On Populists and Demagogues

Abstract

The article seeks to understand what is specifically modern about populists, why we have difficulty in agreeing on who and what they are, and—importantly—how we can address the formidable challenge they present to contemporary democratic politics. It does so by detailing the classical conception of the demagogue and by showing how modernity, in its liberal and counter-liberal aspects, sought to solve conclusively the problem of the demagogue. It argues that modern populists face significant obstacles to their ambitions in the form of modern constitutionalism, yet are also armed with new weapons, including new concepts or “ideologies” for manipulation (such as “the people,” nation, race and class) and new rhetorical techniques (such as propaganda that exploits modern technology and mass media).

Language and politics, politics and language: democracy and demagoguery

“…the discourse ethics of Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas), most political scientists did not, but moved on to formal models such as principal-agency theory in the study of leadership (Ceaser, 2007: 259). Despite some important exceptions (Ceaser, 2007;Patapan, 2019), it is only recently that political theorists have started to use the concept of demagoguery to understand populism on the large scale (notably, Urbinati, 2019), and philosophers of language and mind have again begun to examine the fine details of political speech and the ethical problems raised by it (Saul, 2012;Stanley, 2015;Cassam, 2019). Jason Stanley explicitly uses the term 'demagoguery' as a label for kinds of propaganda that are particularly problematic morally and politically (2015: 38).…”

“…A demegόros was a speaker before the public assembly (verb agoreúein, to speak in public assembly, from agorá). On the early meaning of these terms, see Lane (2012), Patapan (2019), Ceaser (2007). Signer (2009), however, overlooks the change in meaning.…”