comparative cases we demonstrate that, irrespective of the exact
causal nexus, the outcomes are remarkably similar, namely the creation of a new
form synthesizing characteristics of party and movement.
Thus the theory and practice of the movement party form, especially the dy-
namics of the versions emergent in the 1980s, merit special attention. In the
next section, we turn to this: (4) movement parties typically form around issues
neglected by established parties. They initially have strong ties to movement
forms and rhetoric, which is often absolutist, moralistic, and uncompromising.
However, when they succeed in entering legislatures they go through ideal typ-
ical transformations—a process of normalization—anticipated by the theory of
movement parties, in light of the tensions and contradictions inherent in mer-
ging movement and party forms. But populist movement parties cannot be-
come “responsible parties” while insisting on their populist identity. Populists
thrive by criticizing political parties as such and typically present as “movement
parties.” We will analyze the theory and practice of movement parties to see how
these illuminate the dynamics and tensions in populist exemplars and yet fail to
predict outcomes regarding populist versions.
In the next section, (5) we turn to the impact of specific features of populist
logic and worldview on populist parties, party systems, and political competi-
tion. We focus on three features addressed separately in the literature: the re-
gression of parties into factions, the emergence of a distinctive type of severe
polarization, and the emergence of a new type of anti-party party (a catch-all
movement party) tied to the enduring movementization of populist anti-party
parties. Populist versions of movement parties pose as anti-party parties, or
“non-parties” often referring to themselves as movements, even as they partic-
ipate in the electoral party political game. But they cannot avoid the tensions
inherent in the movement party form, nor can they normalize and accept being
ordinary political parties in a pluralist, democratic party system, due to their
anti-establishment stances and populist worldview.
It will then be clear why populist movement parties tend to distort and un-
dermine more-or-less functioning, institutionalized, pluralist, democratic party
systems. In short, they risk triggering mirroring dynamics in other parties, po-
tentially creating a destructive spiral of factionalism, rhetorical escalation, and
polarization. This undermines the ability of parties and party systems to per-
form their most basic functions. Part of the problem is that populist movement
parties one-sidedly stress the expressive relationship with their base over other
functions parties typically carry out. (6) We discuss these functions and the dis-
tinctive type of “expressive” linkages populist parties tend to foster with their
supporters (clientelistic, plebiscitary, “charismatic,” acclaim oriented, instead of
programmatic, deliberative, or discursive) that others may be tempted to imi-
tate. We will show that because populism in power cannot normalize and re-
differentiate the party movement form while remaining populist, populist
leaders in power exacerbate polarization, seeking to de-legitimate the opposition
and exclude its supporters (deemed enemies) from benefits and opportunities
provided by populist governments. As we argue in chapter 3, there is thus an
elective affinity of populist parties in power with authoritarianism. But their suc-
cess is not inevitable: other parties have a choice of how to respond to populist
strategy, and counter-movements also have choices about resisting and finding
alternatives to populist logic.
Social Movements: Their Logic and Limits
The 20th century ushered in mass politics in Western democracies. As Dahl in-
fluentially noted, there are three ideal typical modes of articulating collective po-
litical interests and aims in a democracy: interest groups, political parties, and
social movements.6 Interest groups seek influence, lobbying, and bargaining

with politicians, offering information, money, persuasion, and credible threats
regarding electoral support. When they seek to influence those in power over the
long term, they invest in organizational structure, develop a chain of command
and a division of labor among professional lobbyists, etc.7 Political parties are
organizations that aim to get control of government to wield the state’s authori-
tative political power to make collectively binding decisions. Their function is to
mobilize, represent voters, aggregate interests, and govern.8 Social movements,
in contrast to both parties and interest groups, are typically networks of protest
groups engaged in non-institutionalized forms of contentious collective action
with the goal of social transformation.9 Like parties they aggregate interests and
mobilize large masses of people and committed supporters in pursuit of a collec-
tive purpose, but do so outside the ordinary channels of political communica-
tion and without organizing to win elections to enter government. Like interest
groups they may speak for specific group concerns, but insofar as they are polit-
ical they endorse ends that can become binding for the wider community.
We focus on the shifting relations between movements and parties and the im-
pact of populist logic on them. The types of social movements that matter in this
regard are those that are political in a specific sense, namely their means of col-
lective action can be recognized as legitimate and their ends can become binding
for the wider community.10 The distinctiveness of social protest movements is
that they engage in contentious politics, purporting to articulate generalizable
interpretations of values and aims, needs and interests of groups that political
parties have allegedly failed to adequately represent.
The literature on the “new social movements” of the 1960s and 70s is enlight-
ening in this regard.11 Viewing movements as a normal part of democratic pol-
itics, analysts were able to specify their specific locus, stakes, logic, dynamics,
strengths, and weaknesses. The locus classicus of social movements is civil so-
ciety, where they are born as voluntary associations and mobilize to challenge
exclusion and unjust “private” and public power.12 Indeed the emergence of
electoral politics and of popular participation in national politics, and the grant
of legality to electoral associations and assemblies provided a claim to legality
for associations and assemblies that were not electoral along with the rights to
publicize, demonstrate, assemble, etc. Put differently, democratic electoral party
politics became an incentive to social movements to operate in civil society and
select action repertoires like the demonstration, the strike, boycotts, or sit-ins
not controlled by political parties.13 Whether one stresses the strategic aspects
of social movements oriented to the pursuit of collective interests by looking
into the political opportunity structure, resource mobilization, choice of frames
(Tilly et al.); their symbolic dimensions (orientation to visibility and contesta-
tion of norms and interpretations of shared values (Touraine, Melucci); or the
identity-oriented dimensions of social movements seeking recognition, au-

tonomy, and revalorization of their status in society (Pizzorno) thereby fostering
reflexivity about the creation of collective identities, it is clear that the stakes
of social movements engaged in contentious politics must be understood both
as defensive and offensive.14 Social movements and counter-movements con-
strue the cultural models, norms, and institutions of civil society as key stakes
of social conflict. They defend society in Polányi’s sense from the predations of
market and against administrative logics (Habermas’s colonization thesis) but
are proactive in that they develop the communicative infrastructure of social
life, potentially leading to the reinterpretation of social identities and norms in
an egalitarian and inclusive direction but also generating counter-movements
against such interpretations.15 Finally contemporary social movements in civil
society are supposed to be and generally are pluralistic. While they struggle with
the relevant counter-movement, in distinction to revolutionary movements in
the past they do not purport to be the only legitimate association or movement
in civil society, or the only true voice of the unitary people.16 Indeed initially,
issue movements (feminist, ecological, civil rights) may ally with other collective
actors broadening their influence and appeal. They are, in short, in and of civil
society, thriving on and accepting its intrinsic pluralism.
While their quintessential locus is civil society, movements have a specific
political logic and relationship to institutional party politics and the state: the
politics of influence. Movements don’t organize to stand for election, enter par-
liament, and govern. They are not political parties. Instead they seek to influence
those political organizations that do form and go on to enter the political system
and governments and exercise authoritative political power. Their mode of orga-
nizing is indicative of their distinctive logic of influence: it is informal, ad hoc,
discontinuous, context-sensitive, and often egalitarian.17 They don’t develop
highly differentiated organizational structures; they typically have rudimentary
membership rules, staffs, programs, and tend to avoid membership dues, relying
instead on donations, networks, and voluntarism; and they often (but not al-
ways) favor participatory as opposed to plebiscitary forms of interaction.18
The representative function of social movements is thus different from that of
political parties. Although they do articulate ends and norms that can become
binding for the wider community, they rely on other organizations (parties) to
mediate these into authoritative, collectively binding decisions. Since they typ-
ically seek to influence, not exercise institutionalized political power, they are
freed from the responsibilities of governing and are under little pressure to
temper their demands. Indeed movements tend to frame their concerns and
ends in principled, non-negotiable terms and in moralistic antinomies: yes/no,
us/them, desirable/intolerable.19 While all movements contain fundamentalist
purist wings as well as more “realist,” “self-limiting” ones, the former tend to be
louder.20 Accordingly, their relation to political parties and opponents is unlike

that of interest groups or other parties. Claus Offe for example argues that they
are incapable of negotiating or bargaining because they cannot make credible
commitments on behalf of those they “represent” or speak for. Movements lack
the relevant properties of formal organizations, such as the internal binding-ness
of representative decisions, by virtue of which formal organizations ensure the
terms of the political deal will be honored.21 This, in addition to the high moral-
istic value and priority ascribed by movements to their demands, renders com-
promise both difficult and potentially self-defeating.
It is worth reminding the reader that this positive assessment of the place of
social movements in the action repertoire of citizens in democracies was and
remains contested.22 Indeed, the pluralist-consensus school in political science,
hegemonic in the 1950s and early 60s in the United States, together with the col-
lective behavior school in sociology, did address “mass movements” and con-
tentious unconventional “collective behavior” in a relatively quiescent period,
but construed them as threats to democracy, not as normal features of demo-
cratic politics. They deemed interest group and party politics as rational, moder-
ating, and the only acceptable form of democratic participation besides voting.23
Clearly informed by the recent past of fascist, National Socialist, and Communist
movements and movement parties and the disastrously destructive, anti-
democratic governments they set up once in power, the respective political and
social theorists embraced the post-war consensus that saw economic growth,
national security, and some version of the welfare state based on class com-
promise as the positive sum basis for political democracy mediated exclusively
through party competition. Accordingly, they construed un-institutionalized,
unconventional mass collective action as deviant, irrational, exceptional, and
dangerous—as a response to and against modernization that, like anti-system
party movements (fascist or communist), had to be contained and which would
eventually dissipate once the benefits of modernity and progress were secured.24
This consensus was challenged with the rise of “the new social movements” in
the 1960s and 70s. As indicated earlier, new theoretical paradigms were devised
to analyze their strategies, identities, and democracy-enhancing roles.25 The
progressive civil society based movements—civil rights, feminism, ecology, and
peace—articulated issues that were excluded from the producer oriented wel-
fare state compromise and by the restriction of politics to party competition and
negotiations between select interest groups (labor unions and business organi-
zations) and the state. They rejected discriminatory, exclusionary, and repressive
cultural stereotypes and denounced socioeconomic injustices based on deni-
grated, marginalized identities as well as the failure of parties to translate their
concerns into the arena of institutionalized politics and public policy. The role
of the new movements in undermining civil privatism, and in mobilizing public
opinion and social protest action in the civil and political public spheres, came to
be seen by many social theorists as a key factor in the further democratization of
formally democratic polities and civil societies.
There were also “fundamentalist” elements in the new social movements that
opposed “the establishment,” challenged the procedural and constitutionalist
features of liberal (and social democratic) democracies, rejected the differentia-
tion between parties and movements, and called for alternatives to party politics
in the name of movement purity and participatory democracy. Criticizing the
“legalistic” “merely” formal character of constitutional democracy and rejecting
the power-oriented, interest-based party politics associated with it, respective
theorists and activists portrayed the popular forms of direct participation in
their social movement as prefiguring a radical “truly democratic” alternative to
party politics. They wanted not only inclusion into or influence on but also rad-
ical transformation of the party political system and the old political paradigm.
If they remained outside the actual party politics, the purist anti-establishment
factions in the various movements and their organic intellectuals’ oppositional
stances could nevertheless play a democratizing role by signaling new needs,
triggering responses of other parties toward inclusion of the excluded, etc.
Yet no social movement can sustain militancy on a society-wide basis in the
long term, and insofar as they are politically oriented, movements do want to
strongly affect politics and social transformation. They thus face a tri-lemma of
mutually exclusive options.26 They can: (a) organize as a separate political party;
(b) stay neutral between the major parties, retain autonomy, and act as a pres-
sure group; or (c) ally with an existing party to gain influence within it as a frac-
tion among other fractions.27 Indeed many established political parties began as
movements: one need only think of the parties spawned by the labor movement
and their competitors in the shape of religious movements and parties among
others on the right.28 Choices depend on a variety of factors, not least of which
are the electoral system and the shape, strength, and efficacy of existing political
parties. It is notoriously difficult today to form a third party in the first-past-
the-post, winner-take-all electoral system of the United States, unlike in the
19th century when groups and movements shut out from major parties regularly
formed third parties, the most noteworthy success being the Republican’s emer-
gence as a new party.29 In European proportional representation (PR) systems,
new parties have more success. But it is also clear that movements acting as pres-
sure groups while remaining neutral between the dominant parties risk having
their influence on the political system remain very limited. It is equally so that
existing parties may preempt and coopt movement demands that have a wide
appeal if they think it means winning votes.
For the new social movements of the 1960s–80s, the choice was between acting
on the level of culture in the public spheres of civil society (Touraine, Melucci),
generating forms of influence on parties (Cohen, Cohen and Arato), creating

alliances with and within parties (Offe, Schlozman), or forming new parties.30
Because of their interest in protecting their new forms of life, unrestricted forms
of discussion and self-expression, forming parties was seen as a dangerous trap
involving cooptation. Some of the new social movements, however, did partici-
pate in the electoral game, forming what they portrayed as anti-party parties. Yet
these too could play a democratizing role so long as they remained out of power
(with other established parties taking up their issues), or, once elected, if they
abandoned their fundamentalist logic, anti-establishment and anti-party rhet-
oric, and accepted differentiation between the movement and party aspects of
their organization along with the legitimacy of the opposition, compromise, and
alliances. Some successful attempts were made to adopt a dualistic movement
and party strategy that maintained a relationship and differentiation between the
two forms. The evolution of the European Green parties is a case in point.31 The
other alternative was to ally with an existing party and become a viable fraction
within it.
However, as McAdam has argued drawing on the American experience of
the aftermath of the civil rights movement and the New Left, a risk here is the
movementization of parties and severe polarization of politics.32 Important so-
cial movements typically generate counter-movements. Indeed, the segrega-
tionist, racist, anti-feminist, anti-secular, nativist counter-movements along
with the populist leaders they spawned like George Wallace, are a case in point.
They can also generate political entrepreneurs within political parties, such
as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, who pick up on the reactive discontent
and devise strategies to capitalize on it by shifting party politics accordingly.33
If as independents or as party fractions they succeed in replacing traditional
hierarchical party structures and procedures that once ensured party control
over candidate selection with movement forms of “participatory democratic
institutions,” such as primaries, outside funding, and now digital modes of di-
rect communication, then this paradoxically can undermine instead of fostering
the autonomy and effectiveness of parties.34 The anti-establishment, anti-elitist,
anti-hierarchical bias of movement power within parties may seem more “dem-
ocratic” and inclusive than party elites in smoke-filled back rooms deciding eve-
rything, but it also can also be a sham, foster extremism, and exacerbate political
inequality.35 The outcome of the movementization of parties is thus ambivalent
for constitutional democracy.36
There are some parallels but also important differences in the contempo-
rary version of movementization and supposed democratization of party pol-
itics embraced polemically by contemporary populists who once again insist
on direct participatory inclusion of ordinary citizens in anti-party movement
parties (and direct connections through digital media, rallies, and other forms
of acclaim with leaders) that substitute for party hierarchies and more medi-
ated representative forms.37 We will return to this issue later. Suffice it to say
for now that populist parties, especially when in power are hardly likely to
de-dramatize, abandon their fundamentalist friend–enemy logic, endorse the
differentiation between movement and party logics, or abandon their anti-
establishment, anti-party party stance. Since our interest is in specific populist
movement/party dynamics, we focus on Dahl’s first two options: the forma-
tion of alliances by movements entering into (and capturing) an existing party
and the formation by movements of a new political party; and add a third,
the creation by charismatic political entrepreneurs of their own “movement”
counterparts. But first we turn to the analysis of political parties, their con-
temporary form, and their ideal typical role in democratic politics to see how
movementization becomes possible and what is distinctive about the move-
ment party form populists embrace.
Political Parties and Their Transformation
E. E. Schattschneider famously wrote, “political parties created democracy and

modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties . . . the condi-
tion of the parties is the best possible evidence of the nature of any regime.”38
Political parties are Janus-faced. While many original parties were parliamentary
clubs, modern (“external”) parties generally emerge in civil society as voluntary
associations. They become the key actors in political society insofar as they are
oriented toward getting control of governments. In power, in fact if not in law,
parties temporarily become part of the government. Indeed, this is captured by
Schattschneider’s concise definition of political parties: “A political party is an
organized attempt to get control of government.”39 Their logic in a democracy is
thus the logic of power: attaining public power and exercising it by making col-
lectively binding decisions.
The degree to which an ideal typical model of party government in a democ-
racy has been realized varies and certainly different party types and party sys-
tems are compatible with it. Shifts in party type and party functions are normal.
But recent shifts in party type in the political environment have led to what many
refer to as the hollowing out and movementization of political parties in both
Western Europe and the United States, undermining their ability to perform
their classic functions.40 We discuss the hollowing out and movementization of
parties in this and the following section, respectively.41 These shifts matter with
respect to the rise of the populist anti-party party and its organizational dy-
namics, as will become evident—and may lead to developments that fundamen-
tally alter the way the party competition functions in democracies.42
To see why, we have to return to our analysis of how populist logic impacts
parties and party system dynamics. Indeed the emergence of a distinctive popu-
list type of anti-party, catch-all movement party risks triggering a transformation
of the overall party system that heralds a deformation rather than a democratiza-
tion of democratic politics in constitutional democracies.201
Populist Logic: Implications for Populist Parties and

Democratic Party Systems
For the purposes of this chapter we stress elements of the populist political
worldview that orient populist political organizations.202 As already indicated,
these involve: (1) a Manichean, political worldview that identifies Good with
the will of the sovereign people and Evil with conspiring elites and their allies;
(2) a pars pro toto logic that extracts the true people, the authentic majority, the
“real” sovereign, from the rest of the population and casts its representative(s)
as their embodiment; (3) a friend–enemy conception of politics; and (4) an anti-
establishment stance that cannot be abandoned even when a populist party is in
government. While left and right populisms can be distinguished by the host
ideologies they embrace and the policies they enact, it is the worldview that they
share as populists that dictates the anti-party party form of populist political or-
ganization and the logic of their politics both in and out of power.
There are four specific dynamics that populism unleashes with regard to po-
litical organization. What we can call, following Sartori, the re-factionalization
of political parties follows from the pars pro toto logic; the friend–enemy (and
Manichean) conception of politics fosters a new form of severe polarization; the
anti-establishment stance turns populist parties into a distinctive type of anti-
party, anti-system, catch-all movement party and fosters the movementization
of populist parties generally; and finally once in government, the anti–status quo
orientation of populist parties goes with their willingness eviscerate democratic
norms, constitutionalist principles, the rule of law, and minority rights if these
are deemed antithetical to the requirements of representing the will of the sov-
ereign people. We will briefly address the first three dynamics here and turn to
the fourth in c hapter 3. However, it should be clear that we are speaking of a logic
inherent in populist parties that follows from all four dimensions taken together.
The logic of populist parties is anti-party despite the obvious fact that they are
parties competing to win elections, because the claim of a part to be the whole
militates against party pluralism. That, together with the moralizing Manichean
worldview and friend–enemy dynamics, involves the uncompromising posture
of a movement that sees itself as above all other parties insofar as it embodies
the sovereignty and will of the real people. Parties are partial and plural in a
party system, but on populist logic such partiality and pluralism cannot apply
to a populist party insofar as it stands for the whole: it is in this sense that popu-
list parties are anti-party parties whether or not they claim to be so. Indeed the
anti-establishment stance of populist movement parties allows them to portray
competitors as the enemy, as part of the corrupt establishment with whom, as per
the purist logic of movements, compromise is out of the question. To be sure, a
populist party can for strategic, pragmatic, and contextual reasons (depending
on the electoral system among other factors) enter into coalitions with other
parties and make compromises, but these empirical phenomena do not belie
but rather may temporarily mitigate the populist logic. Insofar as a movement
party remains populist, however, its logic and dynamic militates against such
“normalization.”
The Pars Pro Toto Logic and the Relapse into Factionalism
Party competition and party government in a functioning democracy entail ac-

ceptance of plurality, dissent, alternation, and the legitimacy of the opposition.
Parties shape and channel conflict into competition, regulate rivalry, and ac-
knowledge their partisanship and partiality such that it is evident that no party
speaks for the whole even as it articulates a vision for the whole along with the
interests of its constituents.203 Parties in a democratic system thus accept that
their exercise of power is provisional as is the status of the opposition pending
the next election.204 Put differently, partisans and partisanship are part and
parcel of party democracy, as is the discipline of conceding each party’s status
as just one part in a permanently pluralist politics.205 At issue is a political dem-
ocratic ethics: willingness to compromise (accept the good at the expense of the
best), a disposition to tolerate or welcome diversity in order to be in the majority,
respect for minority rights, political pluralism, and a certain comprehensiveness
so that a party in power can claim to have earned the approval of “the great body
of the people.”206
The latter sentiment involves what Rosenblum calls “shadow holism.” By this
she means that winning a procedural majority entails the authority to govern
and represent the whole, imparting a certain “moral force” to the party in power,
all things being equal.207 Holism, a philosophical political stance that rejects
social division, and holist anti-party-ism, one of its political manifestations, is
typically neither democratic nor republican, for their common feature of ma-
jority rule implies a plurality of legitimate views, interests, and opinions and a
thus political opposition and political minority (with rights).208 Thus democratic
majoritarianism entails a “shadow holism” that involves bowing to the decisions
of the numerical majority as if it were the decision of the whole, with certain
provisos. First, majoritarianism is not unmitigated: it is typically constrained in

scope and by substantive limitations on what matters the ruling majority may
decide. Second, the majority is accepted as the authority deciding for the whole,
provisionally and for a limited period. The majority accordingly acts as if it were
the whole, decides for the whole, while recognizing that it is a part (as are the
minority or a plurality of political minorities) and thus that its “as if ” status as a
stand-in for the whole is provisional and for a determined period.209 “This is only
a shadow of holism because majority and minority are conceived as parts of, not
parts against, this whole.”210 This conception of majority rule thus involves, “a
semblance of mutual respect, minimal concern for the interests and opinions of
others, provisional-ism, and resolving disputes through argument.”211
As Sartori aptly puts it: “If a party is a part, it follows that the whole cannot be
represented or constituted by just one party, although it does not follow from
this that each party should behave as part for itself, as a part unrelated to the
whole.”212 Parties, in a democratic pluralist party system, articulate the interests
of their constituents and members but also promote the public welfare typically
articulated in a party program oriented by some principle or vision of what that
public good entails.213 Accordingly parties (and the party system) can be de-
formed in two ways: excessive partisanship—i.e., a relapse into factionalism in
which the parts overwhelm the whole—or unitarism (Sartori) or better put, “ho-
lism” in Rosenblum’s language, in which one party claims to embody the whole
such that the whole is purportedly represented or constituted by that party whose
will coincides with the will of the people.214 The former turns dissent into fun-
damental conflict the latter turns consent into enforced homogeneity. Populist
parties do both.
Sartori was thus well aware that parties could degenerate into factions in a
democracy if the party system fails to orient their behavior by channeling their
actions (if not their motivations) beyond serving crude self-interest so they func-
tion to deliver collective benefits to the general population. He draws Madison’s
well-known and succinct definition:
By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a ma-

jority or minority of the whole, who are united and activated by some common
impulse of passion, or of interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the
permanent and aggregate interests of the community.215
For Sartori, if parties do not act as partisan parts (accepting the legitimacy of
other parts, other parties) governing also for the sake of the whole, then degener-
ation of the party system into self-serving factions is likely.216
Recently several theorists have applied this insight to the analysis of popu-
list parties, drawing on the path-breaking work of Norberto Bobbio as well as
that of Sartori.217 Bobbio was one of the first to assess the logic of populist anti-
party parties in terms of the concept of faction, along with its impact on the party
system once they enter into government, drawing on the example of Berlusconi’s
Forza Italia.218 His factionalism argument regarding populist anti-party parties
has two aspects to it. First, according to Bobbio, populist anti-party parties in
power are factions in the classic sense insofar as they put particularistic interests
above those of the whole, blur the distinctions between government and state
and public and private, and thus foster a kind of contemporary patrimonialism
in which the public resources of the state and its institutions are privatized or
perverted to benefit of party members, supporters, and personalistic leader. This
kind of factionalism is thus a form of corruption that populist parties have a pro-
clivity toward, although it is hardly unique to them.
The second element in the factionalism argument draws on and refines the
part/whole analysis.219 As we have argued, the populist anti-party party rests on
a pars pro toto logic: presenting itself as the only legitimate spokesmen for (and
its leader as the embodiment of) the authentic, sovereign people, the “real ma-
jority,” that it extracts from the rest of the population and opposes to the elites.
As a strategy the aim is to create a unified “collective subject”—“the people”—
with a collective will, by erecting a chain of equivalences among heterogeneous
demands around a “hegemonic signifier” articulated by a leader with whom the
people identify.220 This entails constructing a frontier between “us” and “them,”
but the “them” is never only the establishment—it invariably includes the parts
of the population unallied with the populist party movement who may be stig-
matized as elites or outsiders or as undeserving populations coddled by elites.
Thus the pars pro toto stance is a rhetorical device that presents a part as the
whole, the only true people, and by acting as if it were the whole, produces a fac-
tion in the original sense. The “toto” part is ideological; the factionalization of the
party in question, and potentially of the entire party system, is the likely result.
Factionalism and holism are thus connected.
The Manichean worldview and pars pro toto logic of populist anti-party party
mobilization thus leads to an oxymoron: “democratic holism.” Populism turns
“shadow holism” into a version of factionalism based on the misleading claim
that having won a procedural majority, the winning party represents and speaks
for everyone, including the opposing minority. But the authentic people are
never the whole of the citizenry, it is always a part (and is internally merely an
aggregate not a substantive unity) that purports to be the true whole, based on
exclusions and a deep seated monism, thus subverting the political plurality that
is the real basis of democratic party systems. “Democratic holism” thus follows
from populism’s worldview and logic but is a distortion of the political plu-
ralism and of the principle of majoritarianism. Indeed it subtly delegitimizes the
losing political minority, the opposition in civil and political society, and silences
individuals who did not vote for and don’t endorse the majority’s program,
denying them a moral claim or stance, simultaneously denuding party pluralism
of its legitimacy. Populist “democratic holism” construes the division of democ-
racy into parties as anathema, implying that only one party really incarnates
popular sovereignty as the will of the only authentic part of the population: the
people. The populist anti-party party purports to stand for and represent the
whole. But, as Kelsen pointed out nearly a century ago, the claim of a party win-
ning a majority to represent and speak for the whole people is misleading and
does not follow from the right and the authority to rule that a valid procedural
majority vote confers on the party winning an election.221
The Friend–Enemy Political Logic and Affective Polarization
The friend–enemy conception of politics inherent in populism connects with its

