Populism’s Damage to Democracy: How Serious?

• In Event: Latin American Populism in between Democracy and Authoritarianism

Abstract

Since the “Brexit” referendum and President Trump’s election in 2016, there has been an upsurge of concern about the damage that populism does to liberal democracy. Yet whereas studies of “How Democracies Die” (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018) examine only experiences in which populism has indeed undermined democracy, a broader analysis of a comprehensive set of European and Latin American cases of leftwing and rightwing populism suggests several important findings: A number of populist leaders have not managed to control the government for long; others have not gravely damaged democracy while in government; and in yet other cases, democracy has recovered quickly after populist leaders lost control of government. Thus, cases like Venezuela’s Chávez, who did grave, lasting damage to democracy, are uncommon.

To explain populists’ frequent incapacity to concentrate power, strangle democracy, and establish authoritarian rule, this paper starts from the political-strategic definition of populism via personalistic leadership sustained through quasi-direct, unmediated linkages to a largely unorganized mass of followers. Its lack of organization and institutionalization makes populist leadership by nature precarious and vulnerable to internal divisions, the erosion of popular support, elite challenges, and renewed crises; even success can backfire by resolving the urgent problems with which populist leaders justify their power concentration. The political-strategic approach thus paints a more differentiated picture of the damage that populism does to democracy – sometimes severe, but often less serious or more temporary. In this way, the paper helps ease the intense concerns about the future of democracy prompted by the recent upsurge of populism.

Author

• Kurt Weyland, University of Texas, Austin