Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European ...

Populism and Democracy 17
of constructing a superior (i.e. ‘populist’) democracy. Nonetheless, only an
empirical in-depth investigation of the reality and ideology of a series of
comparable populist movements can offer a satisfactory answer to the questions
of whether the populists are really willing to accept democracy, especially
when they acquire political power, and whether, once in power, they
have effectively done so. Most Latin American experiences, for example,
would suggest that we reject the view that (a) populists do not challenge
whatever democratic framework they find and (b) they are not willing to
empty and destroy that democratic framework.
This chapter will firstly offer two working definitions of democracy and
populism. Then, it will identify the situations in which the populist challenge
to liberal democracies arises. Finally, it will focus on the consequences
of the emergence and existence of populist challenges and movements for
contemporary democracies. Individual populist leaders will not be dealt
with specifically, primarily because our focus is on structural factors, but
also because I consider populist leaders to be important almost solely if and
when those structural factors already exist. Although those leaders may be
instrumental in the appearance and functioning of a populist movement,
they themselves are the products of structural factors.
Definitions and clarifications
According to many authors, democracy is a very elusive concept. Indeed, some
years ago, David Collier and Steven Levitsky attempted to identify all the
adjectives used to accompany and to specify the term ‘democracy’, although
many specifications manipulate the concept and, more or less deliberately,
end up distorting it (Collier and Levitsky, 1997). Incidentally, it is interesting
to note that ‘populist democracy’ does not appear in Collier and Levitsky’s
list. While the concept of democracy may well stand on its own, given its long
and revered history, the adjective most frequently used to accompany democracy
is, without doubt, ‘liberal’ (subordinately: ‘constitutional’). Above all for
its elegance and parsimony, here we will use Joseph Schumpeter’s definition
of democracy, complemented by Giovanni Sartori’s (1987) fundamental additions.
Therefore, a regime will be considered democratic when there are periodical
electoral competitions among teams of political elites and when these
competitions are decided by the voters. As Schumpeter (1962: 269) puts it:
‘The democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at
political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means
of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’.
Taking into account Carl Friedrich’s rule of anticipated reactions, Sartori
added that
elected officials seeking re-election (in a competitive setting) are
conditioned, in their deciding, by the anticipation (expectation) of how