After the Second World War, countries across occupied Europe were faced with the challenge of restoring political stability at home and peace abroad. Although extremist sentiment had not disappeared, moderate elites resolved to choke it off at the source by building robust bureaucratic parties that could incorporate the masses. Christian democratic parties on the right and moderate social democratic parties on the left took power all across the continent, ushering in an unprecedent period of stability. Yet with the economic stagnation of the 1970s, this consensus began to unravel, giving rise to the emergence of populist alternatives. This chapter departs from existing explanations for this turnaround. It shows that the populist strategy was always most effective in the patronage-based party systems of southern Europe. In northwest Europe, in contrast, bureaucratic parties have adapted, substituting professionalized service provision for mass membership and participation.

Mass democracy went into abeyance with the demise of the Roman Republic. With the revolutions in America and France in the late eighteenth century, the masses asserted their political presence with a vengeance. Although both revolutions began moderately enough, they quickly diverged. In America, patronage became the predominant means of winning and keeping power. In France, in contrast, politics was soon dominated by a series of demagogues, from Danton to Robespierre. Rather than looking to ideology, this chapter proposes that the difference was due to the lower cost of patronage as a means of political incorporation in America compared to France. American elites had more than a century of working in the limited franchise democracy of British America prior to its "democratization." In France, in contrast, French elites had no such legacy on which to build. French institutions instead precluded the building of political parties, rendering direct appeals to the masses, especially those in the capital, cost-effective. The recurrent cycle of populism in France was interrupted only with Napoleon’s combination of popular appeal with the reimposition of centralized, executive power: a popular dictatorship.

The Introduction presents the main idea of the book, namely that populism should be understood and assessed in terms of the kind of recognition for the people that it demands. The debate over the meaning and value of populism is fundamentally a debate over how democracy should recognize the people. Many people in contemporary societies feel disrespected and populism provides the recognition that they feel they have lost or never attained. The populist politics of resentment should not be understood as blindly emotional but as a struggle for recognition based on moral experiences that can be explained by people’s beliefs and principles. However, not all struggles for recognition contribute to the deepening of democracy, and we must distinguish between different kinds of recognition in order to understand why populism is often a threat to democratic principles and practices. The Introduction explains that the book is a study of the reasons people may have for supporting populism rather than the causes of populism. As a corollary of studying reasons rather than causes, populism is defined as a set of claims that can be assessed for their validity. The last part of the Introduction provides an overview of the book.

One motivation for this volume is to question the way that academic models of the political process depict preference aggregation and public policy formation. More significantly, this analysis has implications for democratic political institutions. There is an illusion, promoted by the political elite, that democratic oversight of government can control its power and direct it toward the public interest, but the powerless cannot control the powerful, even if the powerless far outnumber the powerful. The ability of constitutional constraints to limit government power and direct it toward the interests of the masses is also questionable, because those constraints must be enforced. If public policy is designed and implemented by the political elite, ultimately the power of government can be controlled only by a system of checks and balances that enables some of the elite to control the power of others. Democratic institutions can play a role in determining who holds political power, and constitutional constraints can play a role if there are institutional mechanisms to enforce them, but without a system of checks and balances that enables some elites to control the power of others, democracy and constitutional constraints are ineffective.

This chapter distinguishes between and discusses the validity of different kinds of demand for recognition, which are often conflated in the literature on populism. While “equal respect” is central to democracy, not all demands for recognition are demands for equal respect. In particular, the type of respect that citizens and government must display should not be confused with esteem for people’s merits, identity, or way of life, but must consist in respect for citizen status. Demanding and granting esteem for particular traits or ways of life, as populists do, is incompatible with a pluralistic society. Further, demands for respect among populists tend to be bound up with a hierarchical idea of honor, which should be confronted with the democratic idea of respect for dignity. Although democracy is a society of equality of respect and cannot supply equal esteem for everyone, inequality of esteem can still pose a moral and democratic problem. This is because inequality of esteem under some conditions can convert into inequality of respect. Therefore, the second part of the chapter argues that democratic respect depends on a form of solidarity that counteracts the ever-present danger of inequality of esteem turning into inequality of respect.

