Populism and the Decline of Party Democracy

• In Event: Dispersed Representation and its Discontents

Abstract

Understanding the transformations facing representative democratic societies is a demanding task. These transformations, whose multiple causes are socio-economic nor merely political, are reflected on the one hand in the decline of the party form of organization and on the other in the success of populism both as a movement of contestation and as a governing force. In this article I will suggest the existence of a connection of the success of populism with the decline of organized parties, the pillar of constitutional democracy as it emerged after 1945. Even if it is impossible to predict whether populism will realize a new form of democracy, it is certain that contemporary representative governments are facing astonishing mutations, of which the decline of the party form of citizens’ participation and the representative unification of claims and ideas is a fundamental one. My argument relies upon a phenomenology of populism as a “movement” that is not only strong compared to the weakness of “organized” parties, but that actually capitalizes on a revolt against intermediary bodies such as organized parties.

Author

• Nadia Urbinati, Columbia University