Good essay by Ankersmit. I agree with him that populism is not 1930s-style fascism; in contrast to the latter, European populism continues to advocate democracy - actually they demand a return to democracy. We may debate about what democracy exactly emans - and what they mean by democracy -, but the principle is undisputed. Where I disagree with Ankersmit is that ideology is dead. I understand he means what this that establishment political parties have effectively abandoned their traditional ideologies (liberalism, democratic socialism, conservativism) in favour of a pragmatic, middle-of-the-road TINA where essentially all buy into. But "woke-ism" and (Trumpian) populism are clearly ideologies, as are any sort of radical nationalism. Of those we have no lack. Rather, it is a power struggle between the establishment who wants to keep the populists out who represent new forces, and each side claims to represent common sense, decency and other moral authorities while the other does not. That's pretty ideological as well.
I also share your point concerning the "death of ideology" argument. People who argue that politics is really about expertise rather than competing interpretation of reality are making an ideological point. So populists respond not to the "death of ideology", but rather to the (ideological) argument that there is one right (rational) answer to every problem. Which I think is what Anywheres liberals, starting with Blair and New Labour, have been arguing since the late 1990s.
Hi Rolf. Thank you for your excellent comment. I pretty much agree with you. I think the important point Ankersmit makes, conceptually speaking, is to insist that representative democracy is really not democracy but represenative government, which is what John Stuart Mill and Francois Guizot called it in the 19th century. Ankersmit comes from the European context, where the term used tends to be "representative democracy", so he reacted against that. I think one could say that populism is a response to the shortcomings of representative government, to the fact that it does not really do justice to the idea that the demos should be represented. My favouite theorist of democracy -- and he is actually a clever political historian -- is the Frenchman Pierre Rosanvallon. His book is called, "Counter-Democracy: Politics in the Age of Distrust". The English translation appeared in 2008, but it pretty much anticipated what we are seeing now.
Did you see my Substack piece on "Can populism grow up?". The only country I know where the democratic populism has become a productive (because institutionally guaranteed) part of democratic politics is Switzerland. https://oliverzimmer.substack.com/p/can-populism-grow-up
Anyway, we need more Ankersmits and Rosanvallons. I'm working on something similar, a book called "Rule of the Wise: The Strange and Costly Survival of an Ideology".
I read Pierre Rosanvallon’s «Le siècle du populisme », published in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. I remember having been quite fond of it, but I could not recall in detail today the main theses of the book. I read so much during the pandemic, and the human brain (and age…) sorts out mercilessly what does not stick or resonate loudly. As for representative democracy, or elective aristocracy, as Ankersmit puts it… I think one major problem we have today in public discourse is the fact that we project too much into the term of democracy, overload it with expectations and anticipations and premises which eventually put the bar so high that we invariably can only be disappointed and frustrated. To me, the question is more about legitimacy than democracy per se, though you may argue that this logic is circular. But democracy, at its core, is first and foremost a way to determine where a majority of people stands on a matter, with everyone’s vote counting for equal. That such votes are count equally is an outcome of philosophy and that lies outside democracy. What else we project into democracy today – social inclusion of all sorts, the obligation to make us happy etc. etc. – is ancillary to it. I find the differentiation between “Demokratie” and “Rechtsstaat” as it is made in German, a sensible and helpful one. The two terms are often, admittedly, used as synonyms, and they do overlap, but not entirely. And there is some tension and contradiction between the two. Democracy as an “electoral process only” may produce outcomes that are un- or even anti-democratic. Though it is historically not accurate, the classical case here is Hitler being elected into office, but let’s leave it with the mythology for the sake of the argument. The barrier against such ana nti-democratic outcome is the Rechtsstaat, in the sense of the Gesetzesstaat with its immutable and inviolable catalogue of human and civil rights and other rights. The Rechtsstaat is the best protection for minorities who can never win in a democracy because they are a minority. But the Rechtsstaat may not necessarily be constructed as a democratic state in the beginning, being democratic in the sense of reflecting the majority of people. That’s the reason why Hannah Arendt – Jewish, woman, chain smoker, truly intersectional in this respect - was always an advocate of the Rechtsstaat, but sceptical of democracy. I see a growing clash today between Demokratie und Rechtsstaat, with the latter ever expanding, suffocating Demokratie under an ever more stringent set of “don’ts” and “can’t say anymores”. Under the premise of defending democracy, democracy becomes ever more exclusionary, with the votes of those holding views that are no longer compatible with the Rechtsstaat-behemoth counting less and less – or so it would appear at least. I think those mainly responsible for this development are on the left which are appropriating the term of democracy in the best Gramscian manner (I am not say this is happening intentionally and is a vast left-wing conspiracy, to paraphrase Hillary Clinton). But this leads to a situation where you can be only a democrat if you subscribe to the left/woke/whatever agenda. Much of today’s populism (not all of it, I don’t oversee the economic/social mobility angles of the phenomenon) can be explained as a backlash against this tendency, as Eva Illouz so eloquently highlighted last Thursday at the University of Zurich. Now, explanation does not mean acceptance. I think populism, and particularly its Trumpian variety, is by and large an aberration and distraction. Foam before your mouth, foul language and condoning mob violence, be it against legislators or refugees, is not a political programme addressing the pressing problems of our days: demography, the growth (global South) and preservation (global North) of wealth and welfare in the face of climate change and eco-destruction, the future of the “conditio humana” in an age of digitization and artificial intelligence, including the ever relevant challenges of human liberty and individual self-determination. But populism can only be successful fought and overwhelmed at the ballot box (democracy) and not be bans and the like (Rechtsstaat). One does that by offering better solutions and by implementing them successfully. But I think you would agree with me on that. Might even be the “grown up populism” you mentioned in the title of your essay I haven’t read yet.
