Authoritarian Politics: On the Relationship between Democracy and Populism

• In Event: Democratic State Power, Blind-spots, and Resistance

Abstract

When, how and why is populism a threat to democracy? When, how and why is populism conducive to democracy? The relationship between populism and democracy is a matter of dispute. This dispute is complicated by the fact that there is controversy with regard to the proper meaning and nature of populism and of democracy. Certain understandings of populism constitute a threat to particular understandings of democracy. Furthermore, different theories of democracy (republican, liberal, agonistic) construe what counts as populism, and what does not, in different ways. Despite these differences, there appears to be a consensus that we are currently witnessing new forms of populism. Assuming commitment to a democratic project (broadly construed), a theoretical response to the question of the relationship between populism and democracy is a pressing matter. For, the more confusion there is with regard to that relationship, the less we are capable of figuring out how to adequately and rightly respond to a wide array of (disturbing) social and political events and developments. Political theory has an indispensable role to play in the task of dispelling such confusion.

There are various ways in which political theory might address the controversies pertaining to the relationship between populism and democracy. One response might be to defend a particular definition of populism and then reflect on the respective positions adopted to that definition by different democratic theories. Alternatively, one might start by defending a particular conception of democracy and then proceed to determine what is populism, and when and how it is conducive or a threat to democracy. In this paper, I start neither by defending a certain definition of populism, nor by defending a particular conception of democracy. Instead, I start with some features that populism could exhibit, and argue that when these features are exhibited, then the populist politics under consideration instantiates authoritarian politics. Drawing and building on Maeve Cooke’s notion of authoritarian modes of reasoning, I introduce the category of authoritarian politics and show how it contains a family of ways of doing politics that exhibit epistemological or ethical authoritarianism, or both. I then argue that not only populist politics may be authoritarian, but so also democratic politics. Central to my argument here is the distinction between the jurisdiction or scope for the application of legitimate political authority, on the one hand, and the way in which that authority gets applied or exercised, on the other hand. In other words, authoritarian politics is determined neither by what makes political authority legitimate nor by where political authority is exercised, but by how it is exercised. I conclude by arguing that unless democratic theorizing takes seriously the various ways in which authority and authoritarianism can converge or diverge from one another, it will fail to adequately explain and respond to populism, and to authoritarian politics more generally and more importantly.

Author

• Karim Sadek, Univesity College Dublin