Democracy 101 - What is Populism? with Steph Coulter

Resource type: Podcast

Democracy 101 is the monthly podcast series from Cumberland Lodge, giving a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of democracy. In this episode, we ask what is populism and how can we identify it? To help us answer these questions, we speak to Steph Coulter from the Bennett Institute of Public Policy. Steph’s research centres on the rise of radical right populism and the shifting dynamics of social class in contemporary Britain.

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Cumberland Lodge · Democracy 101 – What is Populism? with Steph Coulter

Episode transcript

00:04 – 00:35

Munny Purba (MP)

Welcome to Democracy 101, the monthly podcast series from Cumberland Lodge that provides a comprehensive introduction to key concepts in democracy. In this episode, we’re focusing on populism, a topic that has sparked widespread debate in recent years. Joining us is Steph Coulter, research assistant at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. Steph’s research centres on the rise of radical right populism and the shifting dynamics of social class in contemporary Britain.

00:35 – 01:06

Together, we’ll delve into what populism truly means, how it has gained traction in the political landscape, and the impact it has on democratic systems. We’ll also examine the potential risks and rewards of populist movements and what they could mean for the future of democracy.

Thank you so much for joining us for the podcast today. I think we’ve got a really interesting topic to discuss, something that is really relevant and talked about a lot in the news, which is why it’s really essential that we deep dive into it and have a better understanding of what it is.

01:06 – 01:07

Steph Coulter (SC)

Thanks for having me.

01:07 – 01:17

So I thought that we would just kick off and ask kind of the question around, what is populism? Are we able to define it? What does it really mean?

01:17 – 01:43

It’s a very good question, and it’s one that there’s been so much angst built on over decades. But especially in the past 10 or 15 years, there’s been kind of vociferous debates amongst academics. And broadly speaking, there’s two ways that academics define. The first is as an ideology, and the second is as a strategy or style. And it’s important to outline that very few people see populism just like boom ideology.

01:43 – 02:11

Most scholars acknowledge that it doesn’t provide really coherent normative vision in the same way as the other big -isms, so socialism, conservatism, liberalism, do. And the easiest way I like to think about this is in terms of manifestos. I’m sure we could all picture what a liberal manifesto might look like, or a conservative manifesto, or a socialist manifesto, but it’s quite hard to put a finger on what a populist manifesto would look like, which is why scholars don’t say it’s a full ideology.

02:11 – 02:37

This is kind of a thin ideology that attaches itself to other ideologies, and this is the kind of dominant approach in the literature. But more recently, scholars have begun to push back against that for various methodological and theoretical reasons. And the main alternative is to consider populism as a political strategy or a political style. So the best way to think about that is can’t find populism in looking in manifestos.

02:37 – 02:58

And we can’t find populism in looking in policy documents. It’s almost empty of content. It’s a stylistic way of doing politics. So therefore we would look to find populism in the way politicians speak and the way they behave, the way they perform, the way they act. And there’s a very, very good Australian scholar called Benjamin Moffitt who highlights the three key elements of the populist style.

02:58 – 03:12

And those are bad manners, the construction of crisis, and the people versus the elites. So if we consider populism a style, that’s what we would look for. And that’s the way I tend to think about populism.

03:12 – 03:35

That’s really great. I think those three kind of points that you mentioned, they really sum it up quite well. So you can’t really take it as a full ideology in itself. It kind of attaches itself to other sort of ideologies and then stylistically is created around that. So that’s really interesting. I think we often hear this term in the news and it seems sometimes quite extreme or we don’t understand it that well.

03:35 – 03:50

And I think ultimately when I hear about it in the news, it’s talked about as maybe like a left and right idea. And I don’t know, what do you think about that? Is that inherently what it is, or is that just kind of how it’s portrayed at the moment?

03:50 – 04:15

For various reasons, we often see populism associated with right wing political parties. I think if we considered populism as empty of ideological content, then it can be both left and right wing, and it’s less spoken about, but can also be kind of can see examples in different places of centrist populism. It’s a lot rarer to see. But some people said that Macron, when he first came on the scene, had kind of populist elements to what he was doing.

04:15 – 04:41

And I think the best we think about both the left and right populism is to think about recent political leaders who’ve been called populist by UK media and academics and think about what makes them similar. And so two would be Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn. But there’s not a lot of policy overlap there. But I think that we can see those three characteristics that I outlined quite clearly.