“democratic holism,” insofar as adversaries are not considered part of the true
people, and also furthers the factionalization of parties and party systems—the
party as part pretending to be the whole although it is after all only a part. But
equally if not more important is that populist friend–enemy politics contribute
to a form of extreme political polarization, which threatens the democratic prin-
ciples that make disagreement, dissent, and pluralism within an inclusive polity
constructive instead of destructive. As Sartori aptly put it, “Dissent draws from
both consensus and conflict but coincides with neither.”222 He also observed
that “The non-party party denies, instead the very principle of diversity and
institutionalizes the repression of dissent.”223 To be sure, he had in mind ideo-
logical anti-system parties of the far left (communists) and the far right (fascists)
that purported to speak for the whole, whether construed as the working class or
the ethnic-nation. With these in mind he developed his theory of extreme polar-
ized pluralism that distorts and perverts democratic, party systems. For us today,
the question is what is distinctive about the polarization produced by populist
anti-party catch-all movement parties that claim to embrace democracy and
how they function nonetheless, to undermine democratic, party systems.
Sartori developed the classic theory of extreme polarized pluralism as a spe-
cific subtype of modern, democratic, party systems that, while able to produce
stability under certain conditions, distorts party political competition and po-
litical representation. This is contrasted with his normative account of moderate
pluralism and well-functioning, democratic, party systems that have up to five
parties and follow a bi-polar logic of government/legitimate opposition and al-
ternation.224 Polarization is analyzed in terms of ideological distance between
parties and candidates. Extreme polarized pluralism entails the presence of one
or more anti-system parties at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum and a
party occupying the center of the political space. The anti-system party is a party
whose ideology is “extraneous,” i.e., does not share the values of the political
order within which it operates. Thus an anti-system party undermines the legiti-
macy of the regime it explicitly opposes, eviscerates its base of support, and seeks
to change not only the government but also the entire system of government. Its
opposition then is not an opposition on issues but an opposition of principle.225
Extreme polarized pluralism ensues when there are bilateral, mutually exclusive
counter-oppositions of the anti-system party type that cannot join forces. The
center, occupied by a centrist party or coalition, excludes alternation in power
with the anti-system parties on both flanks. In this sense the system is multi-
polar insofar as it hinges on a center facing both a left and a right.226 The dy-
namics of this form of extreme polarized pluralism are centrifugal and conducive
to immoderate extremist and polarized politics (great ideological distance), fos-
tering irresponsible oppositions and a tendency toward a politics of outbidding
and over-promising. The anti-system party may even participate in elections and
enter into government, but its participation is characterized by negative integra-
tion.227 Sartori notes that such a system can be quite stable, as witnessed by Italy
after WWII until the 1980s, given the stability of voter preferences and the ability
of parties to encapsulate voters’ loyalties but that it is nonetheless deeply dys-
functional in other ways and undermines democratic norms.
Certainly contemporary populist party politics differ in important ways from
this version of extreme polarized pluralism: populist catch-all movement parties
are not strongly ideological parties comparable to communists or fascists, in-
stead they are flexible and eclectic regarding the host ideologies they latch onto;
they present themselves as anti-party parties not as anti-system parties; and in-
stead of calling for the abolition of the entire system of government they claim
to be committed to refounding and thus improving the democratic regimes
in which they emerge. It is our thesis nevertheless that the friend–enemy ori-
entation of populist parties (together with their pars pro toto logic and anti-
establishment rhetoric) fosters a distinctive form of pernicious polarization and
a party form and orientation—the anti-party party—that, like the older explicit
anti-system parties, undermine the legitimacy of the democratic system in which
they participate. Looking at the Italian example, as Tronconi noted in the case
of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party’s striking success from 1994 to 1995 when it
entered government, and again in 2001–2006 when it became an early European
instance of contemporary populist government (when it obtained all the cabinet
ministries and turned into the longest serving cabinet in Italian history), a dis-
tinctive type of polarization ensued that restructured political competition to re-
volve around the cleavage: pro–anti Berlusconi.228 This version does not entail a
center party facing two anti-system parties divided by great ideological distance
but rather an anti-party party deploying populist friend–enemy logic, developed
in reaction to the apparent cartelization of the party system and the collapse
of the old ideological parties on the right and especially on the left. Berlusconi
engaged in friend–enemy populist rhetoric linked to an eclectic innovative set
of ideological positions (in conjunction with his main competitor, Bossi of the
Lega Norde) to help construct the relevant social identity and identifications that
could coalesce into sufficient support to allow his populist party to win power.229
The dynamic of populist party politics in power created a bi-polar type of polit-
ical polarization in which no center can hold, unlike in the Sartori model.230
Some argue that Sartori’s concept of anti-system party and his conception of
extreme polarization applies to populist anti-party parties and to populism in
power, citing the case of Chavez’s Venezuela.231 Certainly the socialism Chavez
latched onto as a host ideology, and developed into a left populism, and his anti-
colonial rhetoric, helped him succeed in mobilizing a counter-reaction to the ol-
igarchical and seemingly cartelized old party system in Venezuela by challenging
its exclusions and corruption. We need not decide here whether socialism was
the host ideology or the core of the populism he embraced and entrenched in
government and society. The question is whether populist parties and politics
generally involve a form of severe political polarization distinct from the ver-
sion Sartori analyzed. We think that it does. In many contexts populist anti-party
parties pride themselves as being beyond the old left/right divisions, while chal-
lenging the consensus-and center-oriented establishment “cartel” parties in
power and the defunct classic right and left (socialist/communist) ideological
parties that flanked them on either side. Yet they can lead to a new, realigned set
of left/right leaning populist party political polarization counter-posed to a new
center, although one that is very unstable indeed.232
Recently political scientists have sought to refine the concept of polarization
to get at what Sartori’s model apparently screens out.233 Some, drawing on the
social psychology literature on group dynamics and social identity formation,
have developed the concept of “affective political polarization” as an alterna-
tive to the Sartori model.234 Accordingly, affective political polarization is based
not on ideology but on social identity and identification driven by partisanship.
The sorting of people into opposed political camps (partisan sorting) around
one overarching cleavage that extends into the societal sphere involving stacked
identity elements (race, religion, region, ethnicity, etc.) penetrating into eve-
ryday life of socializing, schools, churches, residential communities, and families
such that exclusion and segregation from the opposite camp follows, is charac-
teristic of affective polarization.235 Affective political polarization entails feelings
of dislike, animosity, hostility and lack of trust toward the opposed party(ies)
and supporters who are deemed hypocritical, closed minded, selfish, and dan-
gerous.236 The concept of social distance plays a key role here insofar as affective
polarization entails the avoidance of social interaction with out-group members.
Preexisting social cleavages can but need not be the basis of extreme affective
political polarization, and their existence is insufficient to predict extreme po-
larization.237 Certainly ideology and ideological sorting can still be at work
here, but the point is that identity politics play the key role in affective partisan
polarization.
In order to clarify what is distinctive and destructive (to democratic party sys-
tems) about this form of political polarization it is worth noting that genuine
and even deep disagreements and/or social segmentation do not in themselves
lead to extreme or affective partisan polarization. Nor does coherent ideolog-
ical sorting of parties, such that “conservatives” and “liberals” are each confined
to different parties, necessarily entail extreme polarization ideologically or af-
fectively: indeed, the two camps may be no farther apart on substantive policy
issues then prior to such sorting, and each may be willing to cooperate with the
other side for the sake of good governance.238 Moreover, strategic incitement of
ideological differences or polemical critiques of a ruling party or parties by out-
sider political entrepreneurs or new political parties seeking to mobilize support
by articulating unrepresented demands may be reflective of genuine divisions
without culminating in factionalism or severe affective polarization. But stra-
tegic incitement of affective partisan polarization is on the rise and it has led
analysts to view polarization generally as an interactive, relational, and political
process rather than, in the mode of opinion surveys or social psychology, as a
snapshot of people’s natural in-group/out-group feelings or opinions.
Here we concur with recent works that focus on populist incitement of severe
affective polarization.239 These argue that identity-based “affective” polarization
is interactive, relational, and involves a political process, led today by populist
political entrepreneurs using discourses designed to generate, deepen, amplify,
and exploit sociopolitical cleavages and resentments. They define polarization as
a process whereby the normal multiplicity of differences in a society increasingly
align along a single dimension, cross-cutting differences become reinforcing, and
people increasingly perceive and describe politics and society in terms of “us”
versus “them.”240 Accordingly polarization is a discourse driven process, exag-
gerating differences between groups to activate exclusive identity markers and
alignments. The relevant rhetoric and signals by populist political entrepreneurs
and activists aim precisely at fostering the construction of sociopolitical relations
in which opposed, comprehensive, exclusionary, and mutually hostile identities
and identifications are established.241 Valence issues in which one party is ac-
cused of incompetence or corruption get linked to political/social identities such
that parties, their members, and their voters are “othered”—excluded from the
acceptable range of social differences.242 Typically the populist inspired version
of affective polarization is wed to the politics of resentment (the affective dimen-
sion), which involves blaming someone (elites and the groups they support) on
the other side of the political frontier rather than something (economic, cultural,
social change, and public policies) for particular grievances—exacerbating the
us vs. them dynamic.243 Accordingly, contemporary populism fosters a wide-
spread subtype of polarizing politics that (over-)simplifies politics by aligning
cross-cutting differences along the generalized “elites” and their supporters vs.
“the people” distinction.
Some democratic theorists want to avoid the concept of “affective polariza-
tion” preferring the term “other-regarding polarization” as a conceptual substi-
tute, because the former risks focusing too much on feelings of dislike or hatred
among polarized groups, implying that in the absence of such politically manip-
ulated polarization, somehow we must all like one another.244 Accordingly, the
focus instead should be on the effect of identity-based (“other-regarding”) par-
tisan polarization on democratic norms. These norms require tolerance of dif-
ference and acceptance that others may express or act according to their beliefs
in tune with their identities, not that we like one another. Indeed, anger at those
who have discriminated against a particular group is not necessarily destructive
of democratic norms and could trigger action against injustice and in favor of
inclusive social change that can be democracy reinforcing.245 What matters with
respect to democratic norms and functioning is not how people feel about one
another per se but how they speak and interact with those with whom they dis-
agree.246 The idea is that we should shift attention from the affective dimension
of polarization to the principles that people may violate when distancing them-
selves from their political opponents, when they reject their shared identity as
fellow citizens, in the joint enterprise of democracy.247
But the concept of affective political polarization is part of the object language
of political science and a useful indicator of the dynamics of polarization spe-
cific to populist politics. The issue of affect remains important insofar as it can be
manipulated to feed the politics of resentment and to deepen social segmentation
and pernicious divisiveness so central to populist party dynamics. Moreover, the
effect of severe identity-based, relational political polarization on democracy in
its contemporary populist version is precisely the focus of the work of McCoy,
Somer, and colleagues, their continued reference to the affective dimension and
use of the term affective polarization notwithstanding.248 Indeed as they note,
due to the successful efforts of populists in many democracies around the globe,
we increasingly are in a situation in which people only associate, communicate,
interact, and read or listen to the media linked to their own side of a bi-polar
political frontier, deeming the other side to be hostile, contemptuous, untrust-
worthy, fooled, and/or corrupt enemies. They stress the political and relational
nature of populist polarization and the way it constructs social rather than ideo-
logical distance. The affective dimension of this form of polarization entails hos-
tility and undermines democratic norms. Thus we think it makes sense to think
of extreme ideological and severe affective polarization as ideal types, the elem-
ents of which can overlap in practice.249
It is not hard to pinpoint the specific logic and commitments inherent in pop-
ulism that foster severe affective political polarization and that make it perni-
cious for democratic, party systems. That populist politics are perforce identity
politics follows from their worldview and logic.250 The friend–enemy concep-
tion of the political, the Manichean worldview, its pars pro toto stance, and its
strategic logic leads populist political entrepreneurs and activists to use polar-
izing political rhetoric and to intentionally trigger severe affective polarization
(sympathy toward in-group and antipathy toward the out-group).251 Political
systems in which populist parties become powerful and enter into government
have a strong tendency to alter party political competition such that it becomes
polarized in an us vs. them way, based less on strong ideologies or program-
matic commitments and more on exclusive political identities and antagonistic
social relations constructed through and strongly inflected by friend–enemy
conceptions.252 Populist parties’ strategic goal, as already indicated, is to attain
and maintain political power electorally, based on mobilization of heterogeneous
strata around a constructed, unitary political identity and leader. The strategy,
clearly stated by Laclau and instantiated in every contemporary case of populist
party politics and governments, is to erect chains of equivalence across various
grievances (“demands”) by stacking the particular group identities of those to be
included in the empty signifier, “the people,” under a single overarching partisan
political identity. This partisan political identity is relational in that it is based on
the construction, as Laclau puts it, of a frontier on the other side of which there
is the opposed identity: “the elite” or “the establishment,” its enablers, and those
coddled by them, deemed as not part of the authentic people but as their antag-
onist/enemy.253
Polarization between the two party-political/social identities is thus intended
by populist “reason” and strategic logic to be severe and affective.254 Certainly
populists latch onto host ideologies, which albeit eclectic, can be described gen-
erally as left or right: hence the terms left and right populism, the former usually
associated with some version of a socialist agenda, the latter with some version
of exclusionary nationalism, although these can also overlap. But the logic of
affective polarization flows from the political and relational dynamics of pop-
ulism, not from the host ideologies or political programs populists latch onto,
although here too these can become tightly linked. Indeed, populism thrives by
strengthening tribal tendencies of in-group loyalty and out-group resentment
and conflict by latching onto whatever contextual ideology will render divisions
and differences between the camps salient, presenting political competition as a
zero-sum, winner take all, game and framing opposing political projects as an
existential threat to the sovereignty and welfare of the authentic people. In short,
populist strategy involves a type of identity politics that plays on affect, fosters
strong cathected political identifications, deeply segmented and stacked polit-
ical identities, and personalizes disagreement, making it hard to discuss or work
across frontiers.
It is also not hard to show that populist identity-based affective polarization
has pernicious effects on democratic party systems and democratic norms.
Every political party in a democracy aggregates interests and opinions and seeks
identification with its projects by a majority and label. It should be noted that
from a democratic normative standpoint, ideological and/or policy-regarding
polarization are not ipso facto democracy eviscerating. Democracy entails the
right to dissent and to openly disagree and challenge public policies on the basis
of one’s preferences, opinions, or ideological commitments.255 In an open society
and democratic polity, the level of ideological and policy disagreement should
reflect people’s free choices and a free process of opinion formation.256 No dem-
ocratic norm is violated by the public expression of deep ideological disagree-
ment or dissent regarding public policy, although deep disagreement and deeply
divided societies may make political cooperation and compromise harder. But
as Rostboll correctly notes, the counterpart to the right to disagree, dissent
from, and even polarize on the first level of policy preferences is the obligation
to respect the other as a fellow participant on the second level and thus to treat
opponents as sharing a civic identity with oneself—that of being a co-participant
in a democracy.257
Populist friend–enemy dynamics have precisely the effect of undermining re-
spect for the civic standing of those on the other side of the frontier, construing
them as not part of “the people” and their party political representatives as ul-
timately an illegitimate opposition. This clearly violates the democratic obliga-
tion to interact with opposing political parties and their supporters as fellow
participants in a democratic self-government. Insofar as populist parties and
governments typically present the political project and policies of the other
party(ies) as an existential threat, adopt Manichean rhetoric describing party
political competition in cosmic terms of a struggle between good and evil, and
denigrate their opponents’ socio-political identity as perforce not part of the au-
thentic people but as an internal enemy, the polarization they foster has exclu-
sionary effects no matter how inclusive it is toward those on its side of the us
vs. them divide. The discourse of inclusive left populism does not escape this
dynamic, for it includes those formerly excluded or without voice by excluding
others whom they label elites or their supporters.258
Severe affective polarization fostered by populist partisanship has distinct
distorting effects on democratic, party systems comparable to those of extreme
polarization described by Sartori, albeit for different reasons. It fosters out-
bidding and over-promising on the part of populist parties and refusal to take
responsibility for power and policies even when the party is in or is “the” gov-
ernment. Out-bidding and over-promising go hand in hand with the redemptive
orientation of populist conceptions of democracy.259 The refusal to take respon-
sibility for failure to deliver on promises once in power follows from its friend–
enemy polarizing logic that always finds hidden enemies and, as we will see, from
its anti-establishment stance that allows populists in government to blame the
deep state or the machinations of the other party for failures. Instead of taking
responsibility for failure to follow through on promises, populist parties in
power deny the facts, invoke fake news, and bemoan the hostility of the tradi-
tional media allegedly serving the opposition. This undermines the basic rules
of political competition in democratic elections because accountability is cen-
tral to well-functioning, democratic party dynamics, as Sartori rightly argued.260
Accordingly, competitive politics is based on a minimum of fair competition
and mutual trust. But if a party can promise “heaven on earth” without having
to respond to what it promises, this falls below standards of fair competition,
and the political game is played in terms of unfair competition characterized
by incessant escalation. Such a stance skews party competition and may easily
trigger escalation of promising and outbidding by the opposition parties seeking
to unseat a populist government, further distorting party system dynamics and
undermining the possibility of responsible government.261 Sartori refers to these
effects of extreme polarization as an “inflationary disequilibrium.”262 While he
had in mind the version of extreme polarization in which the anti-system parties
on the right and left had no chance to acquire power, as the center was occupied,
the logic also applies to affective identity-based polarization fomented by popu-
list parties even when they are in power, insofar as they refuse responsibility and
resist accountability for the results of their governance.
The Anti-Establishment Stance and the Permanent

Movementization of Anti-Party Parties
A similar dynamic follows from the anti-establishment stance of populist parties.

That stance, together with their anti-party posture, reinforces the tendency of
populist parties to render their movementization permanent.263 As we noted
earlier, Kitschelt postulated that movement parties are hybrids that combine
contradictory movement and party logics rendering them unstable, transitional
political forms. He assumed that the dynamics of interparty competition and
the demands of governing in democratic party systems would lead movement
parties to either devolve into movements or become ordinary political parties
dropping their movement structures and posturing. Put differently, he argued
that the dynamics of party competition and governance in a constitutional
democracy would tame movement parties, leading them to differentiate their

movement and party logics and to participate in political competition and gov-
ernance in productive, responsible ways.264
But populist anti-establishment logic and overall worldview prevent nor-
malization. Even when successful in mobilizing and coming to power, populist
parties retain their anti-party movement stance, reinforce their hybrid character,
and tend to transform the dynamics of party competition accordingly—fostering
outbidding, irresponsibility, lack of cooperation, and rejection of compromise—
undermining responsible party competition and government, instead of being
transformed by its requirements. Their anti-establishment posture sows dis-
trust of other parties, institutionalized counter-powers, and independent state
institutions generally (independent judicial and administrative agencies, es-
tablished professional credentialed media, etc.).265 Their anti-party discourse
generates hostility toward other “traditional” party organizational forms and
leads them to exaggerate their movement postures and rhetoric. Indeed, pop-
ulist parties capitalize on and exacerbate the trends toward hollowing out and
movementization insofar as they reject the differentiation between movement
(exercising influence) and party (acquiring and exercising power) logics. This
perverts the functioning of both movements and parties undermining their de-
mocracy enhancing and/or stabilizing dynamics. The populist movement party’s
logic is monist to the extent it purports to be the sole embodiment of the au-
thentic people, their only true voice, such that it cannot accept either real au-
tonomy for the movement side of the hybrid within or the legitimacy of other
parties without.
It is worth reemphasizing that at issue is not the genesis but the structural logic
of populist anti-party parties. A populist anti-establishment party can emerge
“from above” through the political entrepreneurship of a leader who deploys
populist rhetoric and plebiscitary linkages to mobilize support in civil society
without originating in or having ties to a broad social movement. But it must mo-
bilize and typically does so through movement type actions, style and rhetoric,
even while seeking to keep control of the mobilization dynamics it unleashes.266
Whatever its origins, the logic of the populist anti-party party leads it to adopt
movement style rhetoric, tactics, and organizational structures that replace tra-
ditional party models, logics, and norms.
The populist anti-party party is a hybrid movement party despite its pretense
to be a non-party, but it is, as we have argued, a distinctive type of movement
party in two respects. First, unlike earlier movement parties strongly wed to a
particular ideology or issue (e.g., Greens), populist versions are catch-all in that
they seek to appeal to a wide range of diverse groups by erecting chains equiv-
alence across many and often conflicting. Yet they are movement parties in
that they retain movement logics regarding internal organization and resort to
movement forms of activism, while also participating as parties in the electoral

game and in government. Given their anti-establishment stance and claim to
be more directly democratic as the voice of the people than established parties,
populist anti-party movement parties cannot abandon their movement stance.
Indeed they are a new form of anti-system party in that they seek fundamental
change rather than mere policy shifts and target not the electoral system but the
party system itself, albeit indirectly. Populist movement parties play the electoral
game but, as we have seen, distort it by fostering new forms of severe polariza-
tion, outbidding, and delegitimizing of opponents. Populist catch-all movement
parties must maintain electoral competition for their own legitimacy but as we
will see in chapter 3, they tend to undermine the fairness of democratic elections
once in power without ever renouncing them ideologically. Indeed they chal-
lenge the organizational logic of other parties that still rely on delegation and
middle range professional party cadre while purportedly replacing it with move-
ment style direct democratic forms. As we will see, the digital party format
that some, like the Italian M5S movement party (a self-styled non-party) have
embraced is the culmination of this logic.267 Thus populist anti-parties typically
do not normalize along the lines Kitschelt suggested, even when in power, if they
remain populist. But neither are they able to avoid the tensions internal to that
hybrid form of mobilization and organization they trigger and create. This is ev-
ident in the tension filled mobilizing strategies adopted by populist anti-party
parties in civil and political society.
Conclusion
In the next chapter we discuss the authoritarian tendencies in contemporary

versions of populism. Here we conclude by summarizing the effects populist
movement parties can have on competitive party systems in constitutional dem-
ocracies. We will discuss alternative democracy-reinforcing movement party re-
lations and ways to respond to the authoritarian threat of populism in and out of
power in the final chapter of this book.
The standard list of core functions of parties in a democracy include three
generalized roles: transmitting/shaping demands of civil society, backed by pres-
sure, to the government; recruiting and training political candidates for public
office; and governing.268 With respect to the first category, Sartori in his classic
text stresses the expressive and channeling functions of parties.269 The former
involves transmitting and articulating claims, grievances, and demands of citi-
zens to the government. The channeling function entails the shaping and orga-
nizing of otherwise chaotic public will and the aggregation, selection, and even
manipulation of public opinion.270 Obviously parties play a key role in framing
demands and shaping opinions when they formulate political projects and
programs, aggregate interests, select some demands and grievances as central,
and translate these into political programs and ultimately public policies.271
Thus parties cannot be reduced to being a mere transmission belt of pre-existing
demands in civil society, nor can they be seen as mere manipulators that con-
struct such demands and grievances from above for their own purposes of
electoral success.272 Supply and demand both matter: the supply of issues,
frames, opinions, and identities has to meet up with the pent-up demands and
grievances in civil society so that they resonate with peoples’ concerns. The com-
petitive struggle for the vote implies the function of integrating various groups
into the political process by being responsive to their needs and helping to artic-
ulate their diverse demands. Thus an autonomous pluralistic party system lends
itself to expression from below more than manipulation from above regardless of
inevitable manipulation.273 Ideally, the channeling of political conflict into elec-
toral competition for public office fosters the aggregation of interests through
the creation of broad programs (party platforms) and programmatic linkages
with voters based on a two-way communication that parties in a pluralist party
system excel in.274 Indeed, aggregating diverse but related interests into broad
programs was one of the key tasks of the traditional mass party.275 But all parties
simplify choices for voters, generate symbols of identification and loyalty, edu-
cate citizens, and mobilize people to participate in, at least, elections.
As organizations, the recruitment of leadership, office seeking, and training of
political elites with an eye to gaining public power are also core party functions.276
This dimension is central to the analysis not only of discrete parties but also of
party systems (and of electoral systems together with the structure of political
opportunities organized by a state).277 Clearly party systems are influenced and
in part organized by the state structure and governmental type (sometimes but
not always by a constitution): the political opportunity structure they set up
influence party structure and strategy, and vice versa. What matters from our
perspective is how the dynamics of party competition generate and are affected
by populist anti-party parties and in what way these differ from the anti-system
party as per Sartori’s classical analysis.
Qua the tasks of governing, the ideal typical function of political parties in a
democracy is to create majorities (singly or in coalitions), organize the legisla-
ture and the government, and to occupy key institutions of the state (heads of
ministries or departments).278 They staff many public offices and socialize po-
tential political leaders within their organizational apparatuses wherein they
generate suitable candidates and nominees. Responsibilities in government
have to be allocated across different departments and require disciplined sup-
port in the legislature, often through negotiations or in coalitions with other
parties. In presidential or semi-presidential systems, parties also staff legislative
committees, organize legislative procedures, and facilitate everyday agreements

on the legislative agenda. This requires a willingness to collaborate and compro-
mise with the opposition or with minority parties. But it also requires the will-
ingness to take on the responsibility for governing for the body politic as a whole
and to accept accountability for their policies.279 Additionally, the democratic
functioning of party systems requires their autonomy from the state.280 Indeed
parties also organize the opposition in and out of government along with dissent,
control government administrations, and implement policy objectives, as well as
ensuring responsibility for government actions.281
Of the three sets of functions parties typically perform in constitutional dem-
ocracies, populist movement parties clearly succeed in expressing, channeling,
and framing the demands of important portions of the electorate, albeit arguably
in a distorted way. As we have seen, populist mobilizations certainly fill the gap
left open by establishment parties by articulating the demands of those feeling
ignored, precarious, or left behind by political economic and social developments
associated with post-industrial societies and globalized economies. They sim-
plify choices for voters and generate symbols of identification and loyalty, thus
mediating between civil society and the political system even as the anti-party
stance of populist movement parties lead them to disdain intermediary bodies.
But simplification in the populist case is over-simplification insofar as it takes on
the us–them, friend–enemy binary, blaming elites and minorities for structural
problems and fostering, as we have seen, affective political polarization. Despite
their alleged direct democratic ties between party, leader and “the people,” pop-
ulist parties, as we have seen, turn participatory into plebiscitary linkages and
focus on rhetoric’s, affect, and other mechanisms of identification over serious
deliberative exchanges, and thus their emphasis on the expressive function leads
to divisiveness and heightens the risk of turning competition into conflict, in-
stead of channeling conflict into party political competition.
Organizationally we have seen that populist movement parties typically re-
tain movement style postures and forms of mobilization (at least rhetorically)
even while in power.282 They embrace the hollowing out of parties given their
anti-elitist stance, discourse of direct democracy, and cult of participation typi-
cally steered and overshadowed by plebiscitary mobilization strategies aimed at
triggering acclaim. In particular, populist movement parties, especially the dig-
ital ones, dislike the party bureaucracy—the hierarchy of cadres and branches,
committees and subcommittees that made traditional parties resemble
governments in waiting—and seek to bypass it with movement structures and
digital platforms allegedly enabling direct participatory democracy.283 As we
have seen, this strengthens the party’s center and periphery at the expense of
an intermediate cadre, fostering the emergence and power of what Gerbaudo
aptly calls “hyper leaders.”284 The trend toward plebiscitary linkages, especially
once the populist movement party is in power, follows from all this despite the
predilection for participatory linkages, rhetorically at least. Participation may
be enhanced but not, as we have seen, the ability of citizens to contest the new
elite leaders or their manipulation of choices put before the participants.285 In
short, plebiscitary and participatory linkages can go together. The tendency is
either to openly embrace plebiscitary over participatory linkages or, covertly, to
create a centralized inner circle while furthering the evisceration of the party on
the ground and of any potentially internal autonomous challenges to the party
leadership in the shape of movement circles or competent middle level officials.
Accordingly, instead of training political elites and recruiting competent poten-
tial leaders with organizational and political experience from working in the
party, leaders of populist movement parties invariably try, once in power, to cling
to it and thus are wary of serious internal challengers.
Nor do they seek to articulate and aggregate political interests into a coherent
party program with clear policy initiatives to which they are committed and for
which they can be held accountable once in government. Indeed, the unwill-
ingness of populist hybrid movement parties to deescalate their rhetoric or re-
duce their anti-establishment posturing is impressive. It is the case even populist
parties in power attempt to control/abolish the autonomy of movement forms
and actors to serve their power political purposes, streamlining these, thereby
often undermining their ability to work with the opposition and to respect dis-
sent. As already indicated, populist parties in government do not readily ac-
knowledge the legitimacy of the opposition, nor are they willing to compromise
to reach generalizable goals—the aim is not to engage in responsible govern-
ment but to remain in power at whatever cost. By not abandoning their anti-
establishment rhetoric, populist parties in government eschew responsibility for
government actions, engaging instead in the politics of blame to avoid being held
to account for failures in future elections.
To be sure, it is possible that the populist type of anti-party movement party
could be absorbed into an intact democratic party system and political order as
ultimately happened with some of the anti-system parties studied by Sartori. But
Sartori observed that it took half a century for the Marxist socialists to integrate,
and that their integration was not without losses in many countries to commu-
nist parties. Worse, democracy collapsed in the interim (the interwar period
in Italy, Germany, Spain).286 It is also true that post-WWII social democratic
parties normalized and operated with good faith once democratic party systems
working with capitalist economies embraced the welfare state. Whether popu-
list movement parties can normalize and can integrate without the breakdown
of democracy once they are in power remains an open question. The only case
where this occurred has been Syriza in Greece and under great pressure from
the EU and a severe economic crisis. We do not argue that it is impossible for
populist movement parties to become responsible parties once in power, but we

think it unlikely given their populist commitments and political logic.
Finally, the populist leader refuses differentiation of the party, the movement,
and the state even when in power and rejects the principle of self-limitation re-
garding institutions, majorities, other parties, and other social movements. This
undermines the chances for a competitive party system to function properly
insofar as it transforms the dynamics of party competition into friend–enemy
confrontations and fosters out-bidding, escalation of rhetoric generally, and se-
vere affective polarization. Should other parties adopt populist methods to com-
pete with populists, the party system and political competition generally would
devolve into a destructive cycle distorting instead of enhancing democracy.
Populist attempts to democratize parties so that they resemble the open, fluid
participatory structure of movements, or attempts to bypass them through ref-
erenda, plebiscites, or digital platforms in the name of returning sovereignty to
the people, are examples of the over extension of movement logic into the party
political sphere of power that invariably ends up undermining or blocking the
development of party forms that make democracy work and distorting the
movement dynamics that can make it work better.287 We take seriously the pop-
ulist critiques of closed party-political systems (“oligarchies”), of growing in-
equality and welfare deficits in advanced capitalist societies, and lack of social
solidarity with and precarious standing of those suffering from political choices
tied to neo-liberal modes of hyper-globalization.288 Yet we must also take seri-
ously the threat that populist movement-parties themselves pose to democracy
once they are in and especially are the government. We turn to the issue of the
threat to democracy of populist governments, in the next chapter and later in the
conclusion to the book.
3
Populist Governments and Their Logic
The electoral success of populist leaders throughout the world, in both new and
long-consolidated democracies, and the relative longevity of several populist
governments call for analysis of their logic and dynamics. Throughout this book
we have argued that while populism is situated within the democratic imaginary,
it nevertheless poses a profound threat to the quality of democratic governance
and ultimately to the very existence of democratic regimes. We maintain that
populism in power entails a logic that propels populist governments to eviscerate
democracy while invoking democratic legitimacy and while making use of
written constitutions and democratic forms, including but not only elections. Of
course, depending on empirical circumstances, namely sociological and institu-
tional givens, the extent to which the authoritarian potential is realized can be
different from case to case. Nevertheless, the logic of populism is authoritarian,
despite its reliance on democratic legitimation and on forms such as elections
and participatory mobilization. The authoritarianism inherent in populist logic
becomes discernable once populists win power, shape government institutions,
reshape the norms of governing, and replace or revise constitutions to expand
and ensure their power. Populism’s logic leads to the production of hybrid po-
litical forms when populists enter and especially when they become “the” gov-
ernment. Indeed, if they enter government and remain populist, populist
politicians ultimately tend toward regime change, in three stages. The first stage,
that can be bypassed if the initial electoral victory of populists is comprehen-
sive, is the occupation of the key posts in one or more (but not all!) branches of
government, most importantly the executive. We call this “populism in govern-
ment.”1 Depending on the power of the captured branch, this form too could be
described as a hybrid, but in our conception, and in view of the conflicts under
this form, it is better to interpret it as still within the regime type of constitutional
democracy but a form in which hybridization begins to occur. The hybrid quality
here pertains to the government rather than the regime. The second stage, which
has been reached everywhere populists occupy all or most major institutions of
power, entails more radical hybridization and the creation of a hybrid regime. At
this stage the institutions occupied are still those of a constitutional democracy,
but their coordination, functioning, and periodic renewal are to a significant ex-
tent freed from constitutional limitation and democratic accountability. We call
it “populism as the government” and argue that it generates a new, populist hy-
brid regime whether by formal constitutional means or informally.
Populism as “the” government should be seen neither as a constitutional de-
mocracy nor as an authoritarian dictatorship but as a hybrid form borrowing
formal (but never entirely formal!) elements from the first and many (but never
all) actual practices from the second. Using a conception inherited from Ernst
Fraenkel’s Dual State2 we could say that under a populist hybrid regime the
question of the ultimate priority of the prerogative (governmental will) or the
normative (rule of law) remains contested, in other words undecided. From an-
other point of view focusing on electoral politics, the category of competitive
authoritarianism was meant to describe this same state of affairs.3 Nevertheless,
we want to avoid classifying the hybrid form under the general category of au-
thoritarian regimes. Moreover, unlike many other interpreters, we believe this
mixed form can be relatively stabilized and long lasting. Yet we too maintain that
authoritarian-democratic hybridity has obvious elements of implicit tension and
potential instability, especially because its formal elements can be bases of con-
testation and oppositional mobilization. Such threats to populist hybrid regimes
can be fully neutralized only by a transition to a third stage, a fully authori-
tarian form, that we will call (pseudo-populist or, more simply, populist) dicta-
torship. There are relatively few cases of this type (arguably: today’s Russia and
Venezuela) but efforts in the same direction can be discerned under all populist
governments, and especially those that have been challenged by popular mobili-
zation and/or by the unexpected results in even unfair elections and plebiscites.
Dictatorship is not the only possible outcome of populist government, but it
becomes increasingly probable once such governments have constructed a hy-
brid regime.
The obvious question pertains to thresholds. That between stages one and
two, between populism “in” government and “the” government, seems to be
deceptively easy to specify, at least in theory, with the key institutional differ-
ence between occupying one (or even some) as against all branches of power.
Yet, the occupation of institutions other than the executive allows for degrees,
making the determination of even of this threshold more difficult in practice.
It is even harder to pinpoint the threshold for the transition to the third stage,
the authoritarian regime we call here populist dictatorship. For this type too the
formal institutions generally survive from the previous regime. But their logic
and functioning becomes fully authoritarian, with the forms being entirely evis-
cerated. The constitution, old or new, is now a document that hides rather than
constitutes the real map of power.4 If there is formal separation of powers, the
branches entirely lose autonomy and are controlled by the central authority. If
there are elections or referenda, these cannot be lost by the government. If the cit-
izens have formal rights, these can be violated at will. While there is a “normative
Populist Governments and Their Logic 109
state” (in Fraenkel’s sense) with rules as in all modern societies, the primacy of
the prerogative can arbitrarily overrule these without any limits or restrictions.
The last of these character traits seems to be an either/or proposition. But
in reality, under populist governments the domination of will over rules can
happen gradually, step by step, and through experiments undertaken that are in-
adequately resisted. This is even truer for the undermining of the adherence to
the constitution, of the separation of powers, of free and fair elections, as well as
of legal security for individuals and collectives. When the trend is in the same
direction in all or most of these domains, we can safely speak of an authoritarian
logic. While one can imagine the anti-democratic trends occurring separately,
in reality authoritarianism in each domain affects the quality of democracy in
all the rest. Nevertheless, while the threshold between stages two and three may
be clear on the level of ideal types, passing it under populist governments may
be gradual, uncertain, politically contestable, and even reversible. Such are the
consequences of hybridity on the epistemological level.
The break with the democratic imaginary of populist dictatorship (the third
stage) as an ideal type is easy to maintain theoretically. But since very few pop-
ulist governments have turned into open dictatorships, to claim the break with
constitutional democracy in the empirically more important first and second
stages of populism in power may seem overly polemical. Populists in (and out of)
power situate themselves in the democratic frame, rely on democratic legitimacy
through elections, and deny that what they do undermines democracy. Instead
they often purport to deliver “real,” “substantive,” “direct” democracy, replacing
what they see as democratically deficient, “merely formal,” liberal constitutional
democracy. Moreover, as we have indicated, they claim to act in the name of and
for the “real people”—the true popular sovereign—whom they alone claim to
directly embody/represent. On the contrary, we maintain that the analysis of
populism in power will reveal a particular logic of governance on the inherited
terrain of a democratic regime that undermines democracy by distorting or dis-
mantling the key principles, norms, institutions, and prerequisites that make
democracy work and, equally important, keep it open to improvement while
blocking authoritarianism.
Thus to make our case, we must return again to the concept of democracy,
clarify its procedures, principles, norms, prerequisites, internal dynamics, and
tensions, in order to pinpoint how populist government derogates from it while
maintaining its outward forms and processes. We must also analyze the dy-
namics and processes by which populist governments eviscerate, or “hybridize,”
democracy by mixing it with authoritarian practices and norms.5 We have al-
ready discussed populism as a movement and movement party seeking power. In
this chapter we will first focus on the next two stages of populism on the trajec-
tory to power: populists in government, i.e., holding key posts of legislative and
executive power; and populism as the government, i.e., the situation in which
populists control all governmental institutions.6 This will allow us not only to
construct a better understanding of the trajectory of populist governments
(democratic backsliding) but also to see the dynamics that ensue once populist
control is more consolidated. Put differently, these distinctions allow us to clarify
three vexing taxonomic issues regarding: (a) the conceptualization of the dif-
ferent forms taken by government under populist leadership; (b) the threshold
and dynamics of regime change; and (c) the nature of the regimes that emerge.
It is here that we will try to further clarify the two thresholds: that concerning
the transition from a democratic to a populist hybrid regime and second; and
the step to a full-fledged authoritarian regime (populist dictatorship). Finally,
getting the logic and dynamic of populists “in” and as “the” government right will
help elucidate the high stakes involved in political challenges that have a chance
to prevent democratic backsliding and/or breakdown.
Democracy Revisited
There is nothing new about challenges to “liberal constitutional democracy”

