European Populist Theory: Does it Carry Across Continents?

• In Event: Populist Exceptionalism in a Populist Political Culture? The Case of New Zealand

Abstract

Recent literature on populism has been dominated by Mudde’s (2013, 2014) definition of populism as a ‘thin ideology’, with the substantive content of that ideology largely grounded in features found in contemporary European cases of populist politics, including authoritarianism, anti-establishment politics and nativism. But how does this understanding of populism travel across geographical and national contexts? This paper examines the portability of current concepts and theories of populism to the context of New Zealand, where scholars of populism have typically identified New Zealand First as the local exemplar of a populist party or as part of a broader ‘Antipodean’ type of populism (Moffitt 2018). The paper identifies elements of New Zealand’s political context that complicate attempts to apply the prevalent ideologically-grounded definition of populism or to explain its drivers. The bicultural societal context shaped by indigeneity and the high share of enfranchised non-citizens, for instance, both complicate usual populist understandings of who constitute insider and outsider groups. Further, drawing on examples from New Zealand politics from Richard Seddon’s late 19th Century Liberals, through to authoritarian populism under Robert Muldoon in the 1970s and contemporary political leaders, the paper discusses how certain aspects of populist politics, such as discourses of anti-elitism and popular sovereignty, have characterized mainstream New Zealand politics both over time and across the ideological spectrum. This raises the question of whether alternative interpretations of populism, such as those defining populism as a discursive frame (Aslanidis 2016) or emphasizing popular sovereignty and majoritarianism are more powerful for understanding the New Zealand case.

Author

• Fiona C. Barker, Victoria University of Wellington