Populism and Democracy

This chapter tackles one of the most controversial debates when it comes to populism: what is populism’s relationship to democracy? Arguing that populism itself tells us very little about the substantive democratic ‘content’ of any political project, the chapter undoes the strict binary between populism and democracy that is often invoked in the literature by instead examining both the democratic and anti-democratic tendencies within populism as conceptualised as a political style. In doing so, it shows that these tendencies can operate concurrently, with populists flaunting their democratic tendencies at the same time as undoing democratic guarantees. Overall, it demonstrates that questions about populism’s relationship to democracy should not always be taken at face value, as they often conceal larger questions about what constitutes ‘correct’ or ‘legitimate’ forms of political practice.