from the right or from the left. More interesting than approaches that reject de-
mocracy tout court are those that purport to offer an alternative, more direct,
real, or substantive form of democracy allegedly better suited to the ideal of
popular sovereignty than the formal, representative, “liberal,” constitutionalist
model.7 Of course both sorts of challenges are coextensive with the emergence of
modern democracy itself. As we argued in chapter 1, populist interpretations of
democracy and in particular of the idea of popular sovereignty appeared at the
beginning of modern democracy in the great revolutions and have been recur-
rent throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. We have also argued that demo-
cratic deficits are inherent in representative democracy, and while no democratic
regime can dispense with institutions of political representation, they certainly
can be supplemented with additional democratic forms that enhance the quality
of democracy and potentially make it more democratic.8 Populist movements
tend to become important in response to glaring democratic deficits, and some
have triggered major realignments and improvements in the inclusiveness and/
or the quality of really existing constitutional democracies, albeit indirectly. Put
differently, in response to popular (sometimes populist) challenges to insuffi-
ciently inclusive, unresponsive, procedurally inadequate, or unjust democratic
institutions (and outcomes), “liberal” democracies have been pushed at times
by movements to become more democratic, more inclusive, and more just. But
when populists win power and run the government, the greater inclusiveness
and new participatory mechanisms, if they introduce them at all, come at the
price of new exclusions, and evisceration of the very democratic system they
supposedly seek to improve.9 This is equally true of populisms of the left and
the right. As Juan Linz noted long ago, attempts to (fully) substitute “real,” “sub-
stantive” for “liberal democratic” institutions point to authoritarianism, not to a
higher quality of democracy.10
We take the contemporary populist critique of existing democracies and of the
hegemonic “liberal democratic” model seriously: the democratic, welfare, and
status/solidarity deficits experienced over the past fifty years are real.11 Indeed,
when populist challenges to “liberal democracy” become widespread and pro-
found enough, it is incumbent on analysts to rethink democracy itself especially
when challengers enlist “radical” democracy on their side. We are, in the 21st
century, again confronted with a struggle over the meaning of democracy: this
time triggered by successful populist challenges in new and in long consolidated
constitutional democracies, that dispute their democratic credentials as well
as the model of democracy that they subscribe to. Populist governments today
claim the mantle of democratic legitimacy and reject the very idea of what they
call “liberal democracy,” in favor of an allegedly more democratic alternative.
While they do not abandon representation or elections, they reinterpret their
meaning and dynamic.
It should be clear by now that we reject analyses that locate these deficits in the
linkage of democracy with allegedly “alien elements”: liberal, republican, and/
or constitutionalist. Instead as indicated in c hapter 1, we locate the democracy
deficit structurally in democracy itself: as a constant possibility in an open, inde-
terminate political system whose outcomes depend on institutional design and
key norms of political behavior but also on the results of contestation over public
policy, projects, and processes. Democratic deficits and the populist challenges to
them are thus inherent in every democratic representative political system: they
are not due to the liberal, constitutionalist, or republican features of modern
democracy—features without which democracy is impossible, not just flawed.
We explore the tensions between constitutionalism and popular sovereignty
(democracy) in chapter 4. We argue that the different historical trajectories of
each and the different weights they place on meta rules allocating and regulating
democratic decision making powers, the scope of majority decision-making,
participation, and voice, respectively, create serious problems for constitutional
democracies only if one extreme—limitation and checking vs. untrammeled
majority rule—is emphasized at the expense of the other. In short, a reflexive
relationship is needed between the two deeply linked dimensions of democ-
racy today—constitutionalism and popular sovereignty—in order to realize the
three key democratic ideals of political equality, freedom, and self-government
under law. In this chapter we will make a similar claim regarding the alleged
tension between liberalism and democracy. They too have diverse historical
trajectories and logics, but we will argue that political liberalism enhances rather
than diminishes democracy, claims by a wide variety of populists to the contrary
notwithstanding. In order to identify and parry the populist challenge, it is thus
crucial for democratic theorists to clarify democracy’s prerequisites, its norma-
tive and empirical presuppositions, and its internal tensions and dynamics.
As is well known, much effort has been dedicated to rethinking democracy
in the wake of the third wave of democratization that began in the 1970s in
Southern Europe, continued throughout the 1980s in Latin America, and culmi-
nated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the attempts to create democratic
regimes in East and Central Europe in the 1990s.12 Democratic theorists soon
realized that while the mantle of democratic legitimacy was deemed crucial ex-
cept for openly authoritarian dictatorships, the use of democratic procedures,
especially elections and even party political competition, was hardly tanta-
mount to sufficient democratization nor a sign of an automatic (or even gradual)
transition to democracy. In short, the emergence of what some call electoral
or competitive authoritarianism forced democratic theorists to rethink the
prerequisites of democracy.13 Because no really existing democracy lives up to
the democratic ideal (however this is construed), the question was how to dis-
tinguish between regimes with the trappings of democratic institutions, such as
competitive elections, that still are authoritarian from those that are minimally
democratic.14 Put differently the issue was how to know when transformations
of authoritarian regimes that introduce democratic methods actually cross the
threshold to democracy, as distinct from the introduction of electoral compet-
itive processes as a mere façade or instrument for authoritarians seeking to re-
main in power with the benefit of democratic legitimacy. Theorists and analysts
of comparative politics produced an important literature in that regard, devel-
oping useful ideal types of varieties of hybrid regimes, of new authoritarian re-
gime types, and of conceptions of minimal democracy, such as “competitive” or
“electoral” authoritarianism and “delegative democracy.” We shall draw on this
literature in this chapter.15 For we argue that we confront a symmetrical problem
today. Our concern is to discern what transformations populist governments in-
troduce into democratic regimes that are tantamount to their hybridization in an
authoritarian direction, such that democratic backsliding and even the shift to
a new hybrid regime occur albeit without an obvious and sudden break with or
breakdown of the democratic regime.
We do not believe that the way to proceed is to construct a minimalist defini-
tion of democracy à la Schumpeter or Sartori, even though we too seek to parry
attacks on representative constitutionalist democracies, which challenge them
as elitist and undemocratic in the name of an alternative idealized participatory
direct democracy, this time of a populist nature.16 While it is important to estab-
lish a baseline, a democratic minimum, the strategy of thereby separating the
democratic ideal (prescription) from descriptive analysis of really existing dem-

ocracies must fail. This approach is unable to generate adequate criteria to differ-
entiate between democracy, oligarchy, and regimes that are democratic regarding
their citizens but exclusionary and politically exclusionary or authoritarian re-
garding important minorities: i.e., that do not give full citizenship rights to all
adults subject to the binding collective decisions of the government.17 Nor is it
adequate to focus only on procedures for getting into public office and acquiring
public power at the expense of the other norms and prerequisites of democracy.
Democracy, as Charles Taylor has recently argued, is a telic concept: inevitably
normative, regulative, and teleological as regards its constitutive standards of
political equality, political freedom, and self-government under law.18 These are
standards we never fully meet but may be at any time approaching or sliding
away from. Yet we need them to understand the democratic project.19 The prin-
ciples, norms, and prerequisites of democracy cannot be severed entirely from
the empirical procedures and institutions that purport to realize it. Without an
understanding of the former, we lack standards that allow us to judge such claims
or to argue for further democratization aimed at improving the quality of really
existing democracies, or even to claim that any existing democracy has reached
its feasible limits. Robert Dahl’s solution of construing democratic standards in
the form of regulative principles—counterfactuals to be approximated—was a
good one and we will return to these principles.20
With this in mind we think it important to develop a multileveled concept
of a democratic regime—one that includes the principles, norms, procedures,
mechanisms, and the institutional predicates of democracy along with cer-
tain informal prerequisites and dynamics regarding civil society and counter-
democracy.21 We will construct our model with a view toward populist
derogations from the democratic ideal, norms, institutions, and practices that
point beyond the threshold of a democratic regime. We intend our ideal type
conception of democracy to be understood as allowing for a spectrum of em-
pirical institutional possibilities that approximate it more or less, while enabling
the analyst to assess what arrangements and dynamics undermine democracy,
by abusing some democratic institutions so as to eviscerate others, such that a
regime can no longer be deemed even minimally democratic. Indeed it is also
imperative to understand what democracy as a regime entails in a philosoph-
ical register—i.e., as a symbolic order—for this will help us to assess whether the
populist alternative to “liberal democracy” is democratic in its logic or not. Thus,
we will consider not only democracy as a political system but also the form of so-
ciety it helps to create and in which it is embedded.
To understand democracy as a regime let us remind the reader what is meant
by the terms regime, government, and state. Following the political science
approach dominant in comparative politics, we use the term regime in the first
instance to refer to:
an ensemble of patterns that determines the methods of access to the principal

public offices; the characteristics of the actors admitted to or excluded from
such access; the strategies that actors may use to gain access; and the rules that
are followed in the making of publicly binding decisions. To work properly, the
ensemble must be institutionalized . . . Increasingly, the preferred mechanism
of institutionalization is a written body of laws undergirded by a written consti-
tution, though many enduring political norms can have an informal, pruden-
tial, or traditional basis.22
This concept includes the constitution, but is not reducible to it. As should be
fairly obvious, significant dimensions of a regime can be formally created by
constitutional legislation. This is especially true of the division of power, i.e., the
choice between federal and unitary structures of the state. But it is equally the
case for the form of the separation of powers within government. At the same
time, many of the fundamental patterns of state and governmental practice are
produced by ordinary statutes, executive decisions, judicial interpretations, and
customs if these are institutionalized as conventions, i.e., survive for significant
periods and become parts of the framework of political action and expecta-
tion. All these can significantly modify the constitution of regimes in the mate-
rial sense.
We use the term government to refer to legislative, executive, and judicial
organs—the horizontal relations among them and the powers allocated to them.
As is well known in democracies there can be a variety of governmental forms,
the three main types being: presidential, parliamentary, and semi-presidential.
There are, moreover, important variants possible within each of these forms, es-
pecially as they interact with state forms: federal or unitary. These differences
may affect the likelihood of success of the emergence of authoritarianism out of
populist governments, but we mention them in order to differentiate forms of
government from regime types and to argue that populists can come to power in
any one of these types of governmental systems.
While “regime” here refers to procedures regulating access to state power, and
government, to the three main branches or organs of public power typically es-
tablished through constitutional design (legislative, executive, judicial), the third
term in the institutional trilogy, “state,” pertains to the apparatus used for the
exercise of public power within a territory and in international relations. The
structure of the state can be unitary or federal, centralized or decentralized, as
determined by the regime. Yet the state is conceptually distinct from the spe-
cific form of government. It is typically and rightly seen as more permanent than
the government’s elected officials: it includes bureaucratic institutions and actors

such as the military, the diplomatic corps, tax authorities, security officials, the
police, local administrators, the courts and officials involved in the administra-
tion of justice, and so forth.23 As we shall argue, democracy necessarily involves
an institutional separation between the state and the government. The rela-
tive autonomy of state administration is needed to ensure that officials are not
pressured by incumbent politicians and thus can appear (and be) relatively un-
political and unbiased.24 The autonomy of civil society is also crucial for ensuring
the accountability of political officials and for articulating public opinion in
free public spaces.25 We return to the latter issue further on. For now it is worth
noting that in a democratic regime, the police, administrators of justice, courts,
tax authorities, and so forth must be free from pressure by incumbent politicians
regarding the treatment of opposition politicians and of ordinary citizens.26
That said, we turn to the philosophical presuppositions and symbolic meaning
of a democratic regime and of the symbolic order it breaks with and precludes.
By shifting to the level of the symbolic we follow Claude Lefort and his use of
the concept of form of society—its constitution (regime in the political science
sense) combined with the idea of the mode of life of a society: including the im-
plicit norms determining what is just and unjust, good and evil, desirable and
undesirable, noble and ignoble.27 The philosophical notion of form of society
touches on conditions of legitimacy, authority-obedience relations, the structure
of power, and distinction among social ranks that are deemed legitimate. But
it involves much more, for it pertains to what provides intelligibility to a social
organization and what gives society a form, i.e., the symbolic order that bestows
unity on a society within which social divisions and institutional differentiations
articulate themselves.28
Following Tocqueville, we as well as Lefort understand democracy not only as
a political regime but also as a form of society. According to Lefort this involves
a key mutation in the symbolic order as well as a new principle of legitimacy
vis-à-vis prior non-democratic regimes: the construction of the place of power
as empty.29 Such a structure does not only mean that the institutional apparatus
of democracy ensures competition, elections, and alternation and prevents any
branch of government from appropriating the political or incorporating power
into themselves. It also means that democracies are marked by and embrace
the form of a society that welcomes and preserves indeterminacy: The locus of
power is an empty place such that no group or individual can be consubstan-
tial with it, and it cannot be represented as incarnated or embodied in anyone.30
Disincorporation of the political means that no figure of mediation can incar-
nate society’s representation of itself or mediate between the real and the imag-
inary, between this world and some other one, to ground the social order in an
unquestionable foundation. Democracy is thus instituted and sustained by the
dissolution of the markers of certainty inaugurating a history in which people

experience a fundamental indeterminacy as to the basis of law, power, and know-
ledge. Democratic legitimacy involves a process of questioning and contestation
and a politics that such indeterminacy makes possible.
The same is true from a slightly different perspective about human rights.
While it is their essence to be declared, rights are not simply the objects of a
declaration from above. It is the actors themselves who create their freedom by
declaring their rights whether or not some document has already acknowledged
them. These declarations open a discursive/contestatory process of claims and
counterclaims such that mobilizing for rights and against injustice becomes part
and parcel of democracy and politics. Thus, Lefort insisted, “Rights are one of
the generative principles of democracy.”31 They are not merely liberal limits to
democracy. Accordingly, the impossibility of representing democratic society as
a body means that social division is constitutive of the unity of that society, as are
social contestation, heterogeneity, and plurality. The lack of any substantial unity
that could be embodied by a ruler, keeping the place of power empty (but not
abolishing it), calls forth the erection of a stage on which conflict is carried out
for all to see and in an effort to ensure its constructive effects for the democratic
regime.
Moving from the symbolic to the level of normative principles, democracy, as
already indicated, is a telic concept that involves three regulative ideals: political
equality, political freedom, and self-government under law. Political equality, or
what Dahl calls “the idea of intrinsic equality,” means that in the political do-
main no one is entitled to subject anyone else to their will or authority by virtue
of who or what they are, no one has a pre-given natural right to rule, no one can
be subjected to the political power of another without consent, and all must be
regarded as of equal intrinsic worth. Put differently, the idea is that in a democ-
racy everyone counts, everyone’s vote has equal weight, and everyone deserves to
have their interests considered and has the right to express them.
The concept of democracy literally means rule of the demos, the citizen body.
It thus entails political freedom insofar as the rule of the citizens involves the
idea of living under laws of their own choosing. It also implicitly involves a mode
of political freedom extended to an inclusive understanding of citizenship that
is absent in any other political regime.32 Indeed as Hans Kelsen argued nearly
one hundred years ago, freedom is a principle at the core of democracy because
as individuals one can only be free in a free political order.33 This means that
democracy and freedom coincide conceptually insofar as members of the dem-
ocratic political community participate in the creation of the governmental
and state orders and in making its collectively binding decisions, albeit, under
modern conditions, indirectly through their representatives whom they can
choose, influence, hold accountable, and replace.34 In modern democracy, this
requires the election of political representatives who in fact make collectively

binding laws for the polity and thus “rule,” but at the pleasure of the citizenry
to whom they are accountable and responsible. What distinguishes democratic
from non-democratic rulers are both the principles and rules that condition how
the former come to power and the norms and practices that hold them account-
able for their actions.
The democratic form of coming into power or democratic competition has
many components but also minimum prerequisites that will matter for us when
we try to ascertain the threshold potentially violated by populists. They are: (a)
free and fair elections; (b) broad protections of civil liberties that includes voting
equality; and (c) rule of law involving stability, predictability, and universality
enforced by judicial and administrative institutions.35 When these procedural
conditions are fulfilled the “majority” that wins elections has earned the right to
make decisions, at least temporarily, also by majority rule.36
The legitimacy of majority rule in elections and in government is by no means
unproblematic. For Kelsen the majority principle secures freedom better than
any other insofar as it entails that more individual’s wills coincide with the col-
lectively binding decisions made by their political representatives than in any
other kind of political system. Thus the principle of majority is intrinsic to de-
mocracy, and it means that as many people as possible shall be free and as few
as possible shall find their wills in opposition to the will of the social order. But,
as Kelsen shows, the majority principle also entails the right of the minority to
exist in parliament and in civil society so as to contest the power and substantive
decisions of the majority, to compete electorally, and to become, if successful, the
new majority or part of it. This would entail convincing others of their views and
projects, recruiting new allies, and perhaps, changing the minds of some who
voted for the existing majority. Equally important, this argument disputes the
claim that the majority represents the minority directly. Instead, there are always
at least two groups (whose composition fluctuates) in a democracy: the majority
and the minority; and the former’s collectively binding decisions can be accepted
by the latter instead of being seen as majority tyranny provided that informally
a process of mutual influence takes place even before but also during legislation.
This entails not only the right of the minority, or minorities, to continue to agi-
tate for their substantive views if they feel injustice is at stake but also the willing-
ness to listen and to compromise on the part of the majority.37 Compromise and
alternation (and the freedom to protest and mobilize in civil society) are thus key
principles undergirding the legitimacy of majority rule.
Yet even if some version of the procedures constitutive of majority rule is nec-
essary, it is not yet sufficient for democracy’s existence as a political regime. To
make majority rule democratic, both informal and formal norms must be sus-
tained. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have cogently argued that at least
two key, informal (unwritten) norms orienting elite behavior are fundamental
to the proper functioning and survival of democracy as a regime: mutual tol-
eration and forbearance.38 Mutual toleration means that competing parties and
politicians accept one another as legitimate rivals, forbearance that politicians
exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives. Mutual toleration
precludes portraying rivals as enemies. Forbearance is the opposite of “constitu-
tional hardball,” i.e., the use by a party leader in power of their temporary control
of institutions to gain maximum advantage, violating the spirit if not the letter of
the law.39
Beyond informal norms, there are also formal ones that need to complement
and limit majority rule. A baseline of political and civil rights securing key free-
doms of the citizenry is necessary in order for the democratic process to function
properly. The most obvious are the freedoms of speech, association, and access
to information and to alternative sources of information, all of which protect
the existence and autonomy of civil and political public spheres. As Aziz Huq
and Thomas Ginsburg recently argued, such rights, together with free and fair
elections in which a losing side concedes power, and the rule of law involving
the stability, predictability, non-arbitrariness, universality, fairness, and integ-
rity of administrative or adjudicative legal institutions—are three institutional
predicates of a constitutional democracy.40 We would add a core idea coming
from republicanism, namely the separation of powers and especially the au-
tonomy of the judiciary. These are necessary to the maintenance of a reasonable
level of democratic responsiveness, unbiased elections, and democratic engage-
ment by ordinary people without fear or coercion.41 Regardless of their sequen-
tial historical genesis, and of whether such rights and the rule of law have been
associated with liberalism rather than with democracy in the past, the point is
that they are deemed functionally intertwined institutional predicates of a de-
mocracy today (call it democratic constitutionalism or constitutionalist democ-
racy) that must be guaranteed if one is to speak of a democratic regime.42
As we argued long ago, the sets of rights securing public and private autonomy,
including freedoms of speech and association, freedom of information and the
media, and personal privacy, are also constitutive of an independent and vibrant
civil society, itself a key informal presupposition of democracy.43 It is in civil so-
ciety that new needs are articulated, dominant norm interpretations challenged,
and opinions formed through deliberation, including naming and challenging
injustice. The associations, social movements, and, frequently, new political
parties are first generated in civil society, and it is in publics that deliberation,
and the exchange of information, generate the goals and projects they hope will
gain traction in and influence political society’s actors. Critique, resistance, and
social contestation in civil society over majority decisions and practices are a
crucial way to ensure against blind deference to majority rule and to correct for
political alienation, provided that avenues of influence and responsiveness on

the part of political elites are forthcoming.44 These freedoms are also crucial to
the development of alternative expertise, for which the media of communication
free from state manipulation (albeit not from necessary regulation) are crucial.
A free and autonomous civil society, preferably institutionalized through the rel-
evant sets of rights, is a predicate of a democratic regime. Often civil society ac-
tors are the key actors pushing for the very establishment of such regimes and for
their further democratization, although civil society actors also form counter-
movements meant to exclude or diminish the rights of others.
But civil society also must function according to key norms, if it is to play a
constructive role in democracies and in democratization, the most important
of which are self-limitation and nonviolence.45 Self-limitation means that so-
cial movements in civil society must accept social and political plurality even
if rhetorically they fashion themselves as the true voice of the sovereign people.
Nonviolence means that counter-movements, minorities, and adversaries in ge-
neral are not automatically deemed existential enemies to be threatened with
physical harm. Their engagement fosters social plurality and what we have called
the “plurality of democracies,” i.e., a multiplicity of avenues for participation of
the citizenry in democratic politics, so that the associations, movements, media,
and civil publics supplement and enrich the electoral party political avenues
channeling and organizing participation. Resistance, and counter-mobilization,
depending on its form and orientation, may foster the further democratization
of, instead of undermining, democracy itself.
This brings us to the other crucial set of informal political predicates of a dem-
ocratic regime—key features of the democratic process that Pierre Rosanvallon
has called counter-democracy.46 Noting that the democratic ideal entails a
promise (of equality and autonomy/voice) and a problem, namely the inevitable
failure of all democratic regimes to fully realize this promise, he focuses on the
logic and dynamics of processes aiming to diminish the gap between norm and
reality, combat political alienation, and force those in power to give good reasons
for their decisions. Trust is central to the belief in the legitimacy of democratic
institutions, but so too is the organization of distrust. While most theorists
have focused on the liberal forms of institutionalizing distrust, Rosanvallon
concentrates on democratic versions. The former take the form of “preventive
power”: institutions such as constitutional designs aimed at limiting the concen-
tration and strength of government and certain basic rights—the basic driver
being distrust of the power of the people and their representatives, doubts about
universal suffrage, and fear of its expression.47 Democratic distrust, alterna-
tively, is aimed at establishing good government, ensuring that government is
responsive to the electorate and oriented to the “common good” however that is
understood.
Those whom a given electoral majority elects into power are never “the people”
nor do political representatives embody or incarnate the people’s unitary will.
They are fallible politicians who may or may not do what they promised—so the
gap between democratic practice and promise is always there. Hence the impor-
tance of a set of indirect powers and practices throughout society that organize a
durable democracy of distrust, buttressing the episodic democracy of the electoral
representative system and complementing the legal institutions erected around
that system, which are oriented toward maintaining accountability and fostering
good (rather than corrupt) government.48 The three key counter-democratic
institutions Rosanvallon analyzes are the informal powers of oversight, sanction/
prevention, and judgment.49 The powers of oversight entail vigilance, denunci-
ation, and evaluation regarding government actors’ duplicity or corruption; the
powers of prevention pertain to blocking undesirable political decisions through
negative publicity and protest; and the powers of judgment, oriented toward ac-
countability, exist in the space between legal prosecution and re-election and in-
volve inquiry and publicity regarding the behavior of political elites.50 They all can
be analyzed from a deliberative participatory perspective insofar, as they trigger
processes of justification and preclude blind deference to government majori-
ties. There is some overlap of democratic institutions of distrust with the liberal
and republican interests in limited government and preventive power. Indeed,
counter-democracy’s concern for good government echoes that of republican
political theory and practice that sought to institutionalize counter-powers, al-
beit inside government itself. But the counter-democratic organization of indirect
powers emerges in tandem with modern representative democracy and must be
seen as an intrinsic element of a modern democratic regime.
Counter-democracy thus captures a different dimension of popular sov-
ereignty than our civil society argument. The informal powers at issue in the
latter are oriented toward the articulation of new needs, norm interpretations,
projects, and opinions through civil publics and social movements aiming
to influence political society. In the former, counter-democracy, the focus is
more on informally regulating the behavior of political elites and their exercise
of power: overseeing, preventing, and judging the abuse of political power by
elected representatives. The mechanisms that counter-democracy uses to bol-
ster democracy itself are: vigilance to deter political corruption; mobilization of
public opinion and the media to block irresponsible and destructive legislation
or policy proposals; and publicly denouncing malfeasance by elected officials
to foster greater accountability. But these can go badly wrong, as Rosanvallon
himself has argued, when distrust is absolutized by populist manipulation.51
Populism is in part a pathology of counter-democracy’s three key forms (over-
sight, negative sovereignty, judgment) that severely distorts their functioning.52
Far from democratizing democracy or enhancing its quality, populists in power
mobilize counter-democracy to undermine the democratic, republican, and lib-

