POPULISM AND MYTHOLOGY

How can we explain the rise in the magnitude of support for populism, especially right-wing populism today? Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin propose four explanatory factors for the emergence of a demand for populism in a society: Distrust, Destruction, Deprivation, and Dealignment. In speaking of societies today, they point out a rising distrust alongside the alienation of the elites and the linkages between these two phenomena. When it comes to culture, the problem can be called destruction—a sense of an increasing threat to one's own culture associated with a painfully sentient loss of respect or status of which many a scholar has written. Deprivation is the consequence of an absence of economic security. This pertains to insufficient monetary means for living, disruptions on the labor market, and other negatively experienced economic phenomena. Finally, there is talk of a dealignment between political systems and social needs. Political scientists often write about the vast, recent changes in party systems (particularly in Europe), but also about the ineptitude of governments. Among other aspects, a subject of analysis is corruption which is a key reason for the explosion of populisms in South America.

Right-wing populism has already made an appearance on the political stage in several countries in the past, but its latest wave (which appears to still be picking up steam) is unprecedented. Never before have right-wing populists and their parties or movements enjoyed so many successes, forming governments in such different countries as India, Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, and Poland.

There are already a few useful definitions of populism, though the majority of scholars accepts some version of the definition proposed by Cas Mudde who views populism as a unique ideology. In my works, that definition has served as a foundation on which I have built somewhat higher. My own definition is best presented in two steps, the first of which involves an assumption that thin populism exists. In order to ascertain its existence, four conditions must be met; all four are individually necessary and jointly sufficient, in my view. This means that if only one of them is discovered in a narrative, then we are not yet dealing with the phenomenon of populist ideology. The first condition is vertical polarization: ordinary people and the elites are seen as separate, mutually exclusive collectivities. The second condition is these two groups remain in permanent antagonism.