04:41 – 05:03

So the first being that both seek to kind of constructive a crisis, for Corbyn it’s an economic crisis of distribution, whereas for Farage it’s often a cultural crisis centred around woke elites. So he too talks about elites whereas Corbyn would talk about an economic elite, businesses, banks and stuff. But they both talk about the people versus the elite in quite a populist manner.

05:03 – 05:24

And both the bad manners thing is interesting because Moffitt calls it bad manners, but then it can just be we can think about it more widely as acting out with political norms. So think Farage being in the pub drinking beer showing what a geezer he is, or Jeremy Corbyn at Glastonbury. These are kind of unusual things for politicians to do, but it shows that they’re not part of the elite.

05:24 – 05:33

They’re kind of at one with the people. So I think that that’s quite a good tool for to think about how both these actors could be populist whilst not sharing the same political ideology.

05:34 – 06:02

I think you’re right in saying that you do kind of see these characters out and about and really interacting with, you know, the general public. And in that way it’s kind of you’re talking there about the elites versus the common people. So we see that there’s really good examples of that. I think also it’s interesting to think about where the kind of rise of these populist groups have sort of come from, or is it actually the case that they’ve always been there, but now they’re just being talked about a bit more?

06:02 – 06:30

Yeah. Well, populism has been a political term for quite a while, dating back to the 19th century. And the political science literature that kind of emerged in the kind of the 1960s and 70s on this. But I think you’re correct in pointing out that we talk a lot more about populism, I’d say, since the 2000s, especially since the 2008 financial crisis, where there’s been a dramatic rise in support for populist political parties in the left and right.

06:30 – 06:56

And then also a kind of not full but, at points, it feels like the centre is collapsing, almost. In this centrist traditional political parties are under threat from these kind of insurgent anti-establishment movements. And to unpick why, I suppose, as a fence setting answer, I would say that there’s no universal social condition that would precipitate the rise of populism.

06:56 – 07:18

We need to look at localised factors to understand why populism might appear, or populist parties may appear in one place and be less successful in others. They tend to exist in every established democracy. But there’s different levels of support. And generally speaking, scholars and analysts highlight some big societal trends that would drive this. And there’s debates over which of these best explains why there’s been a rise of populism.

07:18 – 07:41

And there’s economic inequality as an obvious one to point out, regional inequality, decreasing social mobility, a perception of societal elitism, technological change, the rise of social media, increases in net migration in some countries, and then also a kind of perception in national decline. These are the other rising powers and I mean you could do a full podcast on

07:41 – 08:12

which of these is the best indicator but in different countries different dynamics play out. But then one thing I’d also say is the rise, we shouldn’t forget about, that’s the demand side factors that drive populism. But we shouldn’t forget about supply side factors. And often populist parties are successful and movements are successful when you have successful leadership, party structures, when they can take advantage of weakness in traditional political parties, but then also things like electoral systems, like we’ve not seen a fully fledged populist party like UKIP

08:12 – 08:33

win seats or win multiple seats in the UK Parliament, they won, I think, 13% of the vote in 2015 and one seat. But then what we do see in the UK is a dynamic whereby the large parties, Labour and the Conservatives, have at different points, been accused of being captured by populist interests. There’s different local factors there that could drive it.

08:33 – 08:36

And we need to look at both demand and supply side drivers.

08:36 – 09:02

Really thinking about the rise of populism or the popularity of populist groups being quite complicated and not something you can necessarily put your finger on or track trends across the world, or even across a country, it just really depends on the factors that are happening in that moment and various different factors. Like you said, economic, social reform, even in sort of globalism there when you’re talking about migration and things.

09:02 – 09:27

So really just so many factors playing into populism and why it exists as it does today. And I think you spoke a little bit earlier, a little bit about the kind of elite versus the common people. So you could argue the us and them narrative. And I wonder if you think that is a dangerous narrative, or whether you think that is a narrative that is sprouted by these populist leaders for a reason?

09:27 – 10:00

Yeah, there is definitely an us versus them narrative that sits, this kind of vertical antagonism that sits at the heart of all populist movements. So as a rejection of elite driven politics and an endorsement of the needs of the common people, the working people, and that animates all populist movements. But then I think in terms of us versus them, I think it’s also important to point out that right wing populism, the type that we often see in the media, is also animated by a horizontal antagonism as well.

10:00 – 10:26

Nationalist rejection of large scale mass migration. And that intersects in quite an interesting way. So there’s still that vertical antagonism but it’s basically elites are blamed for facilitating mass migration, and also elites are often blamed for these claims are made that people, migrants, are given preferential treatment. Got a good example of this actually, Reform UK put on their Facebook page on April 30.