eral institutions that a democratic regime relies on.53
This brief articulation of the symbolic meaning, norms, institutions, and
practices of democracy (constitutional democracy as a form of society) serves
as a normative counterfactual against which one can assess empirically existent
democracies that can be more or less democratic. It is not meant to gloss over
its internal paradoxes of democracy some of which we have already analyzed in
earlier chapters. As Lefort noted, while democracy entails the reference to pop-
ular sovereignty, the moment the people actually appear as the electorate they
are turned into a mere aggregate of citizens, the majority being a mere numer-
ical statistic. This carries the danger that opportunists claiming to represent, in-
deed embody, the real people as one, ascribing to them a substantial identity (at
least regarding those whom this unity includes), will emerge and may come to
power. Instead of the social division and plurality inherent in every society and
raised to a reflexive principle in democracy, the very indeterminacy of democ-
racy and the fiction of popular sovereignty invite populist myth-making about
unity. Moreover, the empty place of power characteristic of democracy stands as
an invitation to such leaders to occupy this place and to “play the sovereign,” i.e.,
to purport to incarnate the people and the polity and to close the gap between
the real and the symbolic.54 Reflexivity regarding the relationship of rights, es-
pecially of the minority to majoritarian legislation, social division, democratic
self-limitation, and democratic self-correction, is rejected by a conflicting, alleg-
edly democratic, populist myth, namely that society can be made transparent to
itself, that the people are unitary and can act as one through their sovereign rep-
resentative who directly incarnates their will and is thus the only really legitimate
representative in a democracy.
All serious students of democracy have noticed the gap between counterfac-
tual norms and the practices and institutions of all really existing democracies.
Dahl’s influential distinction between democracy and polyarchy, for example,
expresses such a dualistic state of affairs. This dualism can be radicalized, thereby
opening the door to populism. In Margaret Canovan’s depiction for example, de-
mocracy rightly understood has a political theological vision at is core, namely
the myth of the sovereignty of the unified self-governing people, that is to be
contrasted to the mundane, ordinary, normal, pragmatic politics of ordinary de-
mocracy, the politics of muddling through, making compromises, and settling
for second or third best.55 According to her this myth is capable of mobilizing
a redemptive politics aiming at restoring sovereignty to the authentic people.
Buying into the redemptive myth of the unitary people, Canovan seems to re-
produce the populist framing insofar as the people, too, construe mobilization
against a disappointing empirical reality of a given democracy. In the name of
unitary popular sovereignty the construal is not only understandable but also
seems democratic and the only real alternative to resignation. But we argue that
this is not the only way to frame democratic dualism, and neither is the choice
between myth or resignation the only one. The alternative is to articulate the in-
ternal dualism of democracy as between necessary counterfactual or “fictional”
norms (of the self-governing sovereign people) and actual practice (Edmund
Morgan), or between regulative ideals of political equality and freedom (Kelsen,
Dahl) and deficient reality, or involving inevitably a gap between norm and
fact (Habermas, Rawls). These alternative conceptions can indeed spur efforts
to better realize the norms, to approximate more closely the ideals and fictions
without purporting to abolish legitimate social division altogether. In all of them,
democratic reflexivity plays a key role. Reflexivity regarding commitments and
values means that we understand that these are ours and that our understanding
of them is fallible, and thus all political decision making in a democracy is in
principle revisable even at the most fundamental level.56 The ongoing recursive
process of democratic elections and accountability, of the relation between civil
and political publics, social movements and political parties, government and
opposition, individual and minority rights and their enforcement and demo-
cratic majoritarian legislation, etc., are all constitutive features of the democratic
process that institutionalize reflexivity.57 Democratic reflexivity thus entails
openness, learning, and self-correction, inherent in the right of the opposition
and ordinary citizens to contest decisions, goals, and norm interpretations.
Interpreting democratic dualism as that of redemptive politics vs. everyday
resignation and endorsing the myth of the sovereign people as capable of acting
to realize their unitary (general) will is to buy into the dream of reoccupying the
empty place of power.58 Since modern society is inevitably divided, the dream can
be given political content only by searching for or accepting an instance in which
the will is incarnated, most often a populist leader with whom mobilized individ-
uals can emotionally (cathartically) identify and to whom they can blindly defer.
These myths and the related politics destroy the symbolic meaning and core of
democracy rather than realizing one side of it. They are indeed tantamount to a
new political theology.59 The dynamics such myths trigger fully demonstrate their
authoritarian logic only once populists are in power. We turn to this now.
Populism in Government:
Democracy Enhancing or Eviscerating?
As we have argued, populists seek political power, and thus populist movements
form parties (movement parties typically), or populist political entrepreneurs
generate them from above. The goal of these parties is to compete in democratic
elections to be able to enter and control government and exercise power.60 For
our purposes it does not matter for the moment whether the parties are gener-
ated from below or from above. It also does not matter whether top-down mo-
bilization takes place by political insiders who abandon traditional parties, by
political outsiders who manage to capture and transform them into personal
vehicles, or via some combination of both (MAS in Bolivia, the Tea Party and
then Trump’s mobilized supporters in the United States).61 What matters most
regarding populists in government is that elections remain important to their le-
gitimacy. Even when attaining governmental power, they cannot abandon their
claims to democratic legitimacy and, hence, minimally competitive elections.
When “in” government and at least in their very early stages as “the” government,
populist forces remain situated within the democratic imaginary and within the
frame of a democratic regime. Nevertheless, we argue that the telos of the gov-
ernmental logic of populism, based on the definitional criteria we have insisted
on, is to occupy the empty space of power in the name of the sovereign people as
embodied in a leader or a leadership. In practice this means “democratic back-
sliding” through the gradual evisceration of the core prerequisites, institutions,
procedures, and norms of democracy we have described earlier.
We have already differentiated government and regime in the first part of this
chapter. We argued that there are two forms of populist governmental power: the
first, to be “in” government and, the second, its goal, to be “the” government. We
also maintained that the move toward the creation of a new, hybrid regime is a
serious tendency under the latter. In all cases the key is executive power, which
would have to be acquired either in direct election as in presidential systems or
by achieving the legislative majority in parliamentary systems. While direct pres-
idential elections focusing on the popular choice of the chief executive has been
often considered a key to populist government,62 Max Weber turned out to be
right in claiming that parliamentary systems can also produce plebiscitary and
what we call populist leaderships.63 Today we have had this insight confirmed in
Turkey, Hungary, and Poland. Nevertheless there is still a relevant difference be-
tween the two forms. In presidential systems, partially depending on the timing
and form of elections, a populist executive can coexist with legislatures in the
hands of political opponents. For this reason we have to consider the possibility
that populism will be “in” rather than “the” government. Parliamentary systems
too, depending in part on the electoral rule, may permit a populist party, that on
in its own does not have a legislative majority, to be part of a coalition.64 Given
the relevant constitutional structure, it is also possible that only one chamber
of two is in the hands of a populist party. Here too we must use the term “in”
government.
Accordingly, populism can be said to be well on the way to be “the govern-
ment” when its party alone controls at the very least the executive and legislative
branches. Even here we must be careful, because of the possible importance of
the third, judicial branch, and more so in the case of federalism. A populist party
has all the governmental power only when it controls the courts and the majority
of either provincial or state governments, or has instruments that can guarantee
the supremacy of the “political” branches and the central (in the US: “federal”)
government. Aside from clear constitutional supremacy provisions, one such in-
strument is the possibility of federal interventions, as in India. Another is stat-
utory control over the jurisdiction and membership of courts that can decide
controversies between the center and the units. Yet another is easy access to the
constitution making mechanism: an amendment or revision rule that can be
used to control courts as well as diminish the powers of federal units.
The concept of “in” government implies potential limits to the power of the
executive. Very likely, it also involves serious conflicts, as was seen for four
years in the United States.65 This possibility was long recognized by critics of
presidentialism such as Linz who, following Tocqueville and Marx, thought that
here lay the main cause for the authoritarian turn of many plebiscitary presiden-
cies from the two Napoleons to Peron.66 What characterizes populism “in” gov-
ernment is not only the electoral conquest of the executive but the ongoing battle
of that branch against the independence of the other branches, the legislature
(in separation of power systems), the judiciary, the autonomous governmental
agencies and bureaucracies (the state), the governments of federal states, and in-
deed informal branches like the press and civil associations.67
Put systematically, the logic of populism in government unfolds through
a process of hybridization within what is still a democratic regime, whereby au-
thoritarian practices and norms get mixed into the existing democratic regime
diminishing its quality and distorting its dynamics.68 “Democratic hybridiza-
tion” thus entails the piecemeal undermining of key features of constitutional
democracy carried out by elected populist executives.69 The populist playbook
entails a repertoire of actions by populists in government that undermine the
procedural, normative, institutional, party political, counter-democratic, and
civil society prerequisites of democracy. The pathways of hybridization are thus
diverse and multiple.70
The first step is to undermine the two key meta-norms of mutual toleration
and forbearance regarding institutional prerogatives.71 Populist elites in gov-
ernment weaken the norm of mutual toleration by portraying the opposition in
parliament (or congress) and rival parties generally as part of the corrupt estab-
lishment, often accusing them of lack of patriotism (commitment to the true na-
tion) or other serious failings and by treating them as an existential threat. This
undercuts the democratic norms of cooperation and compromise insofar as the
opposition and rival parties are deemed by definition to be not opponents or even
adversaries but enemies, ultimately disloyal to the people’s government. Instead
of accepting plurality and exhibiting willingness to agree to disagree, cooperate,
and compromise with rivals, populist executives abandon the norm of mutual
toleration by turning governing into a one-sided winner take all game. This goes
together with violation of the other key meta-norm of democracy, namely insti-
tutional forbearance, whereby executives use their institutional prerogatives to
the hilt and engage in actions that respect the letter of the law, while obviously
violating its spirit.72 “Constitutional hardball” of this sort raises the stakes of pol-
itics and witnesses the drive of populists in government to gain control of all gov-
ernmental institutions and powers. They are “playing for keeps” by engaging in a
form of institutional combat aimed at permanently defeating partisan rivals that
exhibits no concern for preserving the democratic rules (norms) of the game or
for good governance.73 By violating the norms of mutual tolerance and forbear-
ance once in government, populist executives undermine the “soft guardrails of
democracy” that help prevent day-to-day political competition from turning in
to a no-holds barred conflict.74
The next step involves two strategies on the part of populist
governments: attacks on institutions of horizontal accountability and discrimi-
natory legalism.75 As already suggested, populism adheres to “vertical accounta-
bility,” defined as reliance on the verdict of voters to stay in power. By horizontal
accountability we mean viable institutions including oppositional parties,
courts, state structures, and the press that monitor as well as potentially check
and challenge the claims and decisions of the executive, and even the majority of
the legislature. As indicated, such institutions are not well tolerated by populists
because their partisan rivals may control them, but also because independent
state officials—diplomats, bureaucrats, security people with the knowledge and
skill to know how the relevant state institutions work and should work and with
perhaps a commitment to their integrity and autonomy—may thwart attempts
by populist leaders to expand their prerogatives. The inner logic of populism,
based on claims of embodying the unitary will of the popular sovereign, drives
personalistic populist leaders to try to concentrate power and dismantle institu-
tional restraints against executive predominance.76 Since they often gain power
as political outsiders with the expressed goal of destroying the political estab-
lishment portrayed as corrupt and undemocratic, populist leaders in govern-
ment have no normative commitment to existing democratic institutions.77 The
goal of populists in government is to gain control of these institutions and/or to
undermine their autonomy and their powers. Horizontal accountability, insti-
tutional checks and balances, the separation of powers, and autonomy of inde-
pendent parliamentary or executive agencies and of the judiciary are targeted to
avoid limitation of the power of the populist executive. As we have seen, on its in-
terpretation of majority rule as majoritarianism, populism must resist all forms
of power limitation of the executive elected by the majority. Similarly parties of
the opposition must not be in the position to limit the majority of the legislature
controlled by the executive.78 Thus they deem institutions of horizontal account-

ability as hostile, portray them as liberal, not democratic, and pledge to replace
“partocracy”—the rule of “establishment” parties—with authentic radical de-
mocracy, i.e., the unobstructed rule of the authentic people through their rep-
resentative in the executive. Hence the attacks on institutionalized horizontal
counter-powers, especially independent apex courts that defend differentiation,
the separation of powers, and basic rights, typically labeled “liberal” although
these institutions are, in our view, also democratic (and republican).
There is a good case to be made for the proposition that populist executives
in government under democratic regimes seek to turn representative into what
O’Donnell called “delegative democracies.”79 The irony is that while populists,
particularly in Latin America, have mobilized successfully by challenging
delegative democracies as being insufficiently democratic, once they come to
power in representative democratic regimes, they reproduce key features of just
that political form.80 Specifically, they embrace the premise of the latter that who-
ever wins election to the presidency is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees
fit, constrained only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a consti-
tutionally limited term of office, until they succeed in revising even that.81 While,
given the needs of plebiscitary legitimacy, populists in a democratic government
must in principle comply with the outcome of elections, or “vertical accounta-
bility,” they diligently seek, as just indicated, to undermine institutions of hor-
izontal accountability characteristic of representative democracy. Such efforts
produce great advantages for the power of incumbents, thus undermining ver-
tical accountability as well—reducing the fairness of elections and the suppos-
edly equal chances of parties to compete in them. However, O’Donnell argued
not only that delegative democracy is not alien to the democratic tradition but
also that it is more democratic, albeit less liberal than representative democ-
racy.82 With this claim, he conceded too much to the populist self-understanding
of democracy: unfettered majoritarianism, emotional elections endowing the
winner with a chance to rule virtually free of all restraints in the interest of the
nation, vertical accountability with voters who after the election are expected to
become a cheering audience of what the president does, the posture of the presi-
dent embodying the nation and a unifying movement instead of a partisan polit-
ical party, as well as seriously weakened horizontal accountability for the sake of
healing and uniting the people/nation.83 Certainly O’Donnell was not endorsing
delegative over representative democracy, but he fell into the trap of populist
rhetoric that views liberal, republican and constitutionalist separation of powers
and limits on the executive apparently backed by the majority as non-or anti-
democratic. Indeed, while populism “in” government relies on delegative de-
mocracy, weakening the freedom and fairness of electoral competition threatens
to break even with this ideal type.
Here the most important instrument relied on is discriminatory legalism. The

tactic undermines another basic prerequisite of democracy—the rule of law—
that ensures the stability, predictability, and integrity of legal institutions, and
which allow democratic engagement without fear or coercion and of course are
intrinsically valuable as well.84 Discriminatory legalism entails using existing law
and formal legal authority arbitrarily to favor supporters, to diminish opponents
rights including those of autonomous actors in civil society85, to disempower
and silence minorities, and to pressure and intimidate independent media. It
entails the use of legality to undermine the rule of law, a key prerequisite of high-
quality democracy. Examples include the use of tax audits and libel suits to ha-
rass critical newspapers, the distortion of the purposes of independent agencies
through legal and political maneuvers, over-enforcing the law in some instances
and under-enforcing it in others depending on whether one is a supporter or
potential opponent, leveling of trumped-up charges of corruption or lack of pa-
triotism against opposition politicians, allegations of bias of courts and judges
whose independence may lead them to rule against the populist leader and his
supporters, and last but hardly least, the legal use of policing to intimidate and
chill speech and protest.86 The appointment of cronies to head agencies is part
and parcel of all this not to mention the corruption that blossoms when popu-
list executives seek to curry the favor of the rich and powerful or buy support of
others by giving legal advantages and through the use of legal prerogatives.
While populist movements, especially those on the left, purport to be inclu-
sionary, the slogan “we are the people” is always also used in an exclusionary,
polarizing manner against whichever group and set of elites is deemed to be the
enemy. Once in government, populist executives do not abandon the friend–
enemy logic, instead, as we have seen in the last chapter, they exacerbate and
embrace extreme, affective polarization.87 Polarization and mobilization are not
necessarily destructive of democracy. Indeed if they make political elites more
responsive to injustice, exclusion, and lack of voice for certain groups, they can
foster further democratization and generate more solidarity with and/or inclu-
sion of the groups whose perspectives and needs, status, and well-being have
been ignored. But the dynamics of affective political polarization discussed in
the previous chapter are destructive, and populist parties and leaders in govern-
ment embrace them wholeheartedly. The obvious goal is to undermine political
competition and diminish the possibility of alternation in power.88 Populists
in government continue to engage in negative partisanship, deriding elections
in which their opponents win as “rigged,” and delegitimating other political
parties and the opposition in parliament (or congress) even while purporting
to embrace their right to participate in electoral contests. Populist governments
seek to skew the political electoral playing field in their favor through a variety
of techniques ranging from diminishing turnout of those likely to vote against
them to gerrymandering and manipulation of the electoral rules. Many have

taken note of such tactics, which indeed individually are not unique to populists
in power. But the populist logic that invariably leads to such tactics is distinc-
tive: to populists, elections are not viewed as mechanisms to aggregate individual
preferences to cobble together a temporary majority. Rather, elections are at the
service of identification meant to confirm a pre-existing and substantive (albeit
constructed) popular will ultimately embodied in the populist leader.89 “As such,
they are no longer conceived as an ordinary routine of democratic life marked by
uncertainty but the opposite: they become a dramatic event, for an electoral de-
feat poses an existential challenge to a leader’s . . . claims to embody the people.”90
Thus elections in the populist symbolic universe are about acclaim and blind def-
erence to the populist leader instead of serving to ensure accountability in light
of critical assessment of populist government’s policies.
Indeed the populist conception of “real” or “radical” democracy as unlim-
ited majoritarianism has its foundation in a symbolic conception of the political
in which unity of the true people’s will as the popular sovereign is incarnated
by their sovereign representative leader who embodies them and is the custo-
dian and definer of their and thus the nation’s interests. Presenting themselves
as above established parties and organized interests (even when they capture
an existing party) and as embodying the whole (real) nation, the sovereign rep-
resentative implicitly accepts no limits.91 The populist leader in government
purports to occupy the place of power and rejects social division within the true
people, placing division and opposition as ultimately outside of the real nation
but somehow always also as an internal threat to the people (be it in the shape of
the deep state, the oligarchy, corrupt ties with alien powers, minorities, etc.).92
This undermines the symbolic order of a democratic society by hypostasizing
and rendering mythological the ideal/utopian dimension of the democratic
imaginary—the idea that the people are sovereign—and pitting it against the
principles of equality (freedom from discrimination) and individual freedom
(from arbitrariness). Populism’s conception of democracy thus undermines its
core presuppositions: namely social division within the people, acceptance of
plurality and of opposition, and the contestation of power.93 If the populist in-
carnation of the people is in power, contestation against this rather paternal and
Hobbesian figure is not acceptable.94
Hence the marked tendency of every populist executive in government to ma-
nipulate the electoral playing field. As Huq and Ginsburg note, a mix of legis-
lative measures, politicized law-enforcement discretion, corruption, and barely
cloaked dog-whistles inviting outright violence are standard.95 The examples
are numerous. Extreme partisan gerrymandering, manipulation of registra-
tion, voting times, and ballot-access rules, denunciation of democratic local or
regional executives, baseless accusations of voter fraud risks in voting by mail,
and other techniques to diminish turnout that might favor democrats, typical
of Tea Party Republican populists in power in the various states and of Trump’s
presidency, aim at a one party lock up of the democratic process. So do Orbán’s
Fidesz party’s use of its legislative control over the electoral system to enact
measures making it easier to turn a plurality into a two-third governing ma-
jority in Hungary, similar to the various measures taken by Chavez in Venezuela,
and comparable ones put in place by Erdogan in Turkey.96 Taken together all
such moves pervert, without openly abolishing many of the formal procedural
principles of democracy. But they do certainly contribute to democratic back-
sliding, defined as “the state-led debilitation or elimination of any of the political
institutions that sustain an existing democracy.”97
So do the attacks on civil society. We have noted the clash of populist
movements with the pluralistic and self-limiting principles of civil society insofar
as they frame political conflict in terms of a friend–enemy discourse regarding
other groups and counter movements and associations. Populist politics is per-
force identity politics that plays on fostering antagonism, affect, and strongly
cathected identifications that divide society into two camps (us vs. them), per-
sonalize disagreement, and foster segmented, stacked political identities across
which it becomes nearly impossible to discuss, cooperate, or compromise in an
inclusive manner. Populist parties and leaders in government, in addition to
rejecting plurality and self-limitation and exacerbating polarizing identity poli-
tics, attack the two other key principles of civil society: publicity and free associa-
tion. They do so by degrading the public sphere and by undermining basic rights,
in particular of minorities and the opposition. The degradation of the public
sphere is the most obvious, as the populist playbook invariably includes attacks
on independent media, undermining the autonomy of independent experts be
they scientific, legal, or otherwise, distortion of the truth, and efforts to under-
mine access to reliable information through outright lying or sowing of distrust,
defunding of opposition media, and support of fake news mongers all of which
are tantamount to undermining the minimal epistemic prerequisites for demo-
cratic judgment. Indeed as Huq and Ginsburg note, lack of accurate information
about the government’s policy facilitates erroneous judgments as well as grave
violations of individual rights by government as a means of garnering public
support and eliminating dissent form the public sphere and dissenting minor-
ities from the electorate. Examples abound, including the 2000 Chavez govern-
ment media law, the long campaign in Turkey against journalists accelerated
by the post-coup closure of a hundred media outlets in 2016, Trump’s ceaseless
attacks on the veracity of independent news outlets from the New York Times and
Washington Post to CNN, Orbán’s increasing control of the media in Hungary,
etc. Targeting independent journalists, lawyers, voluntary associations, NGOs,
foundations and universities are part and parcel of all this use of discriminatory
legalism against independent opposition groups and whistle blowers in civil

society.98
Last but hardly least, there are the efforts of populists in government to distort
the function of counter-democratic institutions. Indeed in his prescient analysis,
Rosanvallon defines populism as “a pathology of counter-democracy,” as indi-
cated earlier.99 Populism involves pathologies of oversight and vigilance, of nega-
tive sovereignty, and of the politics of judgment. It distorts oversight and vigilance
into compulsive and permanent distrust of political elites and established author-
ities and institutions; it turns critical sovereignty and preventive power into a dy-
namic of pure negativity toward politics and government; and finally it distorts
the civilian function of judgment into a paranoid paroxysm of accusation and
denunciation.100 But these tactics are not reserved for populist movements or
parties out of power, as Rosanvallon implies. Paradoxically, populists in govern-
ment exacerbate the tendencies inherent in counter-democracy and reproduce
them in their own rhetoric through constant incrimination of non-populist gov-
ernment officials, institutions, and counter-powers, denying their own responsi-
bility for failures, blaming, e.g., the deep state or allegedly disloyal officials in the
bureaucracy and courts or politicians in the legislature. Populists in government
thrive on divisiveness and distrust toward non-populist political and adminis-
trative office holders. Thus even when they are in government, even when they
control the executive power, they trigger extreme counter-democratic suspicion
and distrust of government and of expertise, while undermining the trust neces-
sary for democracy. This facilitates and justifies repression, stigmatization, and
denial of basic rights to minorities and to other authorities and their supporters
(whistle blowers, etc.) once populism becomes “the” government.
Populist Government I: Qualified Authoritarianism?
Populists “in” government and populism as “the” government share a common

goal based on their hostility to all separation, division, and differentiation of
powers: in both cases they seek to undermine the independence of the political
branches that could check their power and in addition try to delegitimize auton-
omous media, movements, minorities, and the opposition in civil and political
society, as well as the state administration. Once they become “the” government,
populist executives are better equipped to accomplish these tasks, and they do
so by coopting officials, harassing opponents, and instituting legal and constitu-
tional changes that, while not abolishing elections or outlawing the independent
party-political opposition, severely diminish their chances of successfully chal-
lenging them. Moreover populists as the government have more powers avail-
able to them to undermine the autonomy of state institutions and eviscerate or
politicize them. The move from attacks on the other branches of government to
attacks on the state by populists as the government is a sign that the threshold
from a democratic to another hybrid regime type is being crossed. Thus it is jus-
tified to consider populism as “the” government on the regime level, though
in our view the verdict that it is a new hybrid regime should not be announced
prematurely.
As we have argued, the process of democratic hybridization entails the in-
troduction of authoritarian norms, practices, and procedures into a demo-
cratic regime, with the aim of skewing the electoral playing field, undermining
the opposition’s ability to compete, and diminishing the likelihood that ex-
isting institutions can serve as checks on populist power grabs. This involves
a piecemeal and slow process so long as populists control only the executive.
But once they become “the” government, populists tend to shift from quantity
to quality, up the ante, and do their best to speed things up. Now populist gov-
ernment facilitates the shift over to a new populist hybrid regime. The question
then becomes how long one can speak merely of a lower quality democracy and
partial democratic backsliding, instead of wholesale “constitutional retrogres-
sion” such that the threshold between democracy and the hybrid regime type is
crossed. Indeed we disagree with those who want to situate the regime type pop-
ulist governments erect as qualified democracies, illiberal, or electoral, but also
with those who see populism in government and even populism as the govern-
ment as outright unabashed authoritarianism or autocracy.101 Instead of viewing
the form constructed by populist government as a qualified democracy or as a
qualified authoritarian regime, we argue that populist governments constitute
a distinct hybrid regime that wields together elements from democracy and au-
thoritarianism but is in effect neither one nor the other.102 As we shall see, there
can be a variety of hybrid regimes, and the populist hybrid differs from other
hybrids in its genesis and dynamics. But it also must be differentiated from full-
scale authoritarian regimes and outright dictatorships although it certainly can
take the road toward those sorts of regime over time.103 The hybrid regime that
populist government creates is as distinct from democratic and full authoritarian
regimes as a mule is from a horse and a donkey notwithstanding the features it
borrows from both.
The idea of a hybrid regime combining democratic and authoritarian elem-
ents is not new, as Larry Diamond pointed out some time ago.104 Nevertheless,
there is still some conceptual confusion about the analytic concept of a hybrid
regime as a distinct political form in its own right.105 It is thus worth looking at
the theory of competitive authoritarianism as a distinctive hybrid regime type.
This concept marked an important break with those versions of the transitions
literature of the 1990s that construed the introduction of competitive elections
(in which power holders could and sometimes did lose power) and some civil
freedoms into post–Cold War authoritarian contexts as “hybridization.” By this

many authors meant or implied that the regimes thus produced were “merely”
transitional—temporary steps taken en route to democracy or destined to fall
back into dictatorship.106 The theory of competitive authoritarianism helpfully
developed the idea of a hybrid regime type as a stable, not simply transitional,
political form with a variety of subtypes (depending on the specific combina-
tion of elections, civil and political freedoms, and authoritarian elements) at the
center of the analysis. But confusingly the authors construe the hybrid that is
“competitive authoritarianism” as another subtype of authoritarian regimes
adding to existing varieties analyzed by Juan Linz.107 Thus competitive authori-
tarianism is deemed to be a new and distinctive subtype of authoritarianism that
is the product of the contemporary world and which can endure.
Competitive authoritarian regimes are civilian regimes in which formal demo-

cratic institutions exist and are widely viewed as the primary means of gaining
power, but in which incumbents’ abuse of the state places them at a significant
advantage vis-à-vis their opponents. Such regimes are competitive in that op-
position parties use democratic institutions to contest seriously for power, but
they are not democratic because the playing field is heavily skewed in favor of
incumbents. Competition is thus real but unfair.108
Accordingly, this is supposed to be a subtype of authoritarianism that has im-

portant elements of democracy.109 The opposition in these regimes, as indicated,
is able to make use of “democratic institutions” to participate in competitive
elections.110 Another term for such regimes introduced by Andreas Schedler is
“electoral authoritarianism”—a concept that entails elections in a regime that is
minimally pluralist, minimally open, minimally competitive but in which op-
position parties are ultimately denied victory.111 This version is broader than
competitive authoritarianism insofar as it captures hegemonic regimes, but it
does not serve us well in differentiating between regimes with sham elections
and those in which the opposition really does have a chance to compete and win.
“Competitive authoritarianism” as a distinct subtype of “hybrid” authoritarian
regimes is more illuminating in that regard and also insofar as it is a subtype quite
different from the seven closed varieties analyzed by Linz in his earlier work.112
It is clear that the concept aims to show that the regimes it characterizes cannot
be situated in the frame of democracy, however qualified, because, in one inter-
pretation, they violate three defining attributes of democratic competition: (1)
free and fully fair elections, including a reasonably level playing field; (2) broad
protection of civil liberties; and (3) rule of law.113 Of course, in another plausible
interpretation, a sufficiently severe violation of any of these reduces the other
two to formalism without substance. Thus, some authors follow Linz, who in
his new 2000 introduction to his classic 1985 Breakdown of Democratic Regimes
argues that when regimes violate the first or second of these democratic norms
of competition severely it makes no sense to classify them as democracies.114 In
this interpretation the democratic/authoritarian threshold is easier to locate,
since one can say with some certainty in any given case that there are no longer
free elections or that civil liberties are no longer protected. It is more difficult to
do the same when all three violations are taking place slowly but incrementally,
reinforcing one another.115
Tentatively, as we will argue later, the threshold for regime change from de-
mocracy to a hybrid (as distinct from the degradation of the quality of democ-
racy) is either the simultaneous violation of all three attributes just mentioned or
the sufficiently severe violation of one of them that neutralizes the democratic
function of the others. This way of conceiving the matter allows for a spectrum of
democratic regimes where incremental backsliding toward authoritarianism has
taken place and are thus imperfect in their satisfaction of their own norms, while
indicating the difference of all of them from authoritarian hybrids. But in this
context at least we clearly break with the approach of O’Donnell whose idea of
“delegative democracies” that entitle the executive to govern as he or she sees fit
does point to a hybrid form that violates the norms of protection of civil liberties
and a level playing field, but who nevertheless classified these as democracies,
supposedly (!) more “democratic” than liberal versions.116
While the concept of delegative democracy is not limited to populism in
power, it certainly seems to describe what populists aim at and often achieve
when successful in electoral competition. But does populist governmental power
still fall within the democratic spectrum, or do populists whether “in” or “the”
government transgress the threshold of a democratic regime? Certainly, the
charge of the violation of one or all three norms of democratic competition to
greater or lesser degree does seem to apply empirically in many cases where a
populist party achieves governmental power. Thus Levitsky and Way argue that
populist governments often construct the hybrid subtype of competitive author-
itarianism they have in mind.
While helpfully showing that the relevant polities cannot be classified as a
subtype of a democratic regime (because free elections with a reasonably level
playing field are lacking as are broad protections of civil liberties and rule of
law), the concept of competitive authoritarianism leads to confusion, because
it seems to classify the regimes they describe under the genus of authoritarian
regimes, as the name “competitive authoritarianism” implies, thereby obscuring
the analytic distinctiveness of a hybrid regime and losing sight of another impor-
tant threshold, between the hybrid regime and the full authoritarian type. That
second threshold is especially significant when the backsliding and the transition
are from a democratic regime.
We thus need to confront two issues directly. It is obvious that we are using
the concept of a hybrid populist regime in a different genetic context from that
which the concept of hybrid regimes was devised to address.117 Instead of the
transition from closed to open authoritarian regimes, along with others we are
analyzing the transition (breakdown?) of democratic regimes, in consolidated
as well as in relatively new democracies, to a new hybrid regime type. We call
the latter populist hybrid regime to distinguish it from another hybrid form,
competitive authoritarianism that was more relevant to the transitions from
authoritarian rule.118 We focus on the role populist governments play in such
transitions.119 It thus behooves us to look into the processes and devices used by
populists as the government to contribute to regime change, addressing in more
detail the threshold question. Second, it is important to revisit the debate over
how to classify the regimes that populist governments create, if they are able to,
for the theoretical and political stakes are high. We see hybrid regimes as a genus
with various subtypes one of which is the populist version with its distinctive
genesis and logic.
The Threshold Issue
We have already identified the key characteristics of populist government that

