Apr 21, 2021 @1:30pm | Popular Sovereignty, Institutionality, and the Dilemmas of Democratizing Democracy

In this workshop, Dr. Tony Spanakos scrutinizes the notion of populism, presenting a heuristic approach to understanding the concept from a social science perspective. According to him, populism assumes that there is a misalignment of kratos (structure of governance) and demos (the legitimate decision-making body) in terms of justice. This is deliberate, systematic, and resolvable, at least partially, through electoral politics. As such, populism offers a mental map to understand the world and is an ideology. Hence, as an ideology, populism gives parameters to the vision of its followers, but it does not determine policies in advance. It is populist politics, rather than populism, which is of greater interest to most social scientists, and this takes various forms, all of which are rhetorically anti-status quo and contest the institutional order when the populist actor or movement is not in order. As a consequence, he argues, with their goals and actions populist actors demonstrate a range of positions vis-a-vis institutionality. While they often appear to be anti-status quo, they have different intentions for the present and future institutional order. Last, he posits that the question of ‘dismantling of democracy’ is often understood in terms of the current institutional order of democracy. Yet the challenges populist actors offer to that order are distinct based on their vision of institutionality and their ability to follow through on their goals. Similarly, populism as ‘restoring’ or ‘making good’ the promise of democracy may be similarly evaluated.