Populism as Composite Ideology

Why is populist ideology so popular? We address this question through some observations about the recent rise of populism in the West, Europe and Italy. We find that populism does not genuinely rest on a clear-cut, original ideology, but on some borrowed prescriptive “regularities.” This renders populist ideology akin to a bouillabaisse – a soup composed of myopic normative ingredients conveniently derived from pre-existing interventionist ideologies. The reason for populism's innate popularity is then the demagogical spice of political expediency tied to maximizing short-term support, irrespective of intergenerational costs for society. At the same time, we hint that the inability of traditional parties to re-invent themselves in light of rapidly changing times helps the popularity of populism from outside its ideology.