have an elective affinity with authoritarianism. Levitsky and Loxton’s study iden-
tified three reasons why populist executives push new democracies with rela-
tively weak states, democratic institutions, and parties into a new hybrid regime
type, that we wish to call a populist hybrid regime.120 We distinguish this type
from competitive authoritarianism because of its origins as well as forms of justi-
fication. First, populist executives position themselves as outsiders and mobilize
mass support through anti-establishment appeals. For the most part they have
little experience with or commitment to the institutions of representative de-
mocracy. Unlike career politicians working in legislatures or local governments,
they typically do not acquire the skills of negotiation or coalition building
needed to make those institutions work.121 Fujimori, Chavez, Gutierrez, and
Correa never held elective office before winning the presidency and were po-
litical amateurs. Second, the mandate of populist governments was won on the
message of burying the political elite and “replacing the establishment.” The ex-
isting regime institutions are denounced as not really democratic: horizontal
accountability is interpreted as undemocratic limitation. Thus emerge projects
to destroy the parties, legislatures, and judiciaries that are allegedly “corrupt.”122
Admittedly, one could see the rise to power of the respective populist leaders
in many contexts as responses to the deficiencies of delegative democracy. But
populists rarely call for greater horizontal accountability as the corrective to
delegative democracy. Their plebiscitary antidote, even if often mixed with direct
democratic elements and claims, is to change the leader or leadership to which
electoral power is delegated. Third, populist leaders in government don’t do away
with representation or elections when they shift the government toward a hybrid
populist regime, but as we have argued, they severely distort them, purporting
to institute a form of direct representation through acclaim, embodiment, and
identification of “the people” with the leader. The personalistic linkage populists
establish with voters constructs the populist executive as the only valid represen-
tative/embodiment of “the people’s will.”123 Accordingly the populist president
asserts a mandate to assault existing democratic institutions and when necessary
and possible to refound the political system using whatever legal institutional
means available to do so.124 This facilitates the step toward a full-fledged popu-
list government and the possible emergence of a hybrid populist (democratic-
authoritarian) regime type.125
The necessity has to do with the existence of forms of separation, and divi-
sion of power (as well as influence), among political branches, center, and units
under federal systems, government and the public sphere, state, and civil society,
as well as state and government. These forms of differentiation are different and
depend on the relations of forces in different settings. The separation of powers is
key, since if a populism seeks to challenge and reduce the other forms of political
plurality, it is from the vantage point of fully united government, or populism as
“the” government, that the several tasks can be accomplished. Here is where the
well-documented interest of populists in constitutional politics (a topic we will
consider in detail in c hapter 4) becomes necessary and is legitimated by pop-
ulist attacks on previous establishments. But even this takes different forms in
alternative settings. Under presidential governments, the antagonist of popu-
list executives within the separation of powers is most often the legislature. This
was the case for outsider presidents initially in Venezuela, who did not control
the inherited legislature, in Peru and Ecuador, where the populist presidential
candidates did not even have parties that could win elections at the same time as
their own initial plebiscitary victory, or again in Venezuela after lost legislative
elections. It is in settings of this type that new constitution making, involving
the election of a constituent assembly as a counter-legislature, became useful,
with the project of producing a more (or even more) plebiscitary constitution
as the frame for a delegative democracy. Under parliamentary government, as
in Turkey, Hungary, and Poland, the main antagonist within the separation of
powers was the constitutional court. Here too, as the Hungarian case with the
earlier failure of the final liberal constitution shows, the making of a new con-
stitution was an attractive option on the symbolic level. But in parliamentary
settings, as the Polish and Turkish cases show, there are alternatives such as court
packing and the repeated use of amendments that can accomplish less formal or
more incremental changes of constitutional identity.
Unfortunately, even the making of a new constitution, the passing of compre-
hensive amendments, or the success in court packing are only formal signposts
for the interest in establishing a new, hybrid regime. The difference between
formal constitution and regime (=material constitution) is fundamental; fully
replacing one is not the same as completely changing the other. This difference is
indicated by the survival of formal separation of powers and traditional rights in
many populist constitutions, as well as the repeated recourse to the various alter-
native avenues of constitutional politics both before and after the making of new
constitutions as in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Hungary. Aside from court packing
and repeated amendments, the statutory bypassing of formal amendments all
involve iterated tampering with regime structure. Given the “stealth nature” of
many of the constitutional changes,126 it is thus not possible to pinpoint pre-
cisely when the threshold is crossed from a populist government that can still
be deemed, even if minimally, democratic, to an albeit open and new type of
hybrid populist regime. But we should be able to recognize the signs that this is
happening. To be clear, there are not one but two thresholds at issue regarding
populists as the government: one pertains to the shift to a hybrid populist
(democratic-authoritarian) regime, the other to full authoritarianism or dicta-
torship, in which the democratic institutions remaining have been turned into a
pure sham.
Here we focus on the first threshold—the shift to a hybrid populist regime.
One important sign can be discerned when incremental negative changes in
the three basic predicates of democracy—free and fully competitive elections,
rights to speech and association, and the rule of law—become substantial and
significantly coalesce so that the system-level quality of democratic contestation
is undermined and constitutional retrogression turns into what is tantamount
to a shift in regime type.127 According to Huq and Ginsburg, the end state of
constitutional retrogression would be tantamount to regime change: toward
some sort of hybrid that uses the democratic electoral form but involves qual-
itative changes in the legal and political system of constitutional democracy so
that they can no longer be seen as democratic.128 Another important indication
is the systematic violation of the basic norms of mutual toleration and consti-
tutional forbearance on the part of the government.129 Indeed, the role of pop-
ulist governments enjoying near unchecked control over the state apparatus,
and backed by referendum victories and majorities in newly elected constituent
assemblies, in triggering regime change through the use of plebiscitary strategies
has been well documented.130 When populist governments purge the judiciary,
appoint loyalists to head the electoral authorities and other key institutions such
as the security apparatuses and administrative bureaucracy, politicizing them
and undermining their autonomy, when they close parliaments and impose new
constitutional rules of the game in order to retain and expand power, all the while
maintaining elections and some political pluralism, their government veers off
the map of constitutional democracy.131 The shift in the meaning of elections and
party pluralism from an aggregative choice mechanism oriented to responsible
and responsive government, to election and party membership as a mechanism
of confirming identity and identification is another clear sign of transition.
Equally important is the attack on the autonomy of state institutions ran-
ging from administrative bureaucracies to local governments to independent
prosecutors and the judiciary in general to the security services. Populists as
the government seek to render these compliant and dependent. To the extent to
which they succeed in politicizing state agencies either by replacing independent
office holders with clientelism, patrimonialism, and corruption or via fear tac-
tics, the steps toward creating a dual state in which the prerogative power of the
populist executive trumps the normative legal order clearly indicate the authori-
tarian nature/project of the government.132 Well-functioning institutions of con-
solidated democracies that create a virtuous circle of cooperation, compromise,
oversight, fairness, non-arbitrariness, and responsiveness are systematically
undermined, replaced by informal practices of clientelism and corruption and
overall arbitrariness.
Last but hardly least, the threshold has most likely been crossed to a new hybrid
populist regime when the attack by relatively entrenched populist governments
against independent apex courts ceases: for this occurs only when such a body
entirely loses its independence and the ability to act independently.133 It is im-
portant to be clear on this last point. The attack on apex courts reveals much
about the logic of populist government.134 Apex courts, from a democratic point
of view, guard the differentiation (separation and division) of powers, none of
which has the right to monopolize speaking in the name of the popular sover-
eign. Indeed, as we argued earlier, Lefort’s concept of the empty space of power
as constitutive of democracy precludes any institution or group purporting to
embody or incarnate the popular sovereign and thus to occupy that space under
the mantle of democracy. While populists interpret popular sovereignty and the
constituent power in terms of incarnation, the role of apex courts is to distin-
guish between the democratic constituent power and the constitutionally dele-
gated (constituted) powers of executive and legislatives. Since the Indian Basic
Structure and Colombian Replacement doctrines, we have become increasingly
accustomed to the differentiation of even the amending and constituent powers
that an apex court can enforce through amendment review.135 Where an amend-
ment rule is multi-leveled, courts logically assume the role of policing this type of
differentiation as well. And as they did in the South African constitution-making
process, courts may even have a role to play in the making of new constitutions.
The point is that these procedures guarding differentiation replace “the people”
as an entity (itself a myth) and the idea of its embodiment in a person or institu-
tion, and with ascending levels of democratic legitimacy. Obviously courts also
play key roles in the defense of individual and minority rights, their so-called lib-
eral function. But the two functions are related, as we argued earlier in defining
democracy: Only by defending the separation of powers and the differentiation
of constituent and constituted can the rights of individuals and minorities be
protected against executive or legislative violation and usurpation as well as con-
stitutional abrogation. Populist government, given its interpretation of popular
sovereignty, must resist these forms of power limitation and any agency seeking
to enforce it. By identifying the genuine people’s will with its own, the populist
government sees intervention of the courts as the secret work of an enemy—
the deep state or some external power or domestic “alien” group—even when
populists control the main state institutions. Once the will is incarnated there is
no reason to move to other levels of legitimacy and to alternative procedures to
test whether it is a democratic will.136
The harm of this to democracy should be obvious. Populist government even
short of establishing a new hybrid regime seeks to make the judiciary the pliant
tool of the executive, unable to police the separation of powers, the democratic
nature of procedures, or to defend the rights of individuals and minorities. Once
judicial independence is abrogated through reiterated rounds of packing and ju-
risdiction weakening, even the possibility of policing the fairness and freedom
of elections is lost. It is thus astonishing to see a debate emerge over whether the
new hybrid regime created by populist governments through this route should
be deemed a distinct type of non-liberal democracy rather than a new hybrid
regime (neither democratic nor authoritarian). We will argue that the very de-
bate signals the rhetorical success of populist governments in papering over their
transformation out of a democratic regime, by labeling themselves “illiberal
democracies,” and that analysts should not fall into this trap.
Populist Government II: Illiberal Democracy?
It should be unsurprising that populist executives who gain control of govern-

ment portray their regime as a superior form of democracy—recall Victor Orbán’s
infamous implication that Hungary is an “illiberal democracy”—meaning that
it now enjoys majority rule and governmental embodiment of the real people’s
will unhindered by “undemocratic” liberal limits.137 Of course this statement
was meant both as a prescriptive (regarding intent) and descriptive statement
of what a populist regime is or should be.138 But for 21st century analysts and
academics to embrace either the concept of illiberal democracy or to apply that
classification to contemporary populist governments and the regimes they have

established or are close to establishing, is astounding. Indeed, as already indi-
cated, the development of the concepts of competitive and/or electoral authori-
tarianism at the end of the last century sought to debunk the democratic claims
of governments that transitioned from closed to open authoritarianism (com-
petitive/electoral/hegemonic). They developed illuminating analyses of the new
type of hybrid regimes (or for Schedler new authoritarianism) that, despite their
acceptance of some political plurality and competitive albeit neither free nor fair
elections, remained authoritarian. Thus, the reversion to the moniker of quali-
fied democracy by contemporary analysts of populist governments that emerge
in democratic regimes, in the face of the fundamental changes described earlier,
seems a step backward from analytical sophistication to the simplistic equations
of democracy with elections and majority rule. We contend that, in particular,
the concept of illiberal or non-liberal democracy, the most prevalent moniker,
is both theoretically flawed and often ideologically motivated whether it refers
to right-wing or left-wing populist regimes. The historical progeny and the the-
oretical cogency of the idea of illiberal democracy are well worth re-examining
(see the following subsection). It is also worth the effort to specify what is dis-
tinctive about the alternative: the concept of a new hybrid regime we call populist
democratic-authoritarian, as a subtype (discussed in the following subsection).
The Concept of Illiberal Democracy

The theoretical core, if not the actual formulation, of the concept of “illiberal de-
mocracy” can be traced back to Carl Schmitt.139 Drawing on the well-known fact
that liberalism and democracy stem from distinct traditions and that in the 19th
century many European liberals rejected universal suffrage and thus democ-
ratization, Schmitt argued that the core principles and basic institutions of de-
mocracy and liberalism are distinct and antithetical.140 Accordingly, liberalism
is about liberty—freedom from government. It is theoretically linked, allegedly,
to a conception of freedom as negative liberty, philosophically to moral univer-
salism, historically to parliamentarism, and institutionally to fundamental, lib-
eral, individual rights (speech, assembly, religion, property), constitutionalism,
the separation of powers, the rule of law, and other devices necessary to limit
government.141 Democracy is, by contrast according to Schmitt, about equality,
identity, popular sovereignty, and the self-rule of the people via their chosen rep-
resentative who embodies their will. Equality is interpreted to mean sameness
along some salient line (values, race, religion, nationality, etc.), for only equals
(those like us) can be equal; popular sovereignty is interpreted to mean the di-
rect unrestricted rule of the homogeneous people’s unitary will in government.
Accordingly, democracy entails the accumulation of power and its use by a strong
central state. For right-wing populist theorists like Schmitt and contemporary
left populist theorists like Laclau and Mouffe, democracy is thus a form of iden-
tity politics ultimately based on an exclusionary conception of equality, because
those who are not the same, or who disagree with the alleged people’s will, cannot
really be part of the people or the popular sovereign.142 Thus the equality/dif-
ference dichotomy and identity politics (oriented to forging the identity of the
democratic political subject and its homogeneous will and identification with a
leader embodying that will) are at the heart of the political strategy of populism
in and out of power and of the friend–enemy logic that lurks underneath all pol-
itics according to populist theory, permitting the requisite exclusions and elimi-
nation of those who are not the same from the demos.143
Schmitt’s attack on liberalism and his insistence on separating it from democ-
racy had of course the purpose of excising deliberation, limits, liberties, com-
promise, the acceptance of disagreement, the public sphere, and the institutional
embodiment of all this at the time—parliamentary government—from the con-
cept of democracy.144 The strategy was to denounce all of these as merely lib-
eral and apolitical and to reduce democratic politics to identity politics, i.e., to
the processes of identifying those who are equals, the real people, ensuring their
identification with one another and their acclaim of the leader who incarnates
their will and identity.145 For Schmitt this could but need not entail competitive
elections. But identity politics and the dynamics inherent in the populist concep-
tion of “democracy” oriented to referenda, plebiscites, or plebiscitary elections,
is, of course the populist core of his theory. It led to his insistence that democracy
has more in common with dictatorship than with political liberalism.146 Indeed,
the very concept of discursive deliberative public spheres—in civil society and
in parliament—is placed by Schmitt in the box of liberalism rather than democ-
racy, enabling him to claim that bypassing or even abolishing parliament and
basic rights guaranteeing speech and association is democratic.147 Thus Schmitt
revived and endorsed the impulses toward Bonapartism so prevalent in 19th
century populism, in order to block what he saw as the inevitable instability that
democratization of the suffrage, rights (including social rights), parties, and
parliaments created, by importing too much of “society” and liberalism into the
state.148 He endorsed democratic legitimacy without liberalism but did so by
trading on their diverse and conflicted historical genesis—not by analyzing the
structural features of a democratic constitutionalist regime, which, as we argue,
entails the indissoluble imbrication of the two. This allowed him to claim demo-
cratic legitimacy for dictatorships of the left and right variety.149
The concept of illiberal democracy re-emerged in the 1990s, this time to ad-
dress the transitions from authoritarian regimes that entailed the introduction
of competitive elections and some political rights but not the full array of civil
and political liberties or institutions entailed by representative (constitutional)
democracy. The first to develop this idea (if not the actual concept of illiberal
democracy) was Guillermo O’Donell in the article referred to earlier, focused

primarily on Latin America.150 As already noted, O’Donell’s term for the hybrid
regimes that were created was “delegative democracy.” But apart from its influ-
ence on Latin Americanists, the concept had little impact elsewhere.
By contrast, the term “illiberal democracy,” coined a few years later by Fareed
Zakaria to conceptualize the structure of apparently consolidated regimes that
entail democratic procedures for selecting government but which nonetheless vi-
olate key civil and political liberties, has become far more widespread and influ-
ential.151 “Illiberal democracy” is a “form of government that mixes a substantial
degree of democracy with a substantial degree of illiberalism.”152 This analysis,
too, draws on the historically distinct genesis of liberalism and democracy and
on the conceptual distinction between procedures for selecting government—
democratic if based on minimally open elections and broad enfranchisement;
and government’s overarching or purpose—liberal if oriented to the protection
of personal liberty, limitation of power, and the rule of law.153 Accordingly, il-
liberal democracies must be deemed to be democratic regimes even if they are
severely deficient regarding rights, freedoms, equality, and powers and usurp
the prerogatives of both horizontal (other branches of national government) and
some vertical (regional, local authorities, nongovernmental groups, private busi-
ness) elements of society.154 This includes regimes that centralize governmental
authority in the hands of executives, often by extra constitutional means, and
that, by claiming to represent the people, encroach on the powers and violate the
rights of key social groups—an analysis that obviously pertains to many populist
regimes then and now.155 But one might well note: “If a democracy does not pre-
serve liberty and law, that it is a democracy is small consolation.”156
Obviously, the main alternatives to this categorization of the relevant regimes
have been the theories of hybrid regimes (competitive authoritarianism) or of the
new authoritarianism described earlier. Indeed, the relevant authors—Levitsky,
Way, Schedler—as we have seen, roundly criticized the “qualified democracy”
approach as operating with an overly minimal, electoralist conception of de-
mocracy and in the end playing into the hands of autocrats by legitimizing their
authoritarian regimes with a democratic veneer. Whether one calls the relevant
regimes “semi-democracy,” “delegative democracy,” “virtual democracy,” “elec-
toral democracy,” or “illiberal democracy,” such appellations are rejected by these
authors either for assuming that hybrid regimes are transitional, having a dem-
ocratizing bias, or for developing grab-bag categories that inadequately distin-
guish among the variety of mixes of authoritarian and democratic features and
the different implications these may have for economic performance, human
rights, and prospects for democracy.157 Indeed Zakaria himself notes that these
regimes are not transitional, i.e., not en route to democracy. Thus it seems to
make more sense, as Juan Linz noted in this new introduction to Totalitarianism
and Authoritarian Regimes, to include them in the “variety of authoritarianisms”

rather than the “variety of democracies” box.158 But as we have argued, following
in the spirit if not the actual taxonomy of Levitsky and Way, the concept of a hy-
brid regime as a genus distinct from both democratic and authoritarian regimes
is superior to both approaches, because it allows one to get at the specific dy-
namics and constraints of the particular blend of democratic and authoritarian
elements in the specific hybrid subtype: for us, the populist one. Otherwise the
threshold between deficient democracies (all democracies have deficits and
could be further democratized) and hybrid non-democracies and between these
and the variety of however diminished authoritarian regimes and the relevant
types of protest and resistance that could be constructive in each, gets blurred.
But we must analyze and challenge the theoretical core at the heart of the
concept of illiberal democracy because it is again being taken up, this time by
theorists of populism construed as part of a project to democratize really ex-
isting liberal democracies, that blames their liberal elements and orientation for
their democratic deficits.159 This is a dangerous move because, as we have shown,
while the populist critiques of the democratic deficits in really existing democ-
racies often hit their mark, the reasons for these deficits cannot be placed at the
door of political liberalism. Efforts to disaggregate liberalism from democracy in
order to “radicalize” the latter will only lead to authoritarianism, not to a higher
quality of democracy.
The clearest statement of this misguided approach is the recent work of
Chantal Mouffe, a theorist with some influence in European left populist polit-
ical and theoretical circles.160 To be sure, in her recent writings, Mouffe seems to
embrace liberal democracy, apparently tempering her strong Schmittian analysis
of the deeply contradictory nature of its component parts in her 2005 book The
Democratic Paradox.161 Indeed in For a Left Populism, Mouffe claims that she
wishes to deepen and radicalize the values of freedom and equality inherent in
liberal constitutional democracy, rather than to support a revolutionary break
with it.162 She argues that the aim of populist strategy is to construct a collec-
tive subject able to forge a new hegemonic formation within the liberal demo-
cratic order, not to create a new populist regime.163 But she drops only the idea,
endorsed in the earlier text, that pluralist liberal democracy must self-destruct,
not the claim that these two traditions are ultimately irreconcilable.164 The so-
called paradox remains, defined as the unavoidable tension and conflict (con-
tradiction quand même) between liberty and rights on the one side, democratic
equality and popular sovereignty on the other.165 Perhaps she is motivated to af-
firm her allegiance to liberal democracy (which she spent most of her life crit-
icizing) thanks to the adoption by right-wing populist leaders such as Orbán
and Kaczynski of the term “illiberal democracy” to describe their regimes. No
defender of right-wing populist regimes, Mouffe is indubitably sincere about
her left populist project of defending and radicalizing liberal democracy. But
her populist theory undermines her political commitments. The error lies in
the never abandoned first step, namely, falling for Schmitt’s rhetorical trick of
deeming not freedom but equality (as identity, sameness, and identification) as
democracy’s core and thus implicitly reserving popular sovereignty and equality
to equals while construing liberalism as depoliticizing and unnecessarily lim-
iting of the will and prerogatives of the people’s representatives in power. Indeed
her analysis of liberal democracy is confused and contradictory due to both her
left over Schmittian and continued populist commitments.
On her account too, liberalism is wed to abstract universalism and individu-
alistic human rights, i.e., to individual liberty, and thus is supposedly in consti-
tutive tension with democracy whose central ideas are popular sovereignty and
equality construed along Schmittian lines. Democracy’s grammar, according to
Mouffe, requires the construction of the people (the demos) as an identity and
a frontier between a “we” and a “they” conflicting with universalism.166 But she
advises us to endorse liberal logic because it enables challenges to the forms
of exclusion inherent in democracy—challenges made by those subject to the
law of the demos and demanding full inclusion as equal citizens. So equality
now shifts over to liberalism’s side.167 Presumably it now means equal liberty.
And yet she bewails the disappearance of agonistic politics and projects of so-
ciety that could challenge depriving citizens of the possibility of exercising their
democratic rights (so rights are part of democracy too), and she blames polit-
ical liberalism for this!168 Democracy, she insists, has been reduced to its liberal
component that allegedly entails only free elections and the defense of human
rights, denying the demos its voice and agonistic political role and turning it into
“post-democracy.”169
One can easily trace some of these confusions to her concept of agonistic de-
mocracy contrived as an alternative to liberal, communicative, deliberative, or
aggregative models, as if these do not involve dissent, contestation, partisan-
ship, and various civil forms of participation, social movements, and conflict,
including civil disobedience. Indeed if we drop the caricature of these other
models, it is unclear what agonism, on its own, adds. But it is clear what role it
plays in populism. We contend that agonism, wed to her populist theory and
strategy, entails, despite disclaimers, a conception of “the political” as a friend–
enemy logic of antagonistic identity (and difference) formation even though
Mouffe, unlike Laclau whose theory she endorses, repeatedly tries to retreat from
this. Her leftover Schmittianism not only continues to inform her analysis of lib-
eralism, it structures her concept of “radical” democracy as well insofar as she
sees democratic will formation as a process of identity formation (constructing
who is the people and identification with a leader) rather than as a process of
articulating opinions, aggregating interests, deliberation among multiple actors
debating over positions and goals, convincing one another or agreeing to dis-
agree until the next election, and so forth. Populist identity politics makes po-
litical conflict turn on whether you are for or against the people, not on serious
debate about political projects or policies.
Moreover, her theoretical conception of the tension between liberalism and
democracy also involves much rhetorical slippage between political and eco-
nomic liberalism, despite disavowals of the identity between the two. Mouffe
repeatedly states that liberal and democratic principles have always been at
loggerheads, observing that “liberal individualism” was kept in check in the
epoch of the Keynesian welfare state by social democratic practices.170 By im-
plication, liberal individualism is still equated with the egoism of the market-
oriented person and with economic liberalism. But the core premise of political
liberalism is the intrinsic and equal moral worth of all individuals, not the
possessive individualism, atomism, and egoism that undergird economic lib-
eralism and neo-liberalism. Indeed political liberalism assumes that “the so-
cial condition of living a free life is that one stand in relations of equality with
others.”171 Political liberalism endorsed Keynesianism and other modes of state
regulation of the capitalist economy to ensure the equal worth of liberty.172
Twentieth-century political liberalism is known for embracing social rights,
the regulatory state, and redistributive political economics in various forms.173
The target of the contemporary populist critique should be economic neo-
liberalism, embraced by a variety of political elites, not liberalism tout court.
But in Mouffe’s hands, the distinction between the premises of political and ec-
onomic liberalism is elided.174
We need not belabor this further. Liberalism and democracy do stem from
distinct traditions and in the 19th century many European liberals rejected uni-
versal suffrage and fully representative democracy, fearing that once the male
working class got the vote, their representatives would come to power democrat-
ically and heavily tax private property or overthrow capitalism. The struggle for
inclusion in the circle of rights (and for the suffrage) by workers, women, minor-
ities, and migrants also involved the expansion of the conception of the sorts of
rights needed to secure equal moral worth, and equal liberty, from civil and polit-
ical to social rights, variously conceived, just what Schmitt opposed.175 Whether
one characterizes these struggles and successful outcomes as expanding demo-
cratic equality or as liberal inclusion in the circle of rights doesn’t really matter
much. For, despite Mouffe’s caricature of the Habermassian position on the
co-equivalence of democracy and rights (rights and popular sovereignty in his
words), and despite her misrepresentation of political liberalism generally, the
point is that we must today see the two as presupposing and inextricably imbri-
cated into each other—as a palimpsest.176 Indeed, if one wishes to situate oneself
in Lefort’s political imaginary as Mouffe clearly does, then one must see rights
and democracy as two sides of the same democratic imaginary, i.e., as indeter-
minate principles necessary to realize the value of freedom that undergirds each,
while open to contestation about how they should be interpreted and institu-
tionalized.177 Certainly tensions between liberal and democratic conceptions of
rights and limits on majorities exist, but these are internal to any viable concep-
tion of representative constitutional democracy, given indeterminacy, and thus
inevitable disagreement and contestation over the right mix and over policy is
part of, not a hindrance to, democratic government. We repeat our claim that po-
litical liberalism enhances, it does not diminish, democracy.
Today we should not need to qualify democracy with the moniker liberal
as if these represent values that are external to each other. Pace Orbán and the
very undemocratic populists in power on the right and on the left, it is “il-
liberal democracy” that is a contradiction in terms. Indeed characterizing de-
mocracy as identity politics oriented toward filling the empty space of power
with a “representative” purporting to embody the people’s will is anathema to
the Lefortian approach. Populist regimes, whether left or right, thanks to pop-
ulist strategy and logic, want to reduce limits, checks and balances, and other
mechanisms that slow down the enactment of the alleged will of the authentic
people by their representatives and to pull apart liberal democracy by doing an
end run around courts, constitutional protections of rights, the rule of law, and
the separation of powers, framing them as anti-democratic, liberal principles.
But it is a theoretical error and a political mistake to label the hybrid regime
sought or established by populist governments a form of democracy. A popu-
list regime instead would be tantamount to a change in identity from democ-
racy to a hybrid form mixing democratic and authoritarian elements. Let us
return to this issue now.
The Populist Hybrid Regime

If the concept of illiberal or non-liberal democracy papers over the issue of re-
gime change, the choice of classifying post-democratic populist regimes under
the heading of “competitive authoritarianism” is also problematic. As noted, the
concept originally referred to a new type of authoritarian regime emerging out of
more closed varieties. Initially populist governments were included without dif-
ferentiation into the broad list of such regimes.178 More recently the concept has
been applied also to the regimes populists in power tend to create once they be-
come the government in democratic contexts.179 The argument in this literature
is focused on why populist governments push weak democracies to morph into
competitive authoritarian regimes.180 But no attempt was made to differentiate
populist from other types of hybrid regimes.
Instead, the originators of this concept deployed it to differentiate among sev-

eral other types of hybrid regimes including constitutional oligarchies, exclusive
republics that deny suffrage to a major segment of the adult population (e.g.,
Estonia and Latvia in the early 1990s); tutelary regimes in which elections are
partially competitive but the power of elected governments is restrained by non-
elected religious (Iran), military (e.g., Guatemala and Pakistan), or monarchic
(Nepal in the1990s) authorities; and restricted or semi-competitive democracies
in which elections are free but a major party is banned (e. g., Argentina 1957–
1966, Turkey in the 1990s).181 The concept of competitive authoritarian regimes,
thus, in our view is under-differentiated, because we think the distinctions be-
tween populist and non-populist versions of the genus—hybrid regimes—that
combine democratic procedures of access to power with more or less authori-
tarian modes of exercising power matters analytically and politically. This is so
apart from the classificatory problem inherent in the very concept of competi-
tive authoritarianism that misleads one to think that a subtype of the genus of
authoritarian regimes is at issue. Just as Juan Linz years ago usefully differenti-
ated among seven subtypes of authoritarian regimes, with the purpose of ana-
lyzing their severity and potentials for reform, we now think that analyzing the
specificity of populist hybrid regimes could be illuminating and useful on both
counts. Just to be clear, our interest is in contemporary populist regimes created
by populist governments that cross over the threshold of democracy into a new
hybrid form with its own tensions and dynamics.182
We have discussed at length how we understand democracy and the contrast
with competitive authoritarianism. It is worth briefly revisiting Juan Linz’s now
classic approach to the concept of authoritarian regimes, so we can get at the sim-
ilarities and distinctiveness of the populist hybrid. Linz focused on three criteria
to differentiate regime types and among the subtypes of authoritarianism: the
degree of monism vs. pluralism in the way power is exercised and organized;
mobilization vs. de-politicization of the citizenry, tolerated or fostered from
above; and the centrality of ideologies vs. mentalities regarding legitimation.183
Linz’s typology identified three broad regime types: democratic, totalitarian, and
authoritarian. Accordingly, authoritarian regimes are political systems with lim-
ited political pluralism, without an elaborate guiding ideology, but with distinc-
tive mentalities, yet without extensive or intensive political mobilization.184 They
entail ill-defined executive powers that extend the executive’s prerogative over
other institutions (primacy of the prerogative state in Frankel’s terms. Despite
toleration of limited pluralism (coalitions of supporters) and some opposition,
the absence of institutional channels for the opposition to reach the masses and
contest elections is standard.
But there are important subtypes that vary according to the degrees of mo-
bilization, pluralism, and mentality/ideology. Levitsky and Way follow Linz in
their definition of “full authoritarianism,” in which no viable channels exist

