The Spread of Populism in de-politicized contemporary Democracies: Origins, Features, Responses

Contemporary political systems are affected by the increasing spread of populist movements, which are taking advantage of the crisis of democracy, although they use to present themselves as an efficient remedy to the crisis itself (Ionescu, Gellner 1969, Taggart 2000, Mény and Surel 2000, Taguieff 2006, Laclau 2008). Most of them are characterized by features such as: a strong simplification of political speech – based on Manichaeism, “us versus them” rethoric, radical speeches focusing on “emotional” rather than factual truths (Arendt 1971), conspiracy logic –; the praise of “the new”, of the “common man” (with a related discontent for political expertise and intermediation) and the substitution of ideology with biographical post-ideological exempla (successful life stories of people who have nothing to do with politics and are supposed to do better than professional politicians); the emotional construction of a feeling of membership by an immediated relationship between charismatic leader and voters. Populism seems to be closely connected with the crisis of the representative democracy born in the 20th century. One of the contradictions which are greatly facilitating its spread may be identified in the fact that, far from talking of a generical “crisis” of political parties, we should better distinguish between a decreasing presence of parties within society – with regard to memberships, identifications, electoral volatility, decline of social functions typical of mass parties such as political socialisation and social integration – and, on the other side, an increasing presence of parties within institutions, regarding functions such as selecting political personnel and defining the contents and agenda of public policies (Massari 2004). Moreover, the current spread of populist movements is highly fostered by the widespread unease caused by corruption, largely affecting Western political elites, and policies carried out by international organizations, which are questioning the sovereignty of States in managing new global phenomena. This contribution aims to highlight origins and features of the wide spread of populism in contemporary democracies, by underlining the deep relationship between this phenomenon and democracy itself and trying to indicate some possibile responses to populist rethoric, such as developing policies able to reduce increasing social (and digital) inequalities, revaluating representative democracy focusing on fundamental instances such as expertise and intermediation and constantly monitoring the pluralistic dimension of contemporary political systems, which is essential to trasform formal and “electoral” democracies in substantive and liberal ones (Dahl 1971, Rokkan 1970, Diamond 1999).