10:26 – 10:42

“The Tories failed our great nation and betrayed the electorate time and time again”, and they’ve cited small boats and mass migration as some of the examples of why this has occurred. So that’s a perfect example of the vertical and the horizontal antagonism kind of intersecting with one another.

10:42 – 11:16

So again, it’s actually just looking at the local issues within a country or a region and thinking about what sort of way they can situate themselves to be the popular party for the people in that, in that space. So it’s all very complicated. Yeah. There’s not really straightforward answer to any of these questions, but I think it’s really just important that we’re being a bit critical of what we’re seeing and hearing and thinking about what is happening in the country at the time or right now, leading to these things happening and, and really kind of understanding the mechanics behind it

11:16 – 11:24

all so we are able then to have a bit more of an informed, educated decision, and an understanding of all this.

11:24 – 11:43

Just to say, sorry, just to answer the second, the second part of your question was is division dangerous? And just to kind of pick up on that, I think it seems self-evident that, and we could maybe talk a lot about the relationship between populism and democracy later, but I think it’s self-evident that dividing politics, whether that’s vertically or horizontally, can be incredibly dangerous.

11:43 – 12:06

And result in the demonisation of various communities and it can lead to things like the legitimation of political violence or hatred and whatnot. So I think that these crude dichotomies drawn by populist politicians can often have, by design, very polarising societal effects, which I think most well-meaning people would want to avoid that as much as possible.

12:06 – 12:32

I think that’s really important to note, because I think, as we’re seeing at the moment, politics is becoming quite polarised, and I think it’s important to understand the mechanics behind why that’s happening and be a lot more informed about that. I think, like you said, there could be trends of populist movements using the kind of demonisation of people to build a support network sometimes.

12:32 – 12:55

Yeah, I think it’s interesting. Also, you mentioned about the fact that electoral systems and things can lead to a bigger voice and platform for certain groups, and I think you can see that across Europe, where there’s been more of a proportional representation electoral system. It’s is an interesting thing to think about because really interesting points when you say that they take left leaning ideologies and thoughts.

12:55 – 13:00

So I think it is quite clever sometimes it is quite thoughtful and quite intentional.

13:00 – 13:20

It’s interesting to think about. And it goes to show that populism contains multitudes. There’s so much under I mean, we’ve often got quite narrow it of what a populist party looks like. And we tend to think of the right-wing nationalist parties. Then even within that basket, there’s so much plurality, there’s so much that can come under that.

13:20 – 13:36

And the platforms there’s commonality. But then there’s also a lot of difference, which is why sometimes a term that is used is a catchall populist. We don’t like this type of politics and stuff, whereas actually to really understand it analytically you’ve got to kind of dig down into the policy platforms and the drivers for support, which is no easy task.

13:36 – 13:42

Not so easy, yeah, when you’re just an everyday person just trying to understand what politics even means.

13:42 – 13:46

Yeah, it’s difficult because this gives me a headache quite a lot of time.

13:46 – 14:07

And then I think that’s why for first time voters or, you know, younger people, when terms are thrown around and used a lot, it’s easy to just kind of push them to the side and, and think, you know, I’m not going to get involved in this. And I, it’s too much for me to think about. So it’s just about how to break that down and be able to digest it easily.

14:07 – 14:34

And I think maybe that brings us on to the next point, which is a bit about social media. And you mentioned at the start, you know, the rise of social media also plays into the proliferation of populism a little bit. I wonder if you think that is the case? And whether you think social media does, in fact, fuel populist movements and how mis-, dis-, mal-information can play into the rise of them and creating echo chambers.

14:34 – 15:04

Yeah, I think that most would be in agreement that social media and populism exist in a symbiotic relationship. You mentioned echo chambers and it’s interesting. My impression of the recent research suggests that focusing exclusively on echo chambers, they do have an impact, but actually the radicalisation potential is less than what was previously thought. But there is definitely, I can see the dynamics of people getting pushed content after watching one thing, like you can see how that dynamic would play out and people can fall down rabbit holes.

15:04 – 15:27

But then there’s other ways social media can fuel populism and enable populist leaders to mobilise people effectively. And a couple, let’s point out three, the first one is it social media allows the populist leader to speak directly to people. They don’t need to be kind of mediated through bureaucratic political party comms channels, or they don’t need to go on mainstream media outlets.