for the opposition to contest legally for executive power, but they include both
closed and hegemonic regimes in which formal democratic institutions exist
on paper but are reduce to façade status in practice.185 More relevant among
Linz’s seven subtypes for us is the mobilizational authoritarian regime type
that emerged in post-democratic societies.186 Linz is clearly thinking of Italy
under Mussolini as the first example of such a regime and also of other fas-
cist governments. Obviously, the context of their emergence differs greatly
from the contemporary one. But the anti- liberal, anti-
democratic, anti-
parliamentary, mobilizational “populism” of fascism created a new form of
authoritarianism, elements of which, despite the discrediting of outright fas-
cism, have been revived.187 These regimes used new types of organization pro-
viding an opportunity for involvement and participation, developing styles of
speech, dress, and performance that reflected the break with elitist or “bour-
geois” establishment norms. Their purpose was to allow individuals to sub-
merge in the collective in mass demonstrations whether mobilized from above
or from below. Participation in plebiscitary acclamation also had the function
of escaping the privatization typical of the other subtypes of authoritarianism.
Indeed Linz sees Peronism as a form of populist authoritarianism with some
fascist components and nationalist populism perhaps as a deviant case of fas-
cism, but he also speaks of the populism of fascism.188
To be sure, the mobilizational authoritarian fascist regimes Linz analyzed were
outright dictatorships that dispensed with elections and with any semblance of
democracy once in power. Nor were they in the end particularly pragmatic, al-
though certainly Mussolini moved in that direction, as did Franco by making key
alliances with conservative groups in order to remain in power. Our point is not
to dwell on the misleading identification of fascist and populist regimes. We see
the former as fully authoritarian dictatorships and the latter as hybrid regimes,
and not as a form of fascism. Instead, we wish to use the criteria Linz developed—
mobilizational vs. de-politicizing, the monist-pluralist spectrum, and the ideo-
logical or mentality basis of populist elite behavior and mass appeal—to assess
the populist governments as hybrid regimes, rather than as variants of author-
itarianism. For populist hybrid regimes also engage in top-down mobilization
(while sanctioning autonomous, especially critical, mobilization from below),
create participatory avenues for “the people,” and use friend–enemy propaganda
to enhance their loyalty and to fire them up, although they rely more on mental-
ities than cognitively closed ideologies for these purposes. In effect we can iden-
tify important elements typical of the mobilizational authoritarian subtype in
populist hybrid regimes. They also share many characteristics of the competi-
tive authoritarian regime type analyzed by Levitsky and Way.189 As Levitsky and
Way argue, informal institutions in these regimes play an important role given
the disjuncture between formal democratic rules and actual behavior. Indeed in-
formal mechanisms of control and coercion are critical to the survival of com-
petitive authoritarian regimes given their maintenance of democratic formal
architecture.190 Vote buying, ballot stuffing, manipulation of vote count, organ-
ized corruption such as bribery or blackmail, skewed patronage, legal discrim-
ination, and privatized violence are all informal means by which authoritarian
executives remain in power even in a competitive authoritarian regime where
they could in principle lose an election and in some cases have.
It is obvious nonetheless that there are inherent tensions in these hybrid
regimes rooted in the coexistence of formal democratic rules and autocratic
methods that create an inherent source of instability. Multi-party elections and
nominally independent legislatures, judiciaries, and media create opportuni-
ties for periodic challenges that may threaten the incumbent and regime.191
When the challenges become serious and incumbents lack sufficient public
support, they may be regime threatening, inviting more egregious violation
of democratic rules and escalation of authoritarian techniques, to ensure the
government stays in power. But even if a particular executive loses power, suc-
cession need not be tantamount to regime change nor is the direction of re-
gime change predetermined. Democratization is one possible outcome, but
so is the development of dynamics and mechanisms to maintain the com-
petitive authoritarian regime or to transition to a full, more complete, closed
authoritarianism.192
We argue that similar tensions exist in populist hybrid regimes, but thanks
to populist logic, they are stronger and deeper than in non-populist hybrid
subtypes. Both share the general dilemma outlined earlier regarding how to stay
in power using authoritarian means while maintaining formal democratic rules
and legitimacy. A populist regime is a distinctive hybrid that introduces enough
authoritarian features into the democratic contexts in which it arises (typically
under still, albeit minimally, democratic populist governments) that we must
deem them to be post-democratic. Yet populism, as we have argued, is consti-
tutively dependent on democratic legitimacy, because it invokes the people’s
sovereignty and purports to realize the true majority’s will in a real, albeit “non-
liberal,” democracy. Populism thus cannot dispense with elections or vertical
accountability, which allow the people to select and periodically acclaim their
institutional embodiment, the populist executive, or to reject her/him. But the
authoritarian elements intrinsic to populism or, put differently, its peculiar con-
ception of democracy (as purely majoritarian, as direct and unmediated acclaim
based on cathected identification with the leader, and involving the primacy of
politics aka the people’s will over law), undermine its democratic legitimacy in
three distinctive ways. First, populist hybrid regimes, unlike the competitive au-
thoritarian variant, are dependent on mobilization in civil society, but seek to
control it from above: a risky proposition if one is not prepared to use real repres-
sion and violence toward movements and associations that mobilize against the
populist hybrid regime. Autonomous movements and mobilizations give the lie
to the populist claim of incarnating the people, for how can the people mobilize
against their own incarnation in power? Populist governments seek to mobilize
their civil society and party political base when and where the executive requires
it—indeed like the mobilizational authoritarianism described by Linz, a popu-
list regime cannot dispense with avenues for participation and involvement for
“the people” even when they would prefer civil privatism, for the democratic le-
gitimacy they rely on requires this. Populist power elites need the acclaim that
rallies, plebiscites, and other mobilization forms afford them to demonstrate
that they have the people’s support. But mobilization is always Janus-faced, and
the forces mobilized can get out from under from the populist regime’s control,
leading possibly to electoral loss and loss of social majority support, inviting vi-
olence and greater suppression of civil liberties and thus further undermining
democratic legitimacy.
Second, populist regimes have a strong tendency toward monism despite
their acceptance of competitive elections, since only the populist party and
leader in government can incarnate the true people and be considered re-
ally legitimate. The friend–enemy logic of populism is as we have seen deeply
polarizing. The polarized political system it generates ultimately denies le-
gitimacy to the opposition, even when it is allowed to exist and participate
electorally.193 Thus populist regimes put pressure on pluralist elements in
political society and have a hard time sustaining cooperative relations with
other forces. Third, while populism’s “thin ideology” is more like a mentality
in Linz’s sense than a cognitively demanding and closed ideological belief
system, it nonetheless has two features that distinguish it from the elite men-
talities Linz had in mind that orient non-populist competitive authoritarian
regimes toward pragmatism and civil privatism. Populist executives tend not
to be pragmatic even regarding their desire to remain in power perpetually, in
part because they are less inclined to cooperate with other peer groups thanks
to populism’s inherent monism and its embodiment model of representation.
Populist governments seem to prefer cronyism and corruption (capitalist or
“socialist” as in Hungary and Venezuela respectively) to cooperation with po-
tential political allies. Its mobilizational dynamic forces populist executives to
periodically appeal to the people, another factor undermining pragmatism.
While populism itself is a thin ideology, populists typically rely on host ideolo-
gies (of the right such as racialized nationalism and/or religion, of the left such
as socialism, or some combination of both as in anti-imperialist socialism) to
acquire and retain power. The populist hybrid regime is flexible ideologically
in that it is never tied to a program, specific policies, or deep commitments to
values: opportunism rather than principle orients it. Nonetheless, it is oriented

in part by whatever host ideology it adheres to so that populist governments
tend to make promises they cannot keep (outbidding) in part to fire up their
base and to retain allegiance even though the populist elites in power are ulti-
mately uncommitted to any core principles.
If we add to all this the primacy of politics over law and evisceration of the
rule of law inherent in populism, it becomes clear that hybrid populist regimes
perforce distort democratic constitutionalism in a distinctive way. For the popu-
list leader, law, including higher constitutional law, and the rule of law, is always
subordinated to the people’s will incarnated in the executive: thus neither ver-
sion of legality may limit that power. This means that populist regimes tend not
only to destroy the autonomy of apex courts (through packing or other means as
indicated earlier) but also to elide the distinction between constituent and con-
stituted power.194 As we argued earlier, the incentive to create new constitutions
and to refound the polity is present in all populist governments. Constant re-
course to the constituent power, whether in the form of amendments or consti-
tutional replacement and repeated acts of packing and reducing the jurisdiction
of apex courts capable of statutory or even amendment review all indicate an
abiding interest creating and strengthening the authoritarian components of
the hybrid regime we are calling populist competitive authoritarianism. It is
even more strongly confirmed by the majoritarian non-consensual procedures
of constitution-making and the continuation of the amending process even in
the new populist constitutions. Indeed the quasi-permanence of the constituent
power allegedly embodied in the populist executive indicates the tendency to-
ward further regime change in the direction of outright authoritarianism and
dictatorship. But we should not jump the gun here: the populist subtype of hy-
brid regime also has a strong interest in retaining democratic legitimacy even
if the logical outcome of both left and right populisms would be toward a new
regime of authoritarian dictatorship. It is also possible that opposition forces
in civil and political society and those remaining in the key institutions such as
courts, legislatures, and the administration, might be able to defeat the populist
hybrid regime and push it in a democratic direction. We will look at that possi-
bility in the last chapter.
The Populist Dictatorship

We conclude this chapter with a brief reflection on the second threshold issue,
namely the shift from a hybrid populist regime to a full version of authori-
tarian dictatorship, albeit perhaps one that is less violent than harsher versions
existing in other contexts. What would be the signposts of such a transition?
Recall that according to Linz’s criteria for classifying full authoritarian regimes
there is a spectrum between monism and pluralism, mobilization and civil
privatism, and from ideology to mentality. Thus a full authoritarian, populist-

created regime could remain somewhat pluralist and mobilizational or veer
more toward civil privatism and pragmatism, downplaying ideology. A va-
riety of subtypes of populist-created authoritarianism are possible. But a sure
sign of the shift over to a full authoritarian regime would be the fact that de-
spite all appeals to popular sovereignty, an incumbent party and leader can
no longer lose elections. This means that the regime has become effectively
a single party state. An equally important sign would be the impossibility of
serious challenge to the rules and practices, formal and informal, put in place
by the populist regime to consolidate its control, except by the regime itself.
The fact that a populist subtype of an authoritarian regime has a constitution
and a table of rights is not the determining factor. Rather, the key would be
the relationship of its table of rights to their enforcement and the existence of
independent institutions of supervision and complaint—horizontal as well as
vertical, formal as well as informal/counter-democratic. When enforcement of
rights is fully compromised, whether constitutionally or only in practice, when
independent supervisory organs (separation of powers) are gone, when com-
munication among political contenders is no longer possible, then of course
elections are no longer even partially free or fair. Such a system, given what
is minimal in populist ideology would still have elections, but these would
now morph fully over into what populism always viewed to be their func-
tion namely that of generating identification and involving purely symbolic
representation—not a form entailing accountability or responsiveness to the
demands and aspirations of electorates. In such a system party pluralism could
still exist but other parties would be denied the chance to compete meaning-
fully or win. Civil society would also exist under a full authoritarian populist
regime but primarily in the form of top-down creations and dependent entities
(gleichschaltung). There can be publics as long as the main media of commu-
nication are completely under government control. As indicated earlier courts
and apex courts can continue to exist but they would be disempowered re-
garding their function in policing the separation of powers and ensuring the
constitutional reflexive regulation of law making. One final and crucial ad-
ditional sign that a populist regime has crossed the threshold to full author-
itarianism and dictatorship would be the emergence of a dual state such that
violations of the rule of law and the politicization of ordinary legality is insti-
tutionalized and the prerogative power of the executive is supreme and sover-
eign, i.e., above any legal jurisdiction, even if some legal rules regarding some
domains (the normative state) remain in place to organize, facilitate, and reg-
ulate (crony) capitalism or the supposed socialist economy in a left populist
regime.
To summarize, populism has three shapes: as a movement, as a party, as par-

ticipating government; and two key thresholds: populism as the government
morphing from a democratic to a hybrid regime subtype, and then as an author-
itarian regime. In this chapter we discussed the thresholds regarding populism’s
relationship to democracy once in government and once as the government.
Let us now turn in the next chapter to the relationship between populism and
constitutionalism.
5
Alternatives to Populism
The 2020 US election showed that populism can be defeated. Its Achilles heel
is, and always was, reliance on plebiscitary legitimacy that could only be fully
attained in elections, as long as these could be assumed to be free and fair. It was
a close call, as the leader of US right-wing populism “in” government made a
desperate (comical yet dangerous) effort to leap over the stage of controlling all
of “the” government to create a hybrid or authoritarian new regime. The effort
failed. But the results of the same election do not tell an unambiguous or defini-
tive story of the defeat of right-wing populism. While a particularly inept leader
figure was soundly defeated, he has received the second highest number of votes
in US history. The broad support for his political enablers in Congressional and
state elections indicates even more the power of the constituency, with a signif-
icant portion of voters supporting the populist attack on “the establishment.” In
this setting, leaving aside the obvious short-term political difficulties, the ques-
tion arises for democrats: Given the deep division and polarization of the United
States (and many others countries), should our political project be an attempt to
return to normalcy and restore the status quo ante that seems certainly preferable
to the four years between 2016 and 2020? Or, should it be, moving forward, seri-
ously dealing with the issues, many of them legitimate, that allowed the rise of the
new form of authoritarian challenge, contemporary populism, in the first place?
Our view is the second, even as we support the new president and vice-
president whose personalities (if not their platforms) seem to suggest restora-
tion, albeit under the formula “build back better,” rather than, as we would prefer,
radical reform. Here we can make a proposal for such an alternative only on the
abstract, theoretical level. As we will argue later, even in the context of a polit-
ical project with the legitimate aim of “restoring” liberal democracy, the interac-
tion of mobilized movements in civil society, party, and government can achieve
radical reforms. Accordingly, based on the argument of this book, we maintain
that: (1) The long, middle, and short-term problems of the deficit of democratic
representation must all be addressed to dramatically weaken the possibility of
success of populist demagogy. (2) There is only one answer to the long-term
democratic deficit: democratization as a continuing if never-ending process.
(3) Along with political democracy, the welfare and culture deficits, symbolized
by economic inequality and insecurity on the one hand and status decline or in-
security and lack of generalized social solidarity on the other, must be reduced,
diminished or, if possible, transformed. (4) To do all this democrats with a small
“d” must start with the short term, by supporting on the “demand side” forms of
mobilization that converge with these goals. (5) On the “supply side” we must
provide theoretically based narratives concerning the goals involved in steps 1–
4, and the combination of processes in civil and political society most likely to
bring them about.
As should be obvious, we are already engaged here in step 5, and to flesh it
out is the task of this chapter. We start by addressing the democracy deficit,
distinguishing between concepts of popular and populist politics. We then ad-
dress attempts to redeem the welfare and cultural deficits, by uncoupling the
main “host” ideologies from populism. Finally, we will consider the dualistic
strategy needed to overcome the deficits in political practice and provide viable
alternatives to populism.
Popular, Plural, and Constitutionalist Democracy vs.

Populist Democratic Monism
The Popular vs. the Populist
As Ernesto Laclau did with respect to populism, we too ask the question con-
cerning the identity of the subject(s) that are to address the three deficits, in
the long, middle, and short term. The answer “the popular” may seem like a
distinction without a difference. Our older answer, civil society, may be right
in general, but does not help sufficiently today when both left and right popu-
list movements and forms of mobilization, within civil society itself, are as im-
portant as democratic and pluralist options. Even our notion of the plurality of
democracies, on which we will continue to insist, cannot glide over the fact that
so many electorates—national, local, and regional—give their votes to populist
leaders and parties.1 We must draw lines that go through not only parties and
governments but also civil society.
The line between what we will call “popular” and populism also runs through
our definition of the latter. Let us recall the main points that can be interpreted
in terms of an authoritarian logic. We defined populism as: (1) a political
strategy appealing to the fundamental norm of popular sovereignty; (2) a thin
ideology (“chain of equivalence”) dependent on ideological hosts; (3) the claim
to represent the whole of “the” unified “people” by its mobilized part; (4) the
embodiment of the will of the mobilized part in a personalistic leader (or occa-
sionally: leaders); (5) the depiction of social conflict, or “antagonism,” in terms of
a Manichean friend–enemy dichotomy within domestic (and sometimes rooted
in international) politics; and (6) involving a strong notion of politics relying on
Alternatives to Populism 187
elections transformed into plebiscites, representation reduced to its symbolic

and incarnated forms, and when successful a “constitutionalism” based on the
permanent presence of the constituent power.
We have indicated previously that the terms of this six-part definition, in a rig-
orous argument such as Laclau’s, seem to imply one another. Now we must revisit
this apparent concession. The internal relations hold only given the interpret-
ations given to the terms by Laclau and the populists. Indeed, it is through inter-
pretive “tricks” that the supposed identification of “the political” and populism
can be maintained. But in fact each term can be and has been interpreted very
differently in the history of democratic politics. Let us consider the alternative
interpretations of each.
Popular Sovereignty
The idea of popular sovereignty was and remains a component of democratic

ideology that cannot be eliminated by fiat. Yet as interpreters such as Raymond
Carré de Malberg, Maurice Hauriou,2 Edmund Morgan, Francois Furet, Claude
Lefort, and Pierre Rosanvallon3 have shown, the concept when linked to notions
of real presence, unity of will, and embodiment is not only fictional but has been
and remains a dangerous opportunity for authoritarians and autocrats to make
claims justifying their usurpation of the power of citizens. Our suggestion, to
begin with, is to treat the fiction as a counterfactual norm. But what should the
norm contain and require? One possible suggestion is to treat the norm as a nega-
tive, as a denial of the right of any person, body, or institution, and by implication
movement to claim to speak in the name of the popular sovereign in anything
more than a temporary and institutionally limited manner. This was the solu-
tion of Carré de Malberg who called the norm “national” as opposed to “pop-
ular” sovereignty.4 Without accepting that shift in terminology, Claude Lefort,
as we have argued in c hapter 3, defined democracy as keeping the place of ulti-
mate power, historically occupied by the absolutist monarch, empty. We accept
the idea that popular sovereignty should have this negative dimension but are
forced to conclude that it is insufficient to define the category in the sense of a key
principle of democratic politics. Lefort himself insisted on political competition,
separation of powers, and fundamental rights as the institutional preconditions
for keeping the place of power empty, thereby rejecting political theology, the
basis for monarchical claims, for modern constitutional democracy. But even
these important institutions, on their own, would establish only a very limited
notion of democracy, typified by Dahl’s “polyarchy.”5 An important step toward
a more positive concept was taken by Habermas,6 who argued that popular sov-
ereignty should be seen as procedural meaning deliberative communication in
the societal public spheres, as long as interaction in those spheres was defined by
the principle of free and open dialogue to which each member would have equal
access secured by fundamental civil, political, and, we would add, social rights.
This proposal, breaking with any notion of embodiment, gives new and much
needed content to the meaning of the popular, but at the cost of abandoning or
very much weakening the notion of sovereignty that cannot do without a deci-
sional element. In Habermas’s conception, discussion in a democratic public
sphere cannot be constrained by topic or time requirements, and the relation-
ship of the public to the decisional instances of state and government remain
unclear or weak. In this context, Pierre Rosanvallon has taken another step by
giving instruments to the public in terms of the devices of “counter-democracy”
to monitor, control, and sanction the work of governmental bodies. For him it is
not a fictional unity but the duality of representative and counter-democracy that
yield popular sovereignty.
Influenced by many of these conceptions, or anticipating them as in the last
case, our concept of the plurality of democracies was, we believe, another key
step in redefining popular sovereignty.7 The concept assumes not only normative
goals or standards but also a continued process of democratization that in our
view is the only way of addressing the long-term democratic or representation
deficit inherent in constitutional democracy. When speaking of the plurality of
democracies, we have in mind the combination of different geographical (local,
regional, national) forms of representative democracy, participatory forms in
functional domains, such as industry, administration, and education, as well
the interaction of social movements, political parties, and decisional publics.
Whereas Rosanvallon’s democracy is dual, implicitly focusing on the traditional
dichotomy of state and civil society, ours is plural, insisting on a plurality of pos-
sibilities in state, civil society, and economy. As in Habermas, each democracy
involves public, open discussion, but according to our norm there is a plurality of
publics as he foresaw in the early book on the public sphere.8 That very plurality
produces an empty space free of usurpation, democratic as against polyarchic, as
both deliberation and decisional powers are relevant to different instances and
never ultimately one alone. At the same time, we assume a constitutional frame-
work that in case of continued disagreement allows for a system of decision-
making in terms of forms of compromise or, if that is not possible, majority or
qualified majority rule. Accordingly, the popular involves a plurality of avenues
for voice, action, and participation while refusing both the restriction of popular
sovereignty to acts of voting and its re-mythologization in populist imaginary of
the unitary people incarnated and acting in and through a leader.
To be sure, the constitutional structure for a plurality of democracies, though
foreshadowed by forms of decentralization, federalism, councils and industrial
democracy as well as institutions combining representative with participatory
democracy, is nowhere worked out and would in principle allow for a variety of
solutions. Moreover, the concept applies in principle not only to the content of
constitutions but also to how they are made and interpreted. It is in this double
sense of process and result that we speak of democratization. We have logic on
our side when we assume that a constitution made and interpreted in terms of
the principle of the plurality of democracies would help to institutionalize (prob-
ably gradually and through learning processes) a version of this political model.
Here our analysis converges with the popular and political constitutionalists
already discussed in chapter 4. It is they, in spite of some confusion concerning
the terminological relation of the popular and the populist, who have implicitly
raised the question of their fundamental difference. Ultimately, their objection
was to the monopolization of the ultimate power of sovereignty, not so much
by the political executive as by the legal bodies of unelected courts and the apex
court in particular. Their solution was a dialogue concerning constitutional
meaning and interpretation among the political branches, most of which owe
their powers to democratic elections, and between government as a whole and
initiatives, movements, and associations of political and civil society. Our ad-
dition to this conception would be above all the requirement that the instances
participating in this process, whether media organizations, unions, voluntary
associations, parties, councils or administrative instances, should be themselves
democratically organized or, as in the case of judicial and administrative bodies,
at least accountable to their constituencies and possibly professional bodies.9
Of course, within the idea of popular constitutionalism, along with the plu-
rality of democracies, are norms that allow many conceivable forms of partial
realization. For example, popular constitutionalists and even John Rawls have
argued that in the United States communication and interaction between the
Supreme Court and political publics have played a role in the evolution of our
constitutional interpretation, as notably in the shift from pre–New Deal to post–
New Deal and civil rights jurisprudence. Similarly, with respect to the plurality
of democracies, the interaction between popular movements, regional, and
even national government has been an enduring feature of the legislative pro-
cess with respect to race, work, family, and gender. Democratization, in terms of
the further development and even institutionalization of these forms, would go
a long way in terms of addressing the always present long-term democratic def-
icit in representative government, pre-empting populist alternatives. Following
C. Crouch,10 we admit that democratization has its “parabolic” high and low
points, involving moments of “high democratization” as well as others when de-
mocratization is temporarily of little public interest. Indeed, the latter moments
can involve blockage and even regression especially under the impact of what we
called welfare and cultural deficits. But we note that historically at least even his
democratic parabola is structurally progressive, implying secular gains and, even
more so, the possibility of new forms of mobilization repeatedly reaching high
points of democratization.
From “Thin Ideology” to the Norms of Democracy
In our view, in light of the populist challenge, the resumption of democratization

has primacy with respect to addressing the other deficits. We understand this
process as the linear or progressive parabolic movement forward in realizing
the counterfactual norms of popular sovereignty through communication and
participation in the public spheres and the building of new institutional spaces
for the long-term success of such politics. In other words, processes of halting
democratization rarely lose everything that has been achieved previously. The
possibility of resuming democratization lies not only in the long-term, struc-
tural nature of the democratic deficit that leads to the periodic reappearance
of the gap between represented and representatives. Equally important is the
salience of fundamental divisions in all our societies concerning how to ad-
dress economic and cultural deficits and the disagreements concerning them.
There is not, nor should there be, such division concerning the counterfactual
norms of democracy in many societies today, which is the main reason why the
attempts of the US Republicans to lamely contrast “democracy” and “republic”
and to limit the franchise both before and during the 2020 elections failed and
had to fail. Thus democracy (as also Chantal Mouffe realizes) is the metaprocess
around which a framework perspective resembling Laclau’s “equivalence”
among different and competing demands can be organized and managed. But
this ideal should not be seen, as it seems to be seen by Laclau, as merely a rhe-
torical and instrumental device or, as he and Mouffe at times seem to imply,
as attempts to produce artificial unity and unification. More than a mere host
ideology, to which Mouffe seems to reduce it, political democracy (as we have
argued in chapter 4) is a complex set of norms and institutional proposals. Its
source as far as we are concerned, as well as its object, is not “the people” as a
unity or, especially, an entity capable of embodiment but civil society as the in-
stitutional space of plurality, of disagreement, and of conflict as well as of con-
sensus, compromise, and reconciliation.
While many social movements can have strong ideological commitments
and interpretations of the world, modern political parties, most of which need
to “catch all” types of voters and interests, must indeed rely on the construction
of “chains of equivalence” among various needs and demands. The plurality
of democracies is in our view the alternative to the thin ideology of populism,
addressing potential middle-term crises of representation. It involves a replace-
ment of claims of symbolic representation on behalf of a fictional unitary agent,
“the people” mythically incarnated in a leader, by interest representation in a plu-

rality of publics constituted by popular bodies, institutions, and agencies. Many
organized and even unorganized parts of the population can be thus represented,
and no part can be assumed to embody and be able to speak for the whole.
Moreover, there must be the strongest possible taboo against leaders stating or
even thinking that they embody or they alone speak for the mythical entity “the
people.” Using Hannah Pitkin’s terms,11 descriptive and accountable forms of
representation are involved, but symbolic representation (as in the case of some
European monarchs) is reduced to nothing but symbols. Descriptive represen-
tation, as in the case of ethnic or racial groups and genders, may be needed to
empower those who have suffered discrimination historically. But accountable
representation is the key, and it is possible only where elections are frequent and
there is sufficient information (real vs. fake news) for constituencies to be able to
critically judge their representatives.
Toward a New Political Narrative
The plurality of democracies represents an alternative to populism, not because

of its content, some of which certain populists may adopt, but because of three
interconnected definitional elements. These are: (1) acceptance of the pluralist
idea that a part of society is only a part that can represent or stand for the whole
only according to legal procedures and then only temporarily and fallibly; (2) re-
jection of all ideas of the people as a whole being an embodied real presence in
space and time; and (3) acceptance of all political actors as opponents rather than
enemies.
While differing from more limited classical pluralist ideas, the concept of the
plurality of democracies contains these elements, which means that modern soci-
eties are inevitably divided by a variety of lines of cleavage, from geography and
occupation to ideology and worldview. Despite Marx’s early formula, based on
an untenable philosophy of history, the interests or ideology of no class can ever
be truly universal. Accordingly, political parties seek to organize along some but
never all such lines of division. Even together, parties cannot exhaust interest and
opinion representation as the pluralist theory has always stressed, insisting on
the importance of voluntary associations, social movements, and civil initiatives.
The very name “party” reflects plurality, that any such organization can represent
only a part not the whole. A one-party system is logically nonsensical, as the ten-
dency of fusion between party and state in all such systems has demonstrated.
Admittedly, the point of multi-party competition is that each party seeks to be
able to make decisions in the name of the whole, legally, through electoral results,
under established procedures, whether alone or in coalition with other similar
parties. But this form of occupation of the seats of decision-making under any
genuine democracy or even polyarchy is supposed to be temporary, open to cri-
tique, and under very significant limits. Whether the latter are constitutional or
merely customary and conventional, they must include respect for the rights
of other forms of association to criticize and to try to influence power holders
and, in the case of parties, the legitimacy of opposition to compete and to try
to replace incumbents. The partiality of parties is productive, which purport to
pursue their vision good of the whole, not only of their supporters—is produc-
tive and democratic, with these provisos.
Even these well-known and traditional ideas may not be entirely redundant
after the constitutional crisis we have recently experienced in the United States,
or crises with worse outcomes in countries such as Venezuela and Turkey. But
they lead also to a critique of the key populist category—“the people”—involving
a macro subject that can be really present and act in space and time. Given the
number, the multiplicity, and the dispersion of the population, that idea could
never be made sense of without identifying the institution, organization, and, in
populism generally, the person that not only speaks for the part but embodies the
whole. The plurality of democracies, following such philosophers as Lefort and
Habermas, must radically break with all ideas of embodiment and denounce its
attempts as usurpation.
This brings us to the difficult problem of leader and leadership, terms that un-
like party do not etymologically imply plurality. This issue is important, because
the shift from a part claiming to be the whole, from unitary models of embodi-
ment to principled political pluralism, must not mean the dramatic weakening
of the popular as compared to the populist. Indeed, such a weakening would
mean that in a competition between the two types of mobilization and repre-
sentation, the populist would tend to win. Even if in the ideal framework of the
public sphere as postulated by Habermas there are only equal participants, em-
pirical democratic politics has always involved leadership and leaders. While this
was already a source of critique for the Socratic philosophers, republican and
liberal movements too, even when strongly anti-authoritarian, have regularly in-
volved leaders. When those leader or leaders have charisma in Weber’s sense,
even if that is not a requirement, their movements and parties clearly benefit.
Charismatic leadership allows the appeal to be extended beyond the always small
circle of militants that completely shares the narrative of a popular movement
or party. Even within the movement or party leadership there can be significant
disagreements that need to be resolved given short-term challenges regarding
strategy or policy. These cannot and probably should not be solved through ma-
jority decision-making, following endless discussion. “The buck stops here” is
a vulgarism, but an unavoidable one, that can be legitimately claimed only in
the case of a trusted and respected political leader. And yet leadership, especially
with charisma, is not only an advantage but also an obvious danger hiding the
possibility of populist personalism.
The dangers are not unavoidable, as we have seen in the case of some char-
ismatic leaders like Washington, San Martin, Mandela, and many others who
sought consciously to avoid them.12 As these cases show, one remedy, probably
the weakest, is on the level of the leadership personality. A stronger safeguard is
the already mentioned political-cultural taboo against the language of embod-
iment and the reduction of representation to its symbolic dimension. But such
a taboo generally develops after a negative historical experience involving the
so-called cults of personality, that is, one-person dictatorships or authoritarian
populist experiences. In such cases, the new leader wishes above all to avoid
resembling a previous one. Unfortunately, however, after the experience of dem-
ocratic division or oligarchic group rule, the taboo does not play the same role,
even where it existed previously. Thus, populist personalism is often a cyclical
recurring phenomenon as interpreters like O’Donell have insisted.13
The recurrence of claims of embodiment of the will or interests of “the people”
may be explainable by the interests of incumbents to have unlimited power and
to stay in office indefinitely. The many conflicts over presidential term limits in
Latin America, and even the violation of the conventional two-term tenure by
Franklin Roosevelt, demonstrate such interests and inclinations. Under parlia-
mentary systems, the very long incumbency of many prime ministers shows the
same. But long incumbency is not identical to embodiment, even if it may use
claims of the latter. Such claims however cannot rest merely on the interests of
the leader, or only the unlikely claim that he or she alone can do the job. Here is
where narratives postulating the political order as the fundamental struggle of
friend and enemy play an important role.
The relationship between embodiment and intense animosity, the friend–
enemy conception of politics, is two directional. Either dimension can have pri-
ority. Those who oppose a leader who successfully claims to embody the people,
its will, and its voice can be easily portrayed and represented as the people’s
enemy. But when a political framework is intensely polarized, when one side (or
both) imagines its political opponent to be an existential enemy who seeks to de-
stroy it and who must be destroyed, division and conflict on one’s own side too
becomes unacceptable. Indeed, such a division would be seen as “objectively”
in the support and in the service of the enemy. It is easily imagined that such
destructive internal conflicts can be overcome only through unitary, undivided
leadership. In the first case the charisma or sacred quality of the leader becomes
the foundation for demonization. In the second case, it is the Manichean view of
the world of politics that leads to the acceptance of authoritarian leadership that
does not even need to be personally charismatic. In many empirical cases, finally,
both sides of the causal relationship may play a role. For example, a leader can
be charismatic to a part of his “base” as Trump undoubtedly was for many of his
supporters, while it is the pre-existent demonization of the other side that makes
another part of his supporters forget all the possible reservations they likely
have had concerning his personality and policies. Combined, the two logics se-
verely challenge the system of guardrails of constitutional democracy, based on
the idea among others that under such a system all parties and all leaders can
lose elections and must accept the results.14 If the opponent of charisma is sac-
rilegious, or the enemy--a force out to destroy or replace us, it cannot under
any circumstance be allowed to win. Political conflict turns existential. We must
therefore occupy the empty space of power to make sure the enemy seeking to
destroy us does not succeed in occupying the same.
But as with leadership, conflict is a necessary feature of democratic politics.
As with Lefort’s system with an empty space or Dahl’s polyarchy, the plurality
of democracies should be seen as a world of dissent, disagreement, contes-
tation, and even moderate antagonism. In distinction to Laclau and Mouffe,
we maintain that logically it is also one of consensus, namely concerning the
framework within which conflict itself takes place and remains legitimate. We
note that even in war, as the relevant international customs and agreements
show, there must be some agreement concerning rules, even as these, like all
rules, are often violated. Any violation of these rules is unlawful, and though
combatants may get away with such acts, they are also exposed to trials as war
criminals. It is the underlying consensus that allows even warring states to
make peace, and generally peacemaking will lead to some compromise con-
cerning the issues at stake.
The conflict-consensus-compromise model, if true for international affairs,
must be even more relevant to domestic politics where common interests go be-
yond the need to minimize loss of life to issues like public welfare and political
legitimacy of the order as a whole. Here conflict and discord should not be seen
in terms of Carl Schmitt’s friend and enemy relation or Laclau’s demonization,15
even if these concepts do describe frameworks of extreme domestic polariza-
tion. It is a common norm of all liberal, republican, and democratic systems that
conflict can be beneficial for the polity but extreme antagonism, whether based
on ideology, class, race, gender, ethnicity, or religion, must be domesticated.
While the avoidance of extreme antagonism is ultimately possible only on the
bases of a political culture that has elements of restraint and forbearance, there
are fortunately also institutional steps that can be taken to promote just these
attitudes. These are related to constitutional designs seeking to block the options
of leadership usurpation that are important in the all too likely cases where anti-
authoritarian personal psychology and all too fragile cultural taboo do not, or no
longer, represent such limitation.
The Constituent Power, Democratic Constitutionalism, and

