Populism, anti-populism and minorities: Governmental discourses on the Romani people in Greece (2015-2022)

Abstract

The beginning of the 21st century is characterized by the rise of extremism nationalism, racism and xenophobia that deeply affect minority rights, such as the Roma that face diachronically blatant discrimination and racism. Due to the fact that many of the political leaders who underestimate the rights of minorities express often a populist discourse, a debate has opened up about the relationship between populism and minorities. There are many scholars who believe that populism tends to undermine liberal features like minority protections. But is populism necessarily an anti-pluralist and anti-minority phenomenon? What about the case of left-wing populism? Why do we avoid focusing on the relationship between anti-populism and minorities? In this article, we examine the relationship between populism, anti-populism and minorities through the case of two different governmental discourses in crisis-ridden Greece. Specifically, we focus on the governmental political discourse and policies of the populist SYRIZA (2015-2019) and anti-populist ND (2019-2022) on Roma, with the aim of showing that populism is not necessarily anti-pluralist, while anti-populism is not always pluralist, as both phenomena can follow inclusionary or exclusionary logics.