15:27 – 15:48

And then secondly, and I kind of touched on this with the echo chamber stuff, there’s political economy, social media rewards sensationalist content. We spoke about the bad manners and construction of crisis. These things can often be quite dramatised and even go back to the example of Jeremy Corbyn at Glastonbury. That generated a lot of clicks, I remember that being shared and stuff around the time.

15:48 – 16:08

And that kind of sensationalist content. And I’m not saying that that was either good or bad content. I’m just saying that it was reminiscent of the populist style by pushing back against kind of politics as usual. Social media rewards that and it proliferates widely, whereas a dry parliamentary committee hearing might not get those clicks, and there’s a definite benefit that way.

16:08 – 16:36

And then last thing, on the disinformation point, which is quite a complex point, but there does seem to be this electoral affinity between populism and disinformation. And I think we can see populists tend to push back against the elites and these are scientific elites, civil service, the mainstream media, academics, then you see disinformation can go a long way in delegitimising the information that’s put forward by elites and kind of poison the epistemological well.

16:36 – 16:55

So I can definitely see the association between populism and dis- and mis-information, but I would also caveat that by saying that non-populist and mainstream political actors also engage in this. So there’s no point suggesting that it’s just one side or one element of the political ecosystem that is responsible for this.

16:55 – 16:58

But I think everyone has to be vigilant on that front.

16:58 – 17:21

Yeah, I think you’re right in saying that it isn’t just localised to populist groups, but there’s things like mis- and dis-information, and it really is in the hands of actually everyone, because everyone now has the ability to put out information. I think it’s also a really important point that you mentioned that now leaders have direct line of communication with the everyday people, you know, with the public.

17:21 – 17:24

So it’s just important to stay vigilant. I think that’s the main thing.

17:24 – 17:25

Yeah. Yeah.

17:25 – 17:39

And I think that’s really a good segue to thinking about populism and democracy as a concept. And can they coexist? Can they work together? Can a strong democracy exist with populist groups?

17:39 – 18:11

Yeah. And that’s a really, really big debate and probably listeners could sense from my tone that I’m skeptical about the societal value of populist parties, at least as it pertains to the health of the democratic ecosystem. But to engage with the other side of the argument, and this often comes from the political left. They see populism as a fundamentally emancipatory force that mobilises disillusioned people against what they perceive to be a kind of ossified, centrist political settlement that isn’t working for anyone.

18:11 – 18:40

And a lot of people on the political left, yeah, advocate for things like far left populism. And I suppose, yeah, to go back to the two examples because it’s for a bit of continuity. The two examples that I mentioned, both Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn, in different ways, brought people off the couch who were disillusioned with politics and got them interested and animated them to support causes that they believed in. And a lot of people would see this as fundamentally positive mobilisation, which I’m sympathetic to that sentiment.

18:40 – 19:12

But I do think that depicting populism, and this kind of the populist moment, as either positive or neutral for democracy, I wouldn’t go as far as that. I can see those kind of mobilisation benefits. But I’d say that there’s two things that we’ve got to consider about the threat of populism to democracy, first we’ve got to ask ourselves whether this political style, which is fundamentally it’s antagonistic, it’s divisive, it’s simplistic, is that actually good for solving common problems? It might be good for mobilising support

19:12 – 19:32

and winning votes, but what does it mean when populist parties do get into power? When they do govern, is that style of politics effective? And I would also say that there is other ways to mobilise people and generate a progressive political vision without deploying the kind of populist style. And I suppose one of the best recent examples, very few people would say that

19:32 – 20:02

the Obama election 2008 was populist in a meaningful sense, but it was definitely this positive movement that inspired and empowered a lot of people. We don’t need populism to inspire people, but I do see the arguments that it can be effective in doing so. But another thing, and I think the bigger and the most important point we can make here is an empirical one, and that’s that when populists get into power, they seek to erode the pillars of constitutional democracy, which they perceive as these kind of elitist guardrails, stopping them from exercising the will of the people.

20:02 – 20:06

So it’s axiomatic that that is dangerous for democracy, for sure.

20:06 – 20:25

Yeah. So if there is a worry that they were to gain power, then they may have the ability to take away some of our civic rights and also some of the rights of people within government to kind of hold them to account. So really, you know, eroding the whole idea of democracy in a sense that could be a worry and a fear.

20:25 – 20:29

I mean, that’s not to say that those things will necessarily happen, but there is potential for that to happen.