Consensus Democracy
Popular politics must not cede the terrain of constitutional politics on which
populists have placed a great deal of emphasis. While described with some justice
as instrumental and even abusive constitutionalism, populism, as we have seen,
can also have a principled constitutional theory. It is based on the predominance
of an ever-present constituent power or pouvoir constituant over the pouvoirs
constitués,16 a model that has been rightly called “weak constitutionalism.”17 To
be fair the idea should not be depicted as the complete absence of constituted
powers that limit power holders. There is the implication that rules exist that
both enable and limit, but also that these rules can always be changed by the
holder of the constituent power. But even this idea is especially pernicious when
combined with notions of embodied popular sovereignty and the friend–enemy
mapping of the political field. In such versions, whoever can speak for the people
can produce, change, and replace the constitution at will and, in the process of
doing so, the voice of the enemy, however defined, can be entirely neglected or
even suppressed by the right choice of electoral rules, for example.
Nevertheless, the constitutionalism of the constituent power gains its legit-
imacy under and in contrast to legal or oligarchic forms of constitutionalism.
According to critics, these imply in a variety of forms first that it is legal experts
alone who have the right to make (and not merely draft), interpret, and change
the constitutions; and second, that the constitutional products whatever their
merits and demerits are either very difficult to change, or at least cannot be
changed through popular challenge and initiative. Popular constitutionalism, or,
in the expanded version, the plurality of democracies, shares this criticism. Yet
we cannot leave the defense of the democratic constituent power to the populists,
nor follow them in their disinterest and neglect of constituted powers.
Fortunately, from Condorcet’s 18th century draft and Jefferson’s letters and
notes to many contemporary constitutions, there have been important attempts
to go beyond the alternative of frozen, oligarchic constitutions that give legal
experts too much power through the monopoly of interpretation and populist
overemphasis, unification, and instrumentalization of the otherwise legitimate
stress on the constituent power. While what has been called popular or polit-
ical constitutionalism in the United States and the United Kingdom focuses on
the participation of all political branches and popular initiatives in interpreting
the basic law, in practice democratic constitutionalism has also focused on
amendment and replacement rules. Here we cannot consider the many relevant
examples from all over the world and will list only the main principles involved.
Constitutions should indeed be open to change by the citizens of a political com-
munity, but:
1. They should represent a relatively lasting constituted political order, and be

guarded against facile alteration, by forms of entrenchment.
2. The level of entrenchment should not be understood in terms of eternity
rules, or even very high levels of consensus, but rather the plurality of dem-
ocratic institutions and bodies needed for amendment.
3. There should be a multi-leveled set of rules of constitutional change,
requiring lower degrees of consensus for technical change and much
higher levels for principled change involving “the basic structure,” and es-
pecially replacement.18
4. All levels of change must involve significant consensus, the lowest mainly
among political parties, and each of the higher ones increasing the role of
popular participation (initiative, deliberation, ratification) from the level
before.
5. There must be an institution, a court or tribunal, that has the function of
keeping the levels of change apart, protecting the constitution from mere
statutory change and the basic structure from lower amendment levels.
This necessarily means the inclusion of amendment review among the
powers of this institution.
6. The members of the institution of review, composed of legal experts, must
be nominated by organs independent of the main branches of power. While
elections and public deliberation should play a role in the final choice, the
candidates must run as independent, without links to parties or political
pressure groups. If the legislature is to have a role in the outcome, high con-
sensus among parties should be required.
The obvious general point of these principles is to leave a great deal of room for
the constituent power and at the same time impart various degrees of stability to
the constituted. A second equally important purpose is to include an element of
popular constitutionalism on the fundamental level of change. As we will see, a
third and perhaps most important role is to defend the consensual dimension of
politics, to which they obviously belong.
There are many empirical cases, discussed in chapter 4, that show the popu-
list violation of many of these principles, specifically 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. Oligarchic
(mistakenly called “liberal”) constitutionalism too routinely violates sev-
eral of them, for example 3, 4, 6, and partially 5 in the United States. This of
course means that there are many constitutions, populist and oligarchic, that
should be democratically changed even if they do not presently contain rules of
change according to these principles, or if containing such rules, like the United
States’ provision for new constitutional conventions, these have been histori-
cally neglected. But in neither case should the constituent power be conceived
as in the state of nature, assuming only self-authorization in the name of the
mythical people. As some cases of what one of us called post-sovereign consti-

tution making demonstrated,19 notably the constituent process in South Africa,
many of these rules could be assumed initially on the normative political level
and then legally established through negotiation and compromise in interim
constitutions during the original constitution making process.
Of course constitutional politics is important for the theory of the plurality
of democracies, because the multiple institutions of participation can and
should be established alongside the traditional separation and division of power
in constitutions. There is no universal blueprint for what must be involved be-
yond the system of citizen rights needed to participate whether locally or na-
tionally, whether in political or functional domains, as well as in a plurality of
public spheres. But there are also important negative functions constitutions
must play in the preservation of democratic principles. The challenge of popu-
lism has brought us face to face with two related dangers: usurpation by person-
alistic executives and the transformation of the political field into friend–enemy
relations. We have mentioned the role (relatively rare) that anti-authoritarian
personality types of leaders and more common but fragile cultural assumptions
can play in warding off these dangers, but also that they have been and remain at
least very unreliable in the long term. Sometimes, all that must happen for these
to lose their force is the appearance of unmet grievances and a radical leader
with authoritarian instincts ready to appeal to them, or the passing of time after
authoritarian experiences as in Europe, or overconfidence in the stability of the
traditional framework of institutions, as in the United States. It is here that con-
stitutional design can play an important function that is preventive and social-
izing at the same time.
Proposals for such safeguards or guardrails are as old as democracy itself.
The Graeco-Roman idea of mixed government (Aristotle’s politeia and Cicero’s
respublica) was supposed to play exactly this role, incorporating democratic
components but mixing them with monarchical and aristocratic institutions.
Today however we can no longer accept forms of authority not based ultimately
at least, in a short or long chain, on democratic elections. The traditions of the
separation and division of powers, the early modern alternative, can however
be linked to the system of authorization directly or at least ultimately linked to
popular elections. We traditionally assume, especially in the United States, that
it is this system of power differentiation and distribution that makes autocratic
rule in the name of the people impossible. Thus while charismatic leadership can
emerge in one branch, in either the center or the units of a federal system, ac-
cording to the traditional model it would be limited and counteracted by checks
and balances.
Today, after our all too close call with a populist-autocratic project in the U.S.,
we should question whether the traditional guardrails are sufficient, given two
structural challenges to that model: the modern executive and the contempo-
rary form of the political party. As has been repeatedly well described, from
Tocqueville and Marx to Linz and Lowy, the modern executive in charge of im-
mense administrations has gained not only enormous powers but also plebis-
citary legitimacy.20 While in the Linz conception it is presidential government
based on the separation of powers and direct election of the executive that is
especially prone to executive usurpation, from India and Turkey to Hungary
and Poland we have seen parliamentary executives gain and abuse the type of
plebiscitary power that Max Weber predicted for them based on the rather be-
nign example of Gladstone and Lloyd George in the United Kingdom. When
such a figure as Mrs. Gandhi, Erdogan, Orbán, Kaczynski, and more recently
even Trump captures and/or controls a highly disciplined party that purports to
embody the true people’s will, the so-called formal guardrails of constitutional
democracy come under severe threat. It could be of course argued, that in the
recent US crisis of democracy and constitutionalism the safeguards held after all.
While on the one hand the legislature was unable to stop the plebiscitary pres-
ident even when one chamber was controlled by the opposition, on the other,
the courts, despite their packing, the political officials and organs of the states,
and the independent civil service (the state administration derided as the “deep
state”) held firm.
But an explanation focusing on the formal institutions would be incomplete.
In our concept of the plurality of democracies, actions by citizens, in the polit-
ical system, in civil society, and in the public sphere(s) are equally important.
The recent attempt at executive usurpation in the United States was defeated first
and foremost in elections, not one but several. There was the national election
with dramatically high level of participation in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis,
and the symbolically important outcome of the 7 million vote difference. And
there were elections achieving majorities in several states considered relatively
safe for the presidential incumbent, where the threat to constitutional democ-
racy was commonly understood as one of the main reasons for voting against
him. Finally there were the two run-off elections in Georgia, in the very heart
of the old Confederacy, won by an African American and a Jewish American.
These electoral outcomes were possible because of extensive efforts at grassroots
organization, symbolized by the activity of Stacey Abrams in Georgia but antic-
ipated and promoted by the efforts of other local movement organizers in the
so-called Indivisible, Feminist and Black Lives Matter movements. Equally im-
portant were efforts in the main printed and electronic forms of communication
to defend “truth” against “fake news” promoted both in some traditional media
and, especially, on the internet.
In the end, both the institutional framework and the loyalty it inspires in
many officials (“constitutional patriotism”) and popular communication and
mobilization were all necessary for the failure of an authoritarian populist effort
to subvert the order of the oldest constitutional democracy, that of the United
States. The institutional framework and the civil religion of the constitution, his-
torically celebrating its safeguards, were probably the most important factors, in
the case of administrators and judges, for resisting usurpation and subversion.
The commitment of public officials to institutional norms, legality, impartiality,
and the ethics of their profession, be it in an administrative agency or a court,
was crucial to avoiding politicization for partisan purposes.21 But taken together
with the size of the vote, popular mobilization and the critical media certainly
helped to harden the spine of officials who would have had to personally, openly,
and visibly attack the foundations of constitutional democracy if they were to
side with the incumbent and his highly implausible and inconsistent narrative(s).
With the exception of most Republican congressional representatives, this only a
few were willing to do. In the end, it was the work of grassroots electorates and of
the main electronic and printed media that enabled even the national legislature
to resist an attempt at right-wing insurrection, admittedly one poorly organized
and sociologically with a relatively weak base of support.
Nevertheless, the events of January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC, showed how
close we came to a collapse of constitutional democratic government. In our
view, in spite of the outcome such a collapse was possible, but only because of the
successful demonization of the opposition by authoritarian right-wing populists.
Here mobilization alone, with the obvious tendency to become two sided, could
have exacerbated polarization. Thus constitutional safeguards (or perhaps fortu-
nate outcomes possible under the constitution) had to play an important role as
well, socializing and determining the expectations of the mobilized participants
and providing legal venues for resisting usurpation.
To resist authoritarian populist mobilization, the constitutional order must
be such that actors should be able to see each other as opponents, rather than as
enemies, even if their antagonism tends to be strong. This is possible if rules are
enacted making incumbent self-dealing nearly impossible. These types of rules
have a double purpose. The obvious one is to help block authoritarian usurpa-
tion by the top leaders. But equally important is to give confidence to opposi-
tion: losing an election must not mean permanently being out of power. Fair
financing of campaigns, universal access to the key media of communication,
and strong institutionalization of the electoral rights of minorities and of the
political opposition are all important in this respect. But independent organs
must exist to monitor the conflict and adjudicate controversies that threaten
to grow out of hand. Not only the press but also the independent judiciary are
necessary for this type of control. To do its job the press, in all its written, elec-
tronic, and internet forms, must be itself plural. Monopolies in any of these three
domains must be limited or even broken up. As for the courts, while indeed they
should not be allowed to become the sovereigns of the system, as the popular
constitutionalists have argued, their role remains essential. But they can play this
role only if their politicization is avoided to the extent possible, and this means a
non-political form of nomination for relatively limited periods as already is the
case in many countries today.
However, incumbent government can be feared not only for their documented
desire and ability to remain in power but even more for what they are able do
while in power. Some decisions that are taken between electoral periods have
enormous consequences for the lives of citizens, and many are irreversible. Here
the obvious danger is delegative or strongly majoritarian democracy, favored by
populists when in power. Liberal safeguards focusing on the rights of citizens,
and even the traditional separation of powers, do limit these forms of democratic
authoritarianism, but they do so at the possible cost of governmental immobility,
without diminishing and possibly increasing the polarization between political
forces either in the different political branches and/or between the majority that
elected the executive and the new possible majority outside, or both.
The only answer to majoritarianism is what has been depicted as consensus
democracy.22 While its short-term function is to allow decision-making in which
both majority and minorities play a role, thus defending the rights of the latter,
even more important is the likely long-term potential of helping to transform
relations of animosity to relations of opposition. Given consensus democracy,
the fear of the other side winning elections would be greatly diminished. There
can of course be many reasons for political and ideological polarization. Many of
them can be diminished only by the practical actions of party leaders, members,
and those able to influence public opinion. But majoritarian democracy gives
those who fear the other side coming to power strong reasons to adopt the rhet-
oric of friend and enemy initially for pre-emptive purposes, thereby fueling sim-
ilar language on the other side. The only answer is diminish the winner take all
character of political competition.
The institutions of consensus democracy have been well described by Lijphart
and those he influenced, among them proportional representation, collegial
executives, inclusion in parliamentary committees, and consensual decision-
making on many key but not all issues, if the purpose of attaining a majority is
not to be entirely lost. We would add openness of governments and parties to
initiatives and discussions emerging from civil society and social movements, for
which many institutional forms have been suggested. Possibly including these,
the scheme for constitutional amendment and revision described here certainly
belongs among the most important instruments of consensus democracy. Its im-
portance is again double: while incorporating consensual requirements, even
more important is the defense of these when established. This means that the
principles of consensus democracy when enacted must be formally located and
defended on the highest level of change, involving the combined action of a plu-
rality of assemblies and instances, elected and popular.23
Rescuing (Some of) the Host Ideologies
We have maintained that the “thin ideology” of populism cannot succeed in

mobilizing large numbers of people, and especially winning elections, without
reliance on much more developed and substantive ideological hosts. If the alter-
native to populism is the plurality of democracies with its normative contents,
institutional projects, and historical references, does this obviously “thicker”
ideological perspective itself need to rely on “host ideologies”? Paradoxically,
yes, for several reasons. First, in the competition with populism, the plurality of
democracies too must be able to appeal to a variety of forms of life and opinion,
only some of which will be primarily motivated by procedural questions except
perhaps in moments of obvious threat and danger to democratic institutional
forms. Second, at a time like ours, barely beyond the destruction wrought by
neo-liberalism, when welfare and cultural deficits, increasing inequality, and
new (and old) forms of status loss continue to proliferate, it is not enough for
political movements and parties to focus on issues like lack of representation
and weakening of the trends of democratization. They must offer solutions that
would converge with the demand for more democracy. Finally, the plurality of
democracies cannot in general rely on charismatic gifts of unitary leaders nor
on the power of mythological narratives. Thus rational programs are needed in
addition to inspiring projects, and these can only come from some of the host
ideologies populism latched on to that pretty well cover the spectrum of pos-
sible alternatives. After all, none of these host ideologies emerged within popu-
list challenges, nor are they logically tied to them. Many of them can and should
be rescued from populist adventurers that in any case, more often than not, came
into conflict with their hosts. But not all hosts used by populism should be uti-
lized, and not all of them together in eclectic mixes so often characteristic of
populist parties. For example extreme neo-liberalism on the one end and xen-
ophobic nationalism coupled with state sovereigntism on the other are both in-
compatible with projects of democratization as we have seen in the last thirty or
so years.
This view still leaves open the number and types of ideological perspectives
that should be brought into our primarily democratic synthesis. Without some of
the more simplistic conceptions of intersectionality that tend to paper over deep
conflicts among constituencies on the grassroots level, the possibility of the easy
unification of all just and justifiable demands cannot be simply assumed. There
are clearly conflicts on the economic level between blue-collar constituencies and
the militants of ecological movements. On the cultural level, several cleavages

open up, e.g., between the beneficiaries of traditional status hierarchies of gender
and race and those harmed by them. While abolishing these may be just, the loss
of some status advantages can imply new harm and suffering. Finally, while there
are very good reasons for forming identities on the universal, regional, and sec-
ular levels, some strong and even attractive identities today, bolstered by shared
histories, are national, local, and religious. Can all of these options be addressed
and accommodated within a unified, rational perspective?
The answer varies depending on the context of party systems and ultimately
electoral settings. In multi-party frameworks, linked to forms of proportional
representation, it may be enough that each of several democratic parties, who
share an interest in addressing deficits of representation by strategies of democ-
ratization, choose and campaign relying on different but thick ideologies that
they each find especially convincing or attractive. If then some of these parties
come to government, most likely in coalitions, the reconciliation of fundamental
differences should take place through negotiation and compromise. The situ-
ation is different in two or two+ party frameworks, usually based on first past
the post or majoritarian systems. Here the “coalition” negotiation must take
place within the party of democracy, whether before, during, or after elections.
Successful reconciliation carries governmental power in the first type of system,
while in the second it also becomes one of the keys to electoral success as we have
just seen in the Biden campaign. It may be more difficult to win an election in the
first case, but governing will be a greater challenge in the second, especially when
burdened by the vetoes of the presidential system of the separation of powers.
Our concern here is not with winning elections or governing successfully, and
we neglect the differences between electoral and governmental. What we wish to
examine is the relationship of the democratic project addressing representation
deficits to host ideologies in the area of the two other deficits: welfare and culture.
One of these will involve a reconstruction of old ideologies like socialism and
social democracy, while others will rely on specific interpretation of new ideo-
logical formulations in ecology as well as struggles for gender and racial equality
and for national, regional and local autonomy.
The Welfare Deficit and the Renewal of Social Democracy
In the period of neo-liberal globalization, beyond weakness of democratic rep-

resentation, two other fundamental social deficits, always present under capi-
talism, are revived and exacerbated: welfare deficits expressed by increasing
inequality, new forms of poverty, and precarious existence; and cultural deficits
linked to loss of status, lack of solidarity, and weakening of social identities. Both
are related but not identical to the democratic deficit, insofar as the economic
and culturally disadvantaged depend on democratic representation and respon-
siveness if they are to hope to increase their welfare and improve their status.
The two forms are also related to each other since loss of economic security and
weakening of social status and solidarity help to exacerbate each other. There
are thus arguments to be made either that economic improvement and equali-
zation automatically increases status or that restoring community and the social
foundations of respect based on solidarity will have beneficial consequences for
collective welfare. Without denying these causal links altogether, but not wishing
to succumb to either Marxist or cultural reductionism, we will treat ways of
addressing the two deficits separately.
With respect to the welfare deficit and inequality, there is no need to rein-
vent the wheel. Socialist and social democratic traditions offer a large variety
of proposals as well as successful and failed experiments from which we can
learn. Populists, and not only the left versions, have been aware of this and have
appealed to some of the same sources. That should not lead us to discredit all
versions of proposals coming from socialism, especially social democracy, which
should not all be simply left to the populists as their host ideologies. Granted, the
uniformly authoritarian history of revolutionary socialism and the technocratic,
and then neo-liberal, outcome of social democracy do lead to greater doubts. So
do the emergence of new, post-industrial problems, like the changing structure
of labor and the ecological crisis, that have been handled poorly by socialism and
even social democracy, ideologies of the industrial age. Nevertheless, in trying
to make the generation of welfare and economic development compatible with
relative equality under modern conditions, there is no richer and more helpful
source than the history of socialism and social democracy. Neo-liberalism, even
in periods of success made possible by the need to dismantle obsolete statist
structures, has been from the beginning coupled with dramatic increase of in-
equality.24 There is something to be learned from the neo-liberals, especially,
as we will see, regarding the importance of property and competition, but the
problem of addressing inequality, poverty, and economic insecurity cannot be
left to them. So we are back with socialism as a possible partner for democratiza-
tion processes.
But which socialism?25 Given the history of revolutionary socialism in power, it
is clearly true that at best some greater economic equality was purchased in these
experiments at the grave cost of dictatorial rule and general loss of welfare. Thus we
should certainly not imitate those populists, mainly in Latin America and a few in
Europe, in trying to revive this tradition with its enormous human costs. Yet from
the early stages of revolutionary socialism one idea can be inherited, the distinction
between minimum or short-term and maximum or long-term projects, the latter

freed from the general linkage to violent revolutionary taking of power. At the
same time and more importantly, from social democracy, that eventually followed
Bernstein in abandoning interest in the long term (“the ultimate goal is nothing,
the movement everything”), we must still learn, consistent with the democratic
frame advocated here, that both incremental reforms (the short term) and struc-
tural, radical reforms (the long term) must be achieved by the means of democratic
communication, participation, election, and coalition formation.
The long term (revolutionary taking of power) should not however be con-
fused with the values of socialism, inherited from the democratic revolutions,
based on the great triad of liberty, equality, solidarity.26 These three values should
also guide projects of short-term, incremental reforms, even as we cannot con-
ceive of a radical, long-term project that would accomplish their definitive and
complete realization. The first value, liberty, linked to civil and political rights, is
fully shared with liberalism, while socialism and social democracy have always
understood the second, equality, in more substantive sense than liberals. Thus
social rights must be added to the list shared with liberalism. Finally, solidarity,
neglected by liberals, implies special concern for the weak and infirm, and those
with previous histories of discrimination, implying collective or communal
forms and institutions to redress these vulnerabilities. Revolutionary socialism
abandoned the first of these values, but social democracy adhered to all of them
at least in principle. Thus to avoid all misunderstandings so common in the
United States, the project advocated here is the renewal of a suitably transformed
and updated social democracy.
With respect to the short-term project of a renewed social democracy, the
task in the abstract remains what it always implicitly was, namely incremental
reforms consistent with the idea of social rights and solidarity with the less priv-
ileged and less powerful. This is not a mere matter of providing benefits. Social
rights must be also the achievement of those who are to be the right holders.
This is why the promotion of the rights of unionization and collective bar-
gaining has been so important for the history of social democrats, and even the
US Democratic party. Today however there has been dramatic decline of union
membership and influence, if to different extents in the various capitalist coun-
tries. Where this happened, the restoration and extension of collective worker
rights should be high on the agenda. But worker self-organization can be only a
part of the struggle for social rights. Fortunately, there are many social and polit-
ical movements relying on pre-existent organizations and networks that can be
relied on in this struggle for equality and empowerment.
Of course, the mix of short-term reforms must be contextual, depending
on country, history, and economic level. Where even a low level institution-
alization of many social rights has not been achieved, as in the case of health
in the United States, this should be and indeed is currently the first concern
of reformers. In countries where this step has been accomplished, attention
and financial input can be shifted elsewhere, for example job retraining for the
losers of economic competition. Obviously, such social supports for those in
precarious jobs and declining industries are also crucial in the United States.
Both levels of reform are required for 21st century social democracy to be vi-
able and attractive. At the very least, in all our societies there remain important
tasks of reform regarding environmental degradation of the human habitat.
Finally, somewhat relativizing the distinction between minimum and max-
imum projects, we cannot exclude the possibility that in some countries with
well-established welfare states that have not been significantly rolled back,
aspects of what will be described as the maximum can be aimed at and realized
in the relatively short or middle term.
The assumption of all incremental reform is that the capitalist economy
largely survives even if in some important areas another logic, one of protection,
has been partially introduced.27 With respect to the main domains of produc-
tion, reformers can and should, however, insist on regulation and taxation. The
first is important because of the powerful side effects of that economy and the
possibility of costly spillovers into the domains we seek to protect. The obvious
example is the negative environmental results of profit oriented production, but
drug prices in the field of medicine can hinder efforts to provide high-level, uni-
versal care. The answer here is regulation that can take the form of prohibitions
as well as incentives rewarding socially responsible research, pricing, and pro-
duction. One obvious area of possible incentives is within systems of taxation.
This brings us to the second area of interference with the capitalist economy.
Social rights are by their nature costly. It is possible to cover the costs in part by
insurance models in which the citizens themselves participate, but not all citi-
zens have the means to do so, and thus another part must be covered by taxation
of profit, high incomes, and wealth.28 Here reformers must face the obvious diffi-
culty within the neo-liberal world economy, namely the tendency of an interna-
tional race to the bottom (“competitive signaling”29) regarding both regulation
and taxation, and also unionization. Logically, this area of reform belongs to the
short term, but politically it presupposes international collective action estab-
lished on the level of trade treaties, cooperation of states in all regions on taxing
transnational corporations, and perhaps the policy of regional and international
organizations beyond these. Thus the task of reformers must be refocused on
these projects we could perhaps call middle term, even if for the moment de-
laying the turn to long-term socialist projects.
Yet we must also concern ourselves in the long term, in structural reforms
guided by the three values. The reason is the immense strength of private ac-
tors in the capitalist economy that have demonstrated, during and after the social
democratic post-war period, their ability to reverse and in part dismantle pre-
vious reforms. It is here that the temptation of state socialist solutions is likely
to be revived, but the temptation should be resisted. Structural reform avoiding
the historical pitfalls will be possible if we learn from them. The main lesson to
be learned is the need to maintain and indeed expand political pluralism and
liberal rights, an insistence that has informed our proposal from beginning to
end. Social democracy must remain liberal, even as it promotes democratic
perspectives in politics and social rights in the economic domain. Additionally,
beyond the diminution of economic liberalism implied by social rights, there are
important lessons to be learned from that tradition too that have been dramati-
cally confirmed and renewed by state socialist experience. Theoretically summed
up under the distinction between hard and soft budgetary constraints,30 these
lessons concretely highlight the importance of markets, competition, and real as
against pseudo property. We need to apply these concepts to the maximum pro-
gram, however much that may shock traditional socialists. But we must do so,
given the very negative experience of revolutionary socialism that everywhere
led to authoritarian states. Therefore, we should generate the content of a long-
term project from the critique not merely of capitalism but of authoritarian state
socialism and capitalism at the same time.
The long-term program of social democratic renewal is guided by our values
and by the need to guard the achievements of incremental reform better than has
been possible in the past. It has two dimensions, and the logic of our argument is
not weakened by the possibility that aspects of each can be and even have been
realized in incremental reform projects. Conceptually, it is also possible that the
two dimensions should be treated as the distinction between middle and long-
range programs. For the moment, we wish only to distinguish between their dif-
ferent logics. The first dimension is the removal of specific domains from the
capitalist market steered by the logic of profit-making for the main actors. Such
domains are health, education, the arts, care of the old, and now especially parts
of the environment: clean air, water, and soil, wilderness areas, and moderate
temperatures. Even the labor market and its sanctions must be in part suspended
not only by the defense, and in some countries the institutionalization, of the
right to organize and to collectively bargain, but also providing for long-term
unemployment insurance and job-training or retraining. Such removals from
the market need not and even should not involve the complete elimination of
competition, which should be nonetheless restricted to promote the efficiency of
nonprofit oriented forms of satisfying social needs as in the already realized case
of healthcare providers in a country such as Germany. The insistence on com-
petition in which public and private providers can both participate is important
even here because of the needs of efficiency and innovation. In all these areas,
what must be guaranteed is the provision of basic services and goods that can be
attained by all citizens on relatively high levels irrespective of market fluctuation

and failure.
Not only incremental reforms, but also the dimension of the removal of
domains from the profit-oriented markets is vulnerable to the dynamism of
the latter. We are now seeing the threats involved in the case of profit-making
higher education in the United States that challenges public and nonprofit pri-
vate universities. Many programs of privatization, whether of prisons, militaries,
hospitals, transportation, or public utilities, have the same logic. This is where
the second dimension of the long-term program becomes important, the re-
construction of the main economic domain of production. Learning from the
experience of state socialism, we must abandon both the fetish of central pla-
nning and “public” ownership. Our reconstruction must not abolish markets or
a variety of real forms of property or autonomous enterprise. As to the former,
it would be easy to claim that imperfect competition has already dramatically
deformed markets and we need only to apply anti-trust and anti-monopoly poli-
cies. Moving in that libertarian direction may be beneficial, but could open up se-
rious problems of macro-coordination among firms that are mutually dependent
yet in competition. It may be that, even as chastened by negative experiences
with state socialist planning, we need to affirm markets but also intervention,
redistribution, and regulation, not only to stop the formation of monopolies
but also to allow the satisfaction of social needs not automatically guaranteed
by markets. The solution of the ecological crisis in particular cannot rely on the
short-term, profit-oriented behavior of competitive units. The category of pla-
nning can, however, be rescued from the ruins of state socialism if we realize that
it was more a system of binding commands and hierarchical bargaining than of
genuine planning, which was only very partially experimented with during the
mixed economy of NEP (the New Economic Policy in the USSR I the 1920s).
Post–World War II attempts to introduce indicative planning using Keynesian
tools were certainly more promising,31 but even such efforts had no solution
to the question “who plans or directs the planners?” in spite of the often used
term “democratic planning.” A radical reform program should therefore adopt
terms like “participatory planning” and “budgeting” and propose the requisite
institutions to accomplish these goals.
Regulation and planning should not be substituted for, nor should it de-
stroy, the possibility of market success, without which rational markets cannot
function at all or produce efficiency and innovation. Yet private success in the
market can be so dramatic that regulation and weak planning mechanisms
become ineffective, or are taken over by those who should be regulated and
steered. Thus private power in the economy must be both somehow pre-
served and yet transformed. There are two general ways of solving this diffi-
cult problem: industrial democracy and the pluralization of property forms.
The first is already part of our proposal for the extension of democracy, but it
presents an especially difficult problem in the sphere of the economy. Here, we
cannot neglect the dynamism of private entrepreneurship and the important
role of expertise. We need solutions combining these desiderata with forms of
self-management and rights in corporate institutions that guarantee voice and
consultation with all key stakeholders including workers. Such solutions would
not necessarily or even likely involve simply industrial democracy in which all
members collectively own firms and decide everything in a single assembly.32
Generally, some version of mixed government or separation of powers would
be more desirable, meaning that within each firm, e.g., there would be levels of
formulating general goals by management, of expert consideration of the best
means to the realize the goals, and the making of binding remuneration and
investment decision.33
Such a mixed system of industrial democracy, however, could still lead to the
accumulation of great power for some firms, or some combination of firms, and
for wealthy individuals. That should be avoided not only for the sake of justice
but also to limit the influence of private power over public authorities. The an-
swer often suggested by contemporary market socialists is the transformation
of the system of property in capitalist systems where, analogously to state so-
cialism, one form of ownership, namely corporate property, dominates. As al-
ready indicated in the case of versions of industrial democracy, a renewed social
democracy should aim at a genuine and stable plurality of forms of property in a
competitive setting. While we find Roemer’s summary of the options especially
helpful,34 we think a future social democracy does not have to make a definitive
choice among them. Ownership by workers, by citizens and governments in the
relevant locality, by mutual and pension funds and banks whose shares could be
distributed to citizens who would be free to exchange them, even private firms
up to certain limits of size, and their various possible combinations can co-exist
in a framework of efficient competition.35
It cannot be our task to recommend a specific version of a new, plural, and
competitive system of property. Even economists can at best propose a variety of
options for political movements, parties, and governmental coalitions to choose
from. Short and long-term success should be allowed to determine the weight
of each form in the mix, in part at least, but legislation and state support will
be required to set up forms like citizen or worker shareholding that would re-
quire time to begin to work in an efficient, competitive, and equitable manner.
Nevertheless, if the goal of a future social democracy is to dramatically reduce
inequality in society, and private power in the state, a major restructuring of ec-
onomic management and property, avoiding the pitfalls of central planning and
state ownership, must be part of any long-term agenda.
The Cultural Gap: Status Deficits and

