Populisms: Inherently Illiberal or Plausibly Democratic?

Abstract

The central question of this paper is whether a constructive relationship between populism and democratisation may exist, or whether all types of populism inevitably lead to illiberal regimes. Anglo-Saxon and Eurocentric traditions tend to identify populism with fascism, as in the case of authoritarian right-wing regimes, or with left-wing politics as in the case of socialist or communist systems that produce totalitarian regimes. Critical theorists consider populism to be a reaction to a perceived gap separating democratic institutions from the popular sovereignty from which political regimes derive their legitimacy. This paper examines populisms from three main perspectives: (1) negative views of populism from a liberal democracy perspective; (2) positive views from theorists who see populism as a legitimate expression of popular sovereignty; and (3) some ways in which populism may be viewed based on Leonardo Morlino’s definition of a hybrid regime and the experiences of several Latin American countries.