This chapter considers the possibility that even if populism is in tension with our best conceptions of democracy and respect, it could nevertheless correct the deficiencies of actually existing democracy. It asks whether it is permissible to promote populism, if this can correct some of the flaws that contemporary democracies truly have. Thus, the posed question is not whether populist parties can correct democracy, as this question might be understood by an external observer. Instead, the analysis proceeds from the participant attitude and asks whether we, or anyone, as fellow participants in democracy can endorse and promote populism because it has positive effects on a non-populist understanding of democracy. Applying the publicity condition first suggested by Kant and later expounded by Rawls, the contention is that we cannot. We cannot publicly both endorse populism and say we do so because it improves democracy understood in non-populist terms. The publicity condition rules out the possibility of promoting one set of ideas (populism) for the sake of another set of ideas (non-populist democracy). The argument for promoting populism for the sake of non-populist ends cannot be publicly communicated without frustrating those very ends.

This chapter synthesizes the similarities and differences among three Islamist parties – the AKP, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Ennahda – in power and shows how internal dynamics matter more in charting their democratic commitments than do external forces. The chapter then assesses how far this theory travels to other cases of Islamist parties and regimes like Iran and discusses the implications of these findings for the relationship among Islam, Islamism, and democracy. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the rise of right-wing populism elsewhere in the world and the role of party capture in fueling such authoritarian trends.

Three Islamist parties (AKP, Muslim Brotherhood, and Ennahda) won elections and came to power in three predominantly Muslim countries – Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia – in recent decades. After coming to power, these parties followed different trajectories. Ennahda in Tunisia adhered to democratic principles, while the AKP and the Muslim Brotherhood did not. Why? Is Islamism (and Islam) at odds with democracy as skeptics claim? This chapter introduces the central questions of the book and three parties that comprise its subject. It shows that Islamist parties are not monoliths and are comprised of groups with different understandings of democracy. The chapter argues that Islamists often agree on the centrality of elections for ideological and strategic reasons, although they disagree on the norms underpinning electoral politics and what democracy means. It then identifies two main wings within mainstream Islamist parties: electoral Islamists, who carry majoritarian and exclusionary tendencies, and liberal Islamists, who commit to pluralist and inclusionary politics. The chapter concludes with a discussion on data and methods used in the study.

The supply chain model has become the dominant mode of production in the globalised economy. While much attention has been placed on the downwards economic pressures of the model, little attention has been placed on the consequences for democratic participation. This chapter casts light on this area by examining how the supply chain model undermines democracy at work. It also raises the fundamental question of whether and how existing governance structures can be democratised, or whether and how new democratic institutions can be created that extend democratic underpinnings to globally expanding supply chains? Drawing on this we highlight that two distinct approaches to supply chain labour governance have emerged: one based on focussing on production relations and collective bargaining, and the other based on consumption relations and a CSR approach by brands. These approaches raise important questions that are central themes of the book such as what is the relationship between the representation of worker interests and consumer interests; who has the “right” to raise concerns about labour conditions in global supply chains; and can these contrasting approaches prove complementary?

This conclusion draws together the central themes of the book, laying out how George and the Irish Land War helped to further drive liberals, conservatives, and socialists towards an organicist utilitarian politics. It also offers a brief summary of the subsequent trajectory of the land question and some of its orientating politics in Ireland, Britain, and the Unitec States. The conclusion discusses why the late nineteenth century remains such a critical moment for contemporary discussion of liberalism and democracy.

This chapter explores Thucydides’ depiction of leadership in the Greek city states. For Thucydides, the association between leader and led is an essential determinant of the direction taken by a state; his text often explores the ways in which the thought and rhetoric of an individual are converted into the actions of a citizen group. Thucydides’ portrait of Pericles’ leadership is central to this question; the characteristics and behaviours that he embodies are replicated, with variations, in other political leaders who appear in the work. After analysing Thucydides’ representation of Pericles, therefore, this chapter goes on to discuss how other leaders in the work – Hermocrates, Archidamus and Brasidas – relate to this Periclean template.

