How are we to explain the current “revolt against the elites,” the “new populist wave,” referred to by the French philosopher, political scientist, and historian of ideas Pierre-André Taguieff in a recent interview? What follows will try to reflect on specific aspects of the intimate relationship between populism and nationalism, the import of the conspiracist view of sociopolitical phenomena, and the overall “populist illusion” in the left-wing version of populism, with reference to the Greek experience of the past few years, notably through the Syriza phenomenon. To the extent possible, an effort will be made to examine this against the backdrop of a comparative approach to left-wing populism in general.
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Politicians who warn us against the New Right have been speaking about “Weimar conditions.” Isn’t the comparison with the pre-Hitler era exaggerated? Not as far as the surprise attack dynamic is concerned. One is in fact reminded of the speed with which the National Socialist party gained political ground in the Weimar Republic. First it had 18%, then suddenly 30%, and soon governing without it became practically impossible. Let’s be honest: Today no one knows where the AfD will reach its limit. In Austria, the candidate of the right-wing populist FPÖ got half the votes. Not that long ago, who would have thought this possible? Christopher Lasch’s “Liberalism and Civic Virtue,” from Telos 88 (Summer 1991), seeks to gain a better understanding of the internal contradictions of liberalism in one of its most optimistic moments. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western economic and political liberalism stood as the last-remaining major ideology of the twentieth century. Amidst the euphoric optimism surrounding the “end of history,” Lasch looks at the challenges that liberalism, with no major competitors on the world stage, poses to itself rather than those posed to it from the outside; for it might just be that liberalism itself is decaying like other major twentieth-century ideologies, though this process is merely delayed. Cas Mudde’s book on Syriza’s “failure of populist promises,” which recently appeared in Greek, lends itself to multiple, successive readings of the current Greek populist experience in a comparative setting. One of the leading political scientists currently researching the populist phenomenon in both its radical-right and radical-left varieties, Mudde combines thorough knowledge of his subject matter’s ideological premises with a thorough analysis of his factual material, namely, the empirical cases he sets out to investigate. Indeed, it is to Mudde that we owe the term “pathological normalcy,” denoting the current form of radical-right populism in Europe. Mudde has used this term to explain the phenomenon of “mainstream thought” radicalization employed by the “populist radical right” with a view to exploiting a social and identitarian malaise that is widespread in several European countries. It is also to Mudde that we owe a number of thought-provoking and, in many respects, pioneering comparative studies (many of them co-authored or co-edited with his fellow political scientist Cristόbal Rovira Kaltwasser) about the differences between European and Latin-American populisms, in which Mudde demonstrates the latter’s rather inclusionary practices as opposed to the former’s rather exclusionary ones. Moreover, we owe him a very insightful discussion of the different outcomes produced when populist political parties come to power. In today’s public life, marked by large-scale migration, welfare states under pressure, and a soaring right-wing scene, “multiculturalism” and “right-wing populism” remain at the center of political debate. It is assumed, moreover, that they stand in sharp opposition to one another. On the one hand, multiculturalism is widely acclaimed for being progressive, radical, and safely leftist. It is seen as a vital precondition for a modern society: tolerant, humble, and anti-racist. Anyone who opposes multiculturalism, then, will be deemed at best a conservative or reactionary—if not outright racist, xenophobe, nationalist, or fascist. On the other hand, we have right-wing populism. Due to its allegiance with racism, virulent nationalism, and fascism, right-wing populism has a dubious reputation. Multiculturalism, as it seems, is anything that right-wing populism is not. |
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