Good essay by Ankersmit. I agree with him that populism is not 1930s-style fascism; in contrast to the latter, European populism continues to advocate democracy - actually they demand a return to democracy. We may debate about what democracy exactly emans - and what they mean by democracy -, but the principle is undisputed. Where I disagree with Ankersmit is that ideology is dead. I understand he means what this that establishment political parties have effectively abandoned their traditional ideologies (liberalism, democratic socialism, conservativism) in favour of a pragmatic, middle-of-the-road TINA where essentially all buy into. But "woke-ism" and (Trumpian) populism are clearly ideologies, as are any sort of radical nationalism. Of those we have no lack. Rather, it is a power struggle between the establishment who wants to keep the populists out who represent new forces, and each side claims to represent common sense, decency and other moral authorities while the other does not. That's pretty ideological as well.
I also share your point concerning the "death of ideology" argument. People who argue that politics is really about expertise rather than competing interpretation of reality are making an ideological point. So populists respond not to the "death of ideology", but rather to the (ideological) argument that there is one right (rational) answer to every problem. Which I think is what Anywheres liberals, starting with Blair and New Labour, have been arguing since the late 1990s.
Hi Rolf. Thank you for your excellent comment. I pretty much agree with you. I think the important point Ankersmit makes, conceptually speaking, is to insist that representative democracy is really not democracy but represenative government, which is what John Stuart Mill and Francois Guizot called it in the 19th century. Ankersmit comes from the European context, where the term used tends to be "representative democracy", so he reacted against that. I think one could say that populism is a response to the shortcomings of representative government, to the fact that it does not really do justice to the idea that the demos should be represented. My favouite theorist of democracy -- and he is actually a clever political historian -- is the Frenchman Pierre Rosanvallon. His book is called, "Counter-Democracy: Politics in the Age of Distrust". The English translation appeared in 2008, but it pretty much anticipated what we are seeing now.
Did you see my Substack piece on "Can populism grow up?". The only country I know where the democratic populism has become a productive (because institutionally guaranteed) part of democratic politics is Switzerland. https://oliverzimmer.substack.com/p/can-populism-grow-up
Anyway, we need more Ankersmits and Rosanvallons. I'm working on something similar, a book called "Rule of the Wise: The Strange and Costly Survival of an Ideology".
I read Pierre Rosanvallon’s «Le siècle du populisme », published in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. I remember having been quite fond of it, but I could not recall in detail today the main theses of the book. I read so much during the pandemic, and the human brain (and age…) sorts out mercilessly what does not stick or resonate loudly. As for representative democracy, or elective aristocracy, as Ankersmit puts it… I think one major problem we have today in public discourse is the fact that we project too much into the term of democracy, overload it with expectations and anticipations and premises which eventually put the bar so high that we invariably can only be disappointed and frustrated. To me, the question is more about legitimacy than democracy per se, though you may argue that this logic is circular. But democracy, at its core, is first and foremost a way to determine where a majority of people stands on a matter, with everyone’s vote counting for equal. That such votes are count equally is an outcome of philosophy and that lies outside democracy. What else we project into democracy today – social inclusion of all sorts, the obligation to make us happy etc. etc. – is ancillary to it. I find the differentiation between “Demokratie” and “Rechtsstaat” as it is made in German, a sensible and helpful one. The two terms are often, admittedly, used as synonyms, and they do overlap, but not entirely. And there is some tension and contradiction between the two. Democracy as an “electoral process only” may produce outcomes that are un- or even anti-democratic. Though it is historically not accurate, the classical case here is Hitler being elected into office, but let’s leave it with the mythology for the sake of the argument. The barrier against such ana nti-democratic outcome is the Rechtsstaat, in the sense of the Gesetzesstaat with its immutable and inviolable catalogue of human and civil rights and other rights. The Rechtsstaat is the best protection for minorities who can never win in a democracy because they are a minority. But the Rechtsstaat may not necessarily be constructed as a democratic state in the beginning, being democratic in the sense of reflecting the majority of people. That’s the reason why Hannah Arendt – Jewish, woman, chain smoker, truly intersectional in this respect - was always an advocate of the Rechtsstaat, but sceptical of democracy. I see a growing clash today between Demokratie und Rechtsstaat, with the latter ever expanding, suffocating Demokratie under an ever more stringent set of “don’ts” and “can’t say anymores”. Under the premise of defending democracy, democracy becomes ever more exclusionary, with the votes of those holding views that are no longer compatible with the Rechtsstaat-behemoth counting less and less – or so it would appear at least. I think those mainly responsible for this development are on the left which are appropriating the term of democracy in the best Gramscian manner (I am not say this is happening intentionally and is a vast left-wing conspiracy, to paraphrase Hillary Clinton). But this leads to a situation where you can be only a democrat if you subscribe to the left/woke/whatever agenda. Much of today’s populism (not all of it, I don’t oversee the economic/social mobility angles of the phenomenon) can be explained as a backlash against this tendency, as Eva Illouz so eloquently highlighted last Thursday at the University of Zurich. Now, explanation does not mean acceptance. I think populism, and particularly its Trumpian variety, is by and large an aberration and distraction. Foam before your mouth, foul language and condoning mob violence, be it against legislators or refugees, is not a political programme addressing the pressing problems of our days: demography, the growth (global South) and preservation (global North) of wealth and welfare in the face of climate change and eco-destruction, the future of the “conditio humana” in an age of digitization and artificial intelligence, including the ever relevant challenges of human liberty and individual self-determination. But populism can only be successful fought and overwhelmed at the ballot box (democracy) and not be bans and the like (Rechtsstaat). One does that by offering better solutions and by implementing them successfully. But I think you would agree with me on that. Might even be the “grown up populism” you mentioned in the title of your essay I haven’t read yet.