This chapter argues that Thucydides’ History provides for its readers an opportunity to assess the limits and opportunities of diverse political regimes, particularly democracy, oligarchy and monarchy. In doing so, he offers insights not only into the specific characteristics of the cities that employ those regimes (Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes), but also into what is distinctive about those regime types, understood in categorical terms. The chapter focuses on Thucydides’ presentation of democracy in Athens and in Syracuse, arguing that Thucydides, although alert to the weaknesses of democracy, was also an admirer of the attainments and ambitions of this form of governance.

Utilizing historical case studies from Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iraq, Chapter 4 delves into the question of how, why, and when the Islamic supremacy clause entered constitution making in the Muslim world and how it affected the incorporation of human rights in the constitutions of Muslim-majority states. It illustrates that both human rights and Islam are often democratically and popularly demanded by majorities in some Muslim countries; therefore, both represent popular aspirations rather than theocratic imposition. That is, they are often carefully bargained and compromised provisions in constitutions.

The anti-colonial struggle staged in Zimbabwe against repressive British colonial rule depicted a liberation for equality, freedom and democracy. If Zimbabwe regularly held elections to choose alternative leaders from different political parties in different elections, allowing winners of a free and fair election to assume office; and in turn the winners of one election did not prevent the same competitive uncertainty from prevailing in the next election, the country would be democratic. However, there is no equivalence between elections and democracy. The minimalist conception of democracy is the indispensable institutional characteristic of electoral competition and its uncertainty. The maximalist notion requires extra-electoral imperatives for democracy to fully flourish, incorporating a wide range of types of institutions, processes and conditions to be present for a nation to be called a full democracy. Widespread election violence in 1980 dented Zimbabwe’s opportunity to develop ideal democratic cultures that embrace electoral democracy, government accountability and the rule of law. Post-war political, dissident and election violence proved to be Zimbabwe’s greatest political problem early on. Election and political violence, mhirizhonga or udlakela, largely amongst the Ndebele and Shona was a major concern characterised by intimidation, harassment, vandalism and murders.

This chapter does not provide an argument for or against the legitimacy of investment arbitration, but analyzes the discourse on legitimacy from a conceptual standpoint. Rather than offering an abstract analysis of different theoretical conceptions or concepts of legitimacy, it focuses on the concrete aspects addressed by different participants in the debate under the heading of legitimacy and the differences in underlying assumptions. It explains that because of similarities between investment arbitration and mechanisms of public law and governance, the legitimacy critique of investment arbitration in essence results from the observation of a mismatch between the private-law-inspired rationale of investment arbitration and the demands of principles of constitutional law that are generally used to assess the legitimacy of governance mechanisms. The chapter then turns to how states and policy-makers, arbitral tribunals, and scholarship can and in parts do react to the legitimacy critique of investment arbitration and how they aim at reestablishing legitimacy.

In response to the radicalization of the late 1960s, many governments turned to repression. With so many of their comrades behind bars, radicals in the North Atlantic decided to pay closer attention to prisoners, promote civil rights, build alliances with progressives, rebrand themselves as defenders of liberty. At the same time that activists were reconsidering their revolutionary priorities, the United States reoriented its war in Vietnam by using the issue of the POWs to reframe American intervention as a fight for humanitarian principles. Antiwar radicals in the United States and France responded by focusing on political dissidents in South Vietnam. Drawing on their experiences with prison organizing, they connected their newfound concern with civil liberties to antiwar activism, calling for the liberation of political prisoners in South Vietnam. Despite their new focus on rights, anti-imperialist radicals still thought in Leninist terms, framing their internationalism around the problematic of the right of nations to self-determination. Yet in arguing that South Vietnam violated civil rights, anti-imperialist solidarity increasingly took the form of criticizing the internal affairs of a sovereign state, which brought radicals close to competing visions of internationalism like human rights. While most radicals never agreed on a single radical rights discourse, and did not convert to human rights in the early 1970s, their new collective attention to rights, along with alliances with groups such as Amnesty International, shifted the political terrain in a way allowed a rival approach to global change to attract new audiences. In so doing, anti-imperialists lent legitimacy to a competing form of internationalism that shared the progressive aspirations of anti-imperialism but rejected nationalism in favor of human rights.