포퓰리즘, 자본주의, 그리고 민주주의: 과거와 현재

Abstract

This study is to suggest defining the concept of populism as a political project that is deeply connected with the problem of the relationship between two modern projects, capitalism and democracy. This study examines how tensions and conflicts between capitalism and democracy, economy and politics, and market and the state, inherent in capitalist civilization, are related to the rise of populism in different European countries. The purpose of this study is to interpret the political and social meanings of populism through understanding the context of the rise of populism in a particular period. First, this study provides a discussion on the context of populism, reconstructing Polanyi’s discussion of the four institutional pillars of capitalist civilization in the 19th century to propose an analytical framework on the international political and economic origins of populism, and applying that analytical framework to European capitalist societies in the 19th century and the present period. This study will compare the catastrophic situation in Europe in the 1930s caused by the collapse of the gold standard that supported the capitalist civilization and the present context characterized by the spread of populism caused by the collapse of the Bretton Woods system since the 1970s. Secondly, this study discusses the type of populism, proposing three types of populism, reformative, reactionary, and authoritarian populism and briefly discussing the characteristics of each type, and then historical examples of the three types of populism that emerged in the context of the 1930s and the present context since 1970s. As such, this study will analyze the reformative populism of the New Deal, the reactionary populism of Hitler, and the authoritarian populism of Stalin. In addition, this study provides a discussion on the prototype of the current European populism emerged in the context of the European democratic capitalist crisis after the 1970s: Thatcherism as an example of authoritarian populism, Le Pen’s National Front in France as an example of reactionary populism, and the reformative populism of Podemos in Spain will be discussed as the modern examples of populism. The conclusion will briefly summarize the above discussion and emphasize the importance of understanding the relationship between austerity as an economic phenomenon that occurs when the coexistence of capitalism and democracy is disrupted and populism as a political response to it. (Chosun University / polsmk@chosun.ac.kr)