the Renewal of Social Solidarity
The undeniable success of right-wing populist politics has been everywhere

bound with appeals to the status anxieties of important population segments. The
key to this rhetorical strategy has been the deliberate conflation of two sources of
status loss for groups previously better situated, usually male and ethnic majority
groups: the disorganization and even destruction of valued forms of life by the
forces of neo-liberal globalization and technological change, and the generally
successful struggle of previously lower status groups for recognition, inclusion,
social improvement, and upward mobility. The puzzle facing progressive, polit-
ically liberal, social democratic radical reformers is how to address the very real
status anxieties, honor squeezes, and solidarity deficits experienced by key pop-
ulation sectors without abandoning commitment to universalist principles—
inclusiveness, moral egalitarianism, social justice, equal rights, and solidarity
with all groups including minorities (racial, ethnic, sexual, migrant) and women.
Care must be taken in the rhetorical appropriation of the useful elements from
the ideologies (feminism, antiracism, ecology, cosmopolitanism) so that they can
be framed in ways that a large plurality of groups can accept.
The two standard responses of the left have been in significant part inade-
quate. The first involves a counter-politics of victimhood that mirrors populist
identity politics but mobilizes different groups—historically oppressed “real”
minorities: racial, ethnic, gendered, sexual, migrant. This approach embraces
identity-based status politics but dismisses groups on the other side of the divide
as “deplorables,” often embracing a self-righteous political correctness.36 The ap-
proach is right in seeking to occupy the moral high ground through exhibiting
solidarity with the most or longest oppressed and excluded groups. Where this
version of multi-cultural identity politics goes wrong, along with the political
alliances it envisions, is that it mirrors the friend–enemy populist politics of
resentment without getting past divisive identity politics. The latter reinforces
instead of tempering the extreme segmentation of civil society and affective po-
litical polarization.37
The second approach embraced by some versions of “left populism,” seeks,
with some reason as we will see, to return from the cultural to the material axis of
competition.38 Its advocates attempt to refocus attention on material inequality
and economic redistribution, casting status and identity issues as derivative and
distracting.39 Yet, while aware of the mobilizing power of misrecognition, their
tendency is to misplace the blame for decades of inattention to rising economic
inequality, class issues, and the destructive effects of hyper-globalization and
austerity politics onto those movements and their party political supporters,
who sought to redress discriminatory identity- based status and material
injustices endured by women and minorities. Supposedly, their alleged inatten-

tion to material issues lead them to ally with or be used by neo-liberals (who
manipulate identity politics as a diversionary tactic from class issues). Hence the
term, “progressive neo liberalism,” to characterize (or caricature) the latter and/
or to critique their allegedly contradictory synthesis of liberalism and democ-
racy.40 By implication, class is the only real game in town. While the implicit ar-
gument involves a helpful revalorization of economic reform, the attempt to find
its subject in a class has been implausible for at least a half a century and with the
transformation of labor and the world of occupations, has become even less con-
vincing with the passing of time.41
Although we do not endorse politically correct identity politics, neither do
we think that status deficits can simply be sidelined or rectified by a materialist
reductionist politics of redistribution. Instead, we argue that what is required
is an inclusive politics of social solidarity—one that addresses status issues head
on by offering counter-frames and narratives to undercut the populist resent-
ment politics fomenting affective political polarization. Obviously, it is not pos-
sible to revive the status of groups whose occupations and ways of life have been
undermined by long-term technological, social, structural and related cultural
change. Nor is desirable to try to restore status hierarchies and privilege based
on flawed normative orders involving racial, ethnic, and gender hierarchies. But
it is also unnecessary to fan the flames of resentment by articulating cultural
change in a dogmatic one-sided normative formula that denigrates, cancels, and
excludes traditional ways of life.
The task before us is to disaggregate what only appear to be seamless political
identities on the right (and on the left) by offering alternatives that draw on co-
gent explanations of structural shifts and make use of shared cultural values and
universalistic principles on the narrative/symbolic level, and take both material
and status concerns seriously. There are tensions and rifts in every populist party
and among its aggregate groups of supporters that can be exploited by an intelli-
gent democratic politics of social solidarity.42 The way to counter populist resent-
ment politics is to offer alternative “chains of equivalence” articulating demands,
grievances, and social identities in ways that focus on commonalities and foster
cross-cutting pluralism and broad progressive alliances. By offering constructive
and inclusive social policies framed in terms of shared cultural commitments to
equality, justice, and plurality of forms of life, giving voice to all those who feel
ignored or unrepresented, a politics of solidarity across status hierarchies could
de-dramatize differences and defuse antagonisms. The point isn’t to appease but
to deconstruct the stacked identities in populist chains of equivalence that divide
society into two hostile camps and to offer convincing narratives, voice, and real
opportunities to groups and regions suffering from the lack of them and fearing
status loss.43
While it is not our goal in this book to provide specific policy proposals re-
garding status deficits it is important to indicate that status concerns can be
reframed and addressed, in terms of universalistic principles and general values
that are shared across the social spectrum, in ways that can defuse the politics
of resentment. We must, in short, confront head on the new hidden injuries of
class and provide explanations for welfare, democracy, and status deficits that are
cogent, while devising normative frames and projects that can rectify some of
these deficits, and counter the scapegoating and affective polarization fueled by
authoritarian populists.
Above all, we must break the illusory but rhetorically powerful links populists
insist on between status loss caused by global economic trends and status gain
due to struggles for recognition. The structural economic trends in question
cannot be reversed and the status gains for the previously excluded and discrim-
inated certainly should be supported and defended. But compensations should
and can be found for the losers, hopefully in morally justifiable forms. We already
indicated with respect to the welfare gap that a renewed and this time really uni-
versalistic, solidaristic, and inclusive social democratic politics should involve
programmatic commitments based on fairness to all around comprehensive
healthcare, provision for voice of workers on the job, and infrastructure develop-
ment involving the newest technologies in rural as well as urban areas. It should
also stress visible programs that address job loss and community disintegration
when industries or corporations leave an area, coupled with labor market strat-
egies that foster new local industries and invest in skill formation, retraining,
and mobility allowances. Such attention to class issues by progressive democratic
parties would go a long way toward defusing the politics of resentment and status
anxieties by providing new bases of social honor and identity.
So would a counter-framing of the other elements of the culture wars tied
up with status anxieties involving gender, race, religion, and nationalism, often
framed as hostility to liberalism. The idea is to take seriously the concerns about
family, community, and, as we will see, patriotism articulated by those who fear
status losses not only individually but also for their group and to frame them
in ways that converge instead of clash with liberal principles of individual au-
tonomy, plurality, inclusiveness, equality, justice, and fairness. A progressive
alternative to divisive polarization and to populist resentment politics could in-
voke the values of belonging, moral integrity, family, and patriotism in ways that
do not entail hierarchical conceptions of community, patriarchal conceptions of
the family, religious monopolies on morality, or sovereigntist racialized ethno-
nationalism. Commitment to individual rights, equality, and freedom are as
basic to our cultural commitments as are community and solidarity. The burden
on progressive democrats is to link these cultural commitments to normative or-
ders and projects framed so that they could resonate with most, if not all, groups.
For example, as everyone knows, families are diverse today—many are blended
and untraditional—but most people can support pro-family public policy if
framed in generalizable egalitarian ways. Everyone was once a child, everyone
needs schooling, and everyone will need care as an adult at some point in their
lives. Pro-family policies like paid leave for parents, adequate payment or aid
for caregivers of the elderly, sick, and young, universal preschool and daycare,
etc., are certainly feminist priorities but can be framed using general, univer-
salistic principles. With respect to gender equality, most women and many men
whatever their class, race, or religion, oppose violence against and sexual ha-
rassment of women. Universalistic principles of fairness can also be relied on
for securing gender equality in a variety of non-family arenas, as Ruth Bader
Ginsburg showed us. Most people support the principle of equal pay for equal
work whoever performs the jobs and real equality of opportunity regardless of
gender or race—two universalistic principles. Professionalism on the job (doing
a job well) is an important source of social honor for people, whatever that job
is, as is the gratifying sense that one is doing needed work or improving society
through one’s work. More subtle strategies could revalue the comparable worth
of low-paid jobs in the service industry long coded female—teaching, health-
care (not only nursing), hospitality, cleaning, working in the food and restaurant
business, etc.—by increasing their compensation and recoding them as socially
crucial and important (essential?) work that both men and women do. Adequate
education for young people and throughout the lives of adults to equip them
with the skills needed to adapt to change can be framed as a public commitment
to investing in social capital that benefits everyone. This could address the status
anxieties of men who enter these expanding sectors and of anyone needing to
learn new skills.
The same holds true regarding antiracism. It certainly need not be the case
that ending the discriminatory, racist, bases of some groups’ low social status
must entail the relative decline of others. The politics of resentment and white
supremacy is only one possible response to the efforts to upend the discrimina-
tory and racist grounds of the low social status ascribed to some racial and ethnic
groups. If the bases of social respect are expanded for all groups, then a politics of
social solidarity could go a long way toward diffusing the racial antagonisms and
the scapegoating fomented by today’s populists, which divert us from the real
problems and from problem solving. Thus, democrats must confront status and
identity issues not only indirectly through economic reform but also directly by
devising inclusive alternatives that can re-channel disagreement into construc-
tive interaction and comprise.
Finally, we must do our best to avert one of the greatest dangers to democracy
in a society: the loss of shared cultural commitments leading to friend–enemy
politics and affective political polarization over competing status hierarchies and
normative ordering. But this will be possible only if a common cultural ground
is re-established. This means taking back from right-wing populists and suitably
transforming their most important host ideology, namely nationalism, based on
the celebration of the imagined community of the nation.44 The national com-
munity of the populists is not only imagined but, as the adjectives “ethnic” or
“white” and even “religious” modifying their nationalism reveal, it is also exclu-
sionary and illusory. Similarly with sovereignty: the idea of state sovereignty is
appealing insofar as it entails autonomy from domination by external powers
(empire or imperialism), supremacy (but not exclusivity) of domestic law, and
the ability of governments to show solidarity with their citizenry. But the popu-
list gambit of “restoring” sovereignty (making the nation state great again) is ei-
ther illusionary (if it means autarkic control for small states) or dangerous (if it is
just a stand in for empire or imperialism by powerful large states). The task of the
political response is to promote and defend genuine, inclusive communities and
sovereign equality also within larger federations whose law penetrates domestic
polities, based on solidarity and mutuality.45 This means a plurality of commu-
nities from the small scale to national and, from there, to the regional and imag-
inably even cosmopolitan. Local community is potentially the strongest source
of solidarity and identity formation but can be promoted only if given a pur-
pose: political and economic. Thus democratic local government and sufficient
economic opportunity autonomy are essential. For local communities to avoid
isolation along with an exclusionary logic, however, they and their participants
who are neighbors must be also members of larger communities of citizens. Thus,
instead of devaluing national identity in favor of either localism or cosmopoli-
tanism, we must revalorize its inclusive civic version and foster patriotism (love
of country) in the place of racialized exclusionary conceptions of citizenship and
national belonging. The political form corresponding to the double stress on the
local and the national is federalism, and indeed it can (and in large countries
must) include the in-between level of self-governing provinces. And federation,
as Europeans now know, neither need nor should stop at the boundaries of his-
torical territorial states. This means that solidarity must be promoted and institu-
tionalized from the bottom up, conceivably all the way to the global level.
Federalism as an answer to nationalism is an old dream, more often than not
defeated by its adversary.46 To counter that trend we must take existing iden-
tities and solidarities seriously. We cannot thus neglect the historical power of
the nation, of national identity. Yet instead of seeing collective identity in the
singular, we must recognize the already strong trend toward the possibility of
multiple, non-competing but mutually supportive identities.47 Today a person
can be a local patriot, a national citizen, a citizen of a region like Europe or Latin
America, and even a person with a cosmopolitan sensibility.
Undoubtedly, allegiance to multiple identities and the practice of solidarity

among them has institutional preconditions. The populists promote zero-sum
relations between the nation and its competitors and, within the nation, the
supposedly genuine members and the others. But instead of seeing a zero-sum
relation between the levels, it is possible to see each link to a different identity
as strengthening the others. Strong local communities can be an important
source for the strength for the nation. But so can trans-national forms of inte-
gration, as the advocates of Brexit and MAGA will probably find out. It is not
hyper but smart globalization that “lifts all boats.” But the latter is only possible
if institutions are established or transformed to avoid destructive competitive
races to the bottom and develop coordinated policies. It is not impossible to im-
agine arrangements that would make different levels of federalism possible, even
if the political projects to accomplish these are today partial at best. But to make
progress, the challenge of new forms of authoritarianism must be met, which can
be done only if we begin to successfully deal with the causes that have made the
21st century, so far, the epoch of populism. That takes us back from speculation
to politics.
Civil Society and a Dualistic Strategy
In our 1992 book, Civil Society and Political Theory, we argued for a dualistic po-
litical strategy. This would involve combining the struggle for influence by associ-
ations, movements, and initiatives in civil society and the civil public sphere with
the exercise of power by parties in political society, publics, and government.
The civil society argument has had a distinguished career since then. Yet it was
always contested by both advocates of normal politics as well as supposed revo-
lutionaries. Recently, Colin Crouch too has strongly criticized a monistic, exclu-
sively civil society focused version of the argument, taken from authors such as
Robert Putnam and John Keane, implying its elective affinity with neo-liberal
anti-politics and charging it with neglect of the important domain of political
parties.48 Our version of the theory was however not vulnerable to such a cri-
tique, and we note that Crouch himself has come to advocate a dualistic strategy
relying on a combination of movements and renewed parties in a version we can
still support.49
Here too, in fighting populism we might ourselves be accused of populism,
thanks to the wide range of understandings and misunderstandings of the con-
cept. It is moreover true that there are populist movements and populist parties
that in some settings interact and mutually support one another. Nevertheless,
our conception of both sides of the movement-party dualism is radically different
than in populist versions. First, on the definitional level we argue that democratic
movements and parties should not and generally do not understand themselves
as parts that incorporate the whole of the popular sovereign, should not and gen-
erally do not see their opponents as enemies to be destroyed, and should and
generally do understand both civil society and party system as two pluralities
in principle, rather than seeking to unify them. Neither democratic movements
nor parties should have, and generally do not have, leaders who claim to em-
body the mobilized parts, asserting their infallibility and immunity to criticism.
Second, and more important here, the relation between movement and party is
different for democratic politics than populism. While populism can operate
on both levels, given self-understandings as the embodiment of popular sover-
eignty, populist movements by their logic at least must seek to become political
parties wielding power even if they maintain an anti-party rhetoric. Accepting
reliance on mere influence can be at best a reluctant necessity. On the other hand
populist parties, whether originating from movements or from older parties or
“outsider” political entrepreneurs, have documentable difficulties in tolerating
independent movements. When outside governmental power, movements will
be tolerated by such parties mainly to support electoral efforts. But when exer-
cising governmental power, independent movements will be often demobilized,
transformed, or incorporated in the party apparatus. A dualistic strategy and ap-
parent forms of self-limitation may be relied on by populists, but only for instru-
mental reasons that resemble their related attitude to constitutionalism.
On the contrary, the dualistic politics of democracy, as we understand it,
affirms pluralism and self-limitation on both the level of movements and parties
and for principled reasons. Yes, democratic movements like the Greens do some-
times form political parties, but this always strongly contested decision50 is cou-
pled with the affirmation of independent movements and initiatives outside the
new party. Such a decision can be justified when a set of vitally important issues
is excluded by the phenomena of cartelization among the existing parties. But
such a shift can justify neither the abrogation of dualism of the two levels nor of
pluralism within each. Even after party formation of a democratic movement,
or its entry into an existing party system, these features of “dualism” and “plu-
ralism” remain important for several theoretical reasons.
The first is based on our response to the four deficits of democracy, welfare,
status, and identity with four narratives: the plurality of democracy and de-
mocratization, the renewal of social democracy, the redeeming of status loss by
solidarity, and the pluralization of identity. Some of these narratives have plu-
ralistic components even internally, as indicated by the presence of economic
interests and ecology in any viable renewal of social democracy, of gender and
race in the struggle for status and solidarity, and of local, national, regional, and
global orientations within struggles to restore identity. Even a grand movement
for democratization will have militants aiming at the transformation of different
levels: local and national, industrial and political. It is not to be excluded on the
level of movements that one such great mobilization could be strongly motivated
regarding all these issues. Nevertheless, as the concept of “single issue” move-
ment indicates, the likelihood of continued radical pluralization is much greater
than the likelihood of unification, which is necessarily temporary and always
conflictual. Given this state of affairs, when one movement becomes a party, it
is at best a segment of the pluralistic field of mobilization that will be lifted into
potential or actual political power. A democratic society should continue to pro-
vide opportunities for the influential voice of all opinion and interest capable of
speaking in the public sphere, whether by political mobilization or cultural com-
munication. Thus even when a movement becomes a party, the movement form
remains important for representation in the most general sense of giving voice to
other civil and potentially political constituencies.
Second, when a movement becomes a party in a democratic setting, its
interests shift from a combination of concerns that includes long-term projects
of structural reform, to primarily the short term, with a focus on incremental
change. Whether because of electoral needs requiring an appeal to much wider
constituencies than the mobilized, or the needs of operating in parliamentary
coalitions or under separation of power systems, the democratic party in power
must turn pragmatic and seek the achievable “good” rather than the remote “per-
fect.” All parties that come to power are bound by this logic, as the history of so-
cial democratic reformism, and also of the US Democratic Party, has repeatedly
demonstrated. Even revolutionary parties, as Lenin’s during NEP, are forced to
shift from maximal to minimum programs. We should not lament this fact, espe-
cially if we value short-term reforms, as indeed we should. But we should not, as
already argued, accept the formula that “the goal is nothing.” This means that the
long-term project, even within a single narrative like democratization or the re-
newal of social democracy, can be elaborated, defended, and fought for primarily
on the level of civil society and civil publics by combinations of movements, ed-
ucational institutions, media outlets, and critical intellectuals. All of these actors
should take seriously the role of parties in power and try to influence them, at the
very least to adhere to their short-term programs and promises. But maintaining
the tension between values and policies, in the long and short term, is a civil so-
ciety based task.
Third, there are forms of redress of cultural deficits in particular that cannot
be effectively addressed on the level of legislation or governmental policy. While
aspects of the loss of status can be dealt with on the level of the system of edu-
cation, the role of societal discourse, cultural discourse whether formal or in-
formal, in the press or in voluntary associations may be more important with
more lasting results. The generation and thematization of new needs, values,
and possible institutional solutions, too, is first and foremost the role of cultural
discourse in civil and educational publics. We cannot expect parties in the po-
litical system to play an originally creative role in this area, only at best one of
transmission and help in eventual institutionalization. We agree, and always
have agreed, with the notion that movements are “the seedbeds of future dem-
ocratic vitality.”51
Fourth and finally, parties are themselves relatively weak with respect to some
dimensions of the political system, dimensions of expert state administration,
and the officials (judges and prosecutors) of the legal order all the way up to con-
stitutional court judges. The same is even more true with respect to private eco-
nomic powers that, within short-term reform programs at least, are only weakly
responsive to regulation and incentives. While ways can be found to check abuse
of power on the levels of the state and the legal system (legal procedures for the
state, political mechanisms for the judges), in general their independence from
party politics is a virtue not a vice. As we have just seen in the United States, it was
the resistance of officials and judges, among other factors, that has brought an ef-
fort at political usurpation by a populist leader, supported by his own party, to a
grinding halt. Nevertheless, the adherence of state and judicial actors to societal
norms, and not only to the law, is very important. Both interrelated domains are
constantly evolving, and judges and officials must be brought to awareness con-
cerning changes. As interpreters, from the popular constitutionalists to Rawls
and Habermas have stressed, on the bases of both empirical evidence and nor-
mative considerations, democratic opinion formation not only leads to changes
of cultural assumptions but can strongly influence interpretations of non-
political functionaries. This means that mobilization on behalf of rights, whether
of population segments exposed to discrimination, or the victims (actual or po-
tential) of environmental degradation, remains especially important in domains
insulated from the inputs of direct political power. The same is true for holders
of private economic power, whose relative independence from political decision
makers can be a source of efficiency and innovation. Nevertheless, under capi-
talism these actors obtain and retain much influence over formal political deci-
sion making, gaining too much power in spite of some regulation and taxation
where these exist. These same actors however can be surprisingly vulnerable to
the monitoring and critical activities of “counter-democracy” in civil society and
the public sphere. Indirectly, these latter forms of influence make it more likely
for political parties in government, often limited by state, judicial, and corporate
actors, to be able to embark on paths of greater regulation of self-regulation and
of incremental and even structural reforms.
The dualistic strategy we support is a double answer to populism. It is so for two
reasons. Action on the levels of both civil and political society is the condition of
possibility of short-term reforms providing alternatives to populist promises and
also of longer term changes whose aim is to remove the justifications for populist
critique and challenge: political oligarchy, social economic precarity and ine-
quality, and cultural alienation. Equally important however is the provision for a
significant channel of mobilization on the grassroots level. Mobilization can be
promoted of course for its instrumental aims, but it can be valued in and of it-
self as a fundamental democratic form. Whatever the political system in modern
societies, the business of rule has become an elite affair. Accountability, descrip-
tive representation, federalism, and the plurality of representative organs can di-
minish elitism, but cannot eliminate it. Reviving “the party on the ground” by
recruiting members and activists to work locally to educate people about the
party’s program, to listen to their concerns, and to mobilize them to vote and
participate is an important alternative to the populist movement party form and
its plebiscitary politics, as Stacy Abrams showed in Georgia. But it is illusory
to try to revive the old mass membership party form in the epoch of catch-all
parties. The majority cannot participate in the activities of politics on a full time
basis. It is true that even in moments of high mobilization it is ultimately only
large minorities of the grassroots that become active, and their number always
declines after the predictable peaks of the process. The movement form, along
with the informal voluntary associations and the formal institutions of civil so-
ciety, plays the role of organizing many of the unorganized and providing public
venues where they can more regularly articulate their opinions and needs, and
learn from those of others. Equally important, movements can play a decisive
role in re-mobilization on the mass scale when the defense of what has been al-
ready acquired is needed or the claim of new rights becomes possible. The cycle
of mobilization allows new members and constituencies to become parts of ac-
tive, participatory minorities.
While populism does not always, or even generally, arise from below, its polit-
ical success depends on the movement form. Of course, authentic mobilization
may be channeled by populist parties and replaced by populist governments with
top-down pseudo-movements. Nevertheless for many, populist movements and
even movement parties not only channel their resentments but provide venues
for participation with the supposed aim of achieving collective control of our
and their lives. The point of the dualist strategy is not only to eliminate or reduce
the grievances that give rise to resentment, and the imagery of enemies in so-
ciety, but also to satisfy the legitimate need for participation in collective action.
Indeed this need should be and can be more authentically satisfied by pluralistic
movements in civil society than by populist leaders and parties. Even beyond re-
form, incremental and structural, the plurality of democracies with its stress on
process and participation is the genuine alternative to populism.
Providing an alternative to populism is a relevant, normatively important task
even where there is no currently significant populist challenge, an increasingly
rare state of affairs. Once there is such a challenge, the task is not only theoretical
but also political and strategic. This dimension of political response is deeply re-
lated to the form populism takes: movement, party, in government, the govern-
ment, or hybrid regime. As long as populism is only a movement or a movement
party, the only legitimate and effective response is self-organization, whether of
democratic movements or new parties or the democratization and revitalization
of existing forms of organization. Mere suppression cannot be justified under a
constitutional democracy. Since however populists must contest elections, elec-
toral activity remains the ultimate instrument at this stage. But elections and
party competition also remain important when populists occupy one branch of
power. That they can be defeated is shown by the example of the United States in
2020 and 2021. The task becomes much more difficult when populists occupy
the whole of government or become “the” government as currently in places
like Hungary and Turkey. Not only electoral activity as such but the struggle to
make elections free and fair again now becomes the key stake. Here the role of
grassroots movements, alternative media outlets, and international instances
becomes more important than that of political parties. The latter must also par-
ticipate in civil society level activities before they can again fully compete for
governmental power.
The problem of defeating a populist project is self-evidently the most diffi-
cult on the regime level. We do not have to address the possibility, nowhere yet
realized, that a populist government may be able to establish and institutionalize
a purely authoritarian form. The politics of defeating such a project can only
take the form of revolutions, whether radical or self-limiting. Unfortunately au-
thoritarian coups, too, will remain possible under such an authoritarian regime,
in formation or already in place. The problem of replacement is paradoxically
more complicated when the new populist regime is a hybrid—the form currently
aimed at (and even accomplished) by many populist projects. Under a hybrid
populist regime, there will be still elections as in every empirical case today. But
they will not free and fair, and, as we have seen in Venezuela, their results can be
disregarded. Yet, revolutionary mobilization, e.g., a “color revolution,” would be
depicted by regime defenders as itself authoritarian and undemocratic, as is rou-
tinely done in Russia today. In such a setting moreover the oppositions can only
lose elections, and yet if they respond by boycotts, they only increase the legiti-
macy of populist regimes.
It is not easy to suggest a strategy for democracy in such a new and complex
political setting. As a preliminary answer, though, we raise the possibility that
it may be still possible to learn from the long-range strategies that have brought
down several authoritarian forms in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s, from Spain
to South Africa. Such projects, too, occurred in hybrid settings, though mostly
different from our current populist regimes.52 In general they have had spaces
for potential civil society organization that could be expanded. They were not
entirely closed to open public information and communication, whether through

underground literature or international contacts. Governmental forces in each of
these settings included a reformist element, whose role became more important
with economic crises and disruptions. Many were in geopolitical neighborhoods
that included some political democracies. So, yes, the strategy under populist
regimes should still be dualistic, aiming at the exploitation of whatever electoral
possibilities remain by parties or similar organization. But the short-term em-
phasis should be on the rebuilding of civil society—its associations, publics, and
movements. That strategy succeeded in many countries once. It should be able to
succeed again against regimes that may be ultimately weaker and more vulner-
able than the authoritarian forms that were defeated a few decades ago.
Of course it is easier to stop the populist challenge at its earlier stages. But
authoritarian and especially hybrid regimes remain vulnerable, especially since
the promises they relied on in coming to power are usually not kept, and per-
haps cannot be kept. Rather than dreaming of a restoration of earlier states of
affairs, which enabled the rise of populism in the first place, the best weapon for
those who oppose this old/new authoritarian project is to provide convincing
and better democratic alternatives.

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Populism and Civil

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Preface and Acknowledgments  vii

4. Populism and Constitutionalism  153

Why publish another book on contemporary populism in an already increas-

What Is Populism? How to Define the Phenomenon

Almost everyone acknowledges that populism is a contested and often polemical

In previous writings, we have relied on two methodologies to help define

What Is Populism: Immanent Critique

1. An appeal to popular sovereignty as the fundamental norm violated by ex-

embodiment in a leader is needed (element 4), a single one if disunity is not to

the examined phase of populism is that of a movement, government, or regime.

What Is Populism: Construction of the Ideal Type

Undoubtedly, the insistence of contemporary populisms on competitive

rejection of extreme violence as complementary to the affirmation of elections,

Marine le Pen) indicates. Populism has no developed normative theory, no phi-

1. Populism is a strategy of political mobilization for attaining or retaining,

Different Populisms: Mobilization,

resembling movement forms can be created by an already existing party, as with

The Plan of the Book

We have addressed the difficulties surrounding the contested concept of pop-

As indicated in c­ hapter 1, a key element in populist success at coming to power is

mobilization within civil society (typically managed from above) to main-

Social Movements: Their Logic and Limits

social movements.6 Interest groups seek influence, lobbying, and bargaining

identity-​oriented dimensions of social movements seeking recognition, au-

louder.20 Accordingly, their relation to political parties and opponents is unlike

generating forms of influence on parties (Cohen, Cohen and Arato), creating

Political Parties and Their Transformation

E. E. Schattschneider famously wrote, “political parties created democracy and

Populist Logic: Implications for Populist Parties and

Party competition and party government in a functioning democracy entail ac-

provisos. First, majoritarianism is not unmitigated: it is typically constrained in

By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a ma-

The Friend–​Enemy Political Logic and Affective Polarization

The friend–​enemy conception of politics inherent in populism connects with its

The Anti-​Establishment Stance and the Permanent

A similar dynamic follows from the anti-​establishment stance of populist parties.

democracy would tame movement parties, leading them to differentiate their

movement forms of activism, while also participating as parties in the electoral

In the next chapter we discuss the authoritarian tendencies in contemporary

committees, organize legislative procedures, and facilitate everyday agreements

populist movement parties to become responsible parties once in power, but we

There is nothing new about challenges to “liberal constitutional democracy”

democratic ideal (prescription) from descriptive analysis of really existing dem-

an ensemble of patterns that determines the methods of access to the principal

the government’s elected officials: it includes bureaucratic institutions and actors

dissolution of the markers of certainty inaugurating a history in which people

requires the election of political representatives who in fact make collectively

political alienation, provided that avenues of influence and responsiveness on

mobilize counter-​democracy to undermine the democratic, republican, and lib-

controlled by the executive.78 Thus they deem institutions of horizontal account-

Here the most important instrument relied on is discriminatory legalism. The

them to gerrymandering and manipulation of the electoral rules. Many have

legalism against independent opposition groups and whistle blowers in civil

Populist Government I: Qualified Authoritarianism?

Populists “in” government and populism as “the” government share a common

freedoms into post–​Cold War authoritarian contexts as “hybridization.” By this

Competitive authoritarian regimes are civilian regimes in which formal demo-

Preface and Acknowledgments vii

4. Populism and Constitutionalism 153

As indicated in c hapter 1, a key element in populist success at coming to power is

identity-oriented dimensions of social movements seeking recognition, au-

The Friend–Enemy Political Logic and Affective Polarization

The friend–enemy conception of politics inherent in populism connects with its

The Anti-Establishment Stance and the Permanent

A similar dynamic follows from the anti-establishment stance of populist parties.

mobilize counter-democracy to undermine the democratic, republican, and lib-

freedoms into post–Cold War authoritarian contexts as “hybridization.” By this

privatism, and from ideology to mentality. Thus a full authoritarian, populist-

mythical people. As some cases of what one of us called post-sovereign consti-

In the period of neo-liberal globalization, beyond weakness of democratic rep-

between minimum or short-term and maximum or long-term projects, the latter

The undeniable success of right-wing populist politics has been everywhere