The Populist Zeitgeist

CLAIM CONNECTIONS / 6

Where this source is used

• Researchers disagree whether populism is best treated as an ideology, discourse, political style, or strategy; these are rival analytical definitions rather than interchangeable names.

  • context · pp. 543–544, Defining the Undefinable

• Electoral popularity or a mass following does not by itself establish any researched definition of populism.

  • supports · pp. 542–544

• A redistributive policy does not by itself establish populism because similar policies can be justified and administered without a people-versus-elite claim.

  • supports · pp. 542–544, demagogy and opportunism boundary

• Under thin-ideology and discourse approaches, populist claims may join nationalism, socialism, conservatism, or other projects without inheriting their institutions or aims.

  • supports · pp. 544–546

• Across several influential definitions, populist politics constructs a morally charged opposition between 'the people' and an 'elite,' although the content of both groups varies.

  • supports · pp. 543–544

• Mudde defines populism as a thin-centered ideology that opposes a pure people to a corrupt elite and claims politics should express the people's general will.

  • supports · pp. 543–544, definition and thin-centered qualification