20:29 – 20:53

And I think that that’s part of the definitional problem is, in the media, populism is often conflated with authoritarianism. So it’s easy to kind of lump those two things together. But I’d say that the authoritarian practices, these are things that political leaders are doing once in power with populism, the how is a mobilisation and strategic tool. But there does seem to be this relationship.

20:53 – 21:17

Which I suppose it makes sense. If you’re elected as the voice of the will of the people, then it’s perceivable that you believe yourself to have this personal mandate that allows you to push against guardrails and to exercise your promises irrespective of the institutional checks and balances. So I can see the instinctive link, which is why I’m always a bit conscious when people say populism is good for democracy.

21:17 – 21:33

Well, there does seem to be empirical evidence that would suggest that’s not good for constitutional democracy. Which, I mean, we can debate whether a constitutional democracy is the only form of democracy, personally I think that realistically it is but that’s a different podcast.

21:33 – 21:49

And like you said throughout this whole thing I think this could be a whole series in itself the idea of populism and how exists today and why it does. So then to finish us off, what you believe to be the future of populism and populist movements and maybe some future consequences, even though we’ve touched a bit on it.

21:49 – 22:18

Yeah, I think the first thing is that a lot of the success of populist political parties and movements is contingent on how traditional political parties respond and we’ve got to ask ourselves a couple of questions. One is can anti-populists build a policy platform that addresses the often legitimate needs of those who are inclined to vote for these parties in first place, and then secondly, also can they develop a positive political narrative and vision to bring people together.

22:18 – 22:45

There’s a policy element and a strategic element that those who kind of reject the populist style of politics need to get to grips with, and it’s hard to answer what exactly that would look like. But I think how that process ends up going will determine the effectiveness of populist parties in different national contexts. But then I also think that there’s three wider trends, demand-side factors that I think means that the support for populist parties and this type of politics will remain to some extent in the coming years and decades.

22:45 – 23:11

First is the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology and the potential for economic inequality and labour displacement that arises as a result of that. The second thing I would say is that the increase in forced migration as a result of climate change, which various analysts expect to be astronomical, could be a factor that drives the support for especially nationalist, exclusionary anti-immigrant populist parties could profit from this.

23:11 – 23:29

And if you think about there was like a spike in support for populist parties post the 2015 migrant crisis that came as a result of the war in Syria, amongst other things. If most people expect the climate-induced forced migration to be more sustained and larger than that particular crisis, so then we would expect to see that type of politics continue.

23:29 – 23:58

And lastly, as I mentioned earlier, populists often thrive due to like perceptions in national decline and a lot of liberal democratic countries in the West will see their power decline relatively especially to the rising power of China and other countries in Southeast Asia and in the subcontinent, and that the kind of ontological insecurity engendered by a perceived diminishment of national power could be something that populism capitalise on.

23:58 – 24:12

This whole notion of we were once great we were once powerful and now we’re no longer is often the siren call made by the populist right particularly. So those are three big trends that I would say could be platforms on which populists could mobilise in the coming years and decades.

24:12 – 24:40

Like you’ve mentioned there, it’s the idea of how these very legitimate concerns for people can be addressed by, as you say there, potentially anti-populist or non-populist groups to actually try and strengthen constitutional democracy so that there’s not necessarily a need for populist groups or a rise in the celebration or the authority of populist groups, because these concerns are very legitimate.

24:40 – 25:01

And as you say, as these issues are proliferated, climate, AI, all this stuff is so urgent, you know, and it’s scary for a lot of people. And we really hope, or I hope anyway, that there will be policy and there will be a shift towards trying to really address these things. And if that happens, potentially there may be a decline in the want for populist politics.

25:01 – 25:24

But we shall see what happens. You know, like you say, throughout this whole conversation, we’ve talked about so many different aspects of society that I feel directly now you know, I see it all over the news. I see how there’s a need for people to feel connected to a community or a party that will address these issues. Such an interesting conversation, and I think there was so much to digest there.

25:24 – 25:42

But I think hopefully our listeners will be able to take some of that away and maybe do a bit more research, but enable them to slightly understand populism a little bit and the trends and how it’s been in the past and how it’s looking in the future. So thank you for talking about all of that.

25:42 – 25:47

Thank you very much for having me on. It’s been an interesting conversation.

25:47 – 26:03

Thanks for listening. You can find out more about the work we do at Cumberland Lodge by visiting cumberlandlodge.ac.uk. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok @Cumberland Lodge.