`Populism': A Brief Biography

Abstract

Within the past ten years the vocabulary of political sociology has been augmented by the addition of the word `populism'. Its general acceptance has yet to be achieved; but in the past five years its use has spread enormously. The purpose of the paper is to provide a brief `biography' of the concept of `populism', examining the changing way in which the word has come to be used in its lifetime. It is argued that the confusion which has attended the growth in its use is not merely a semantic problem, arising from the inability of various writers to define their terms, but an important indicator of the nature of the phenomenon. The major difficulty is seen as lying in the lack of an acceptable general theoretical framework within which to handle the political development of peasant societies. The notion of such societies as `part-societies', widespread in current anthropology, is examined as a possible starting point for such a general framework.

Is Populism an Ideology? A Refutation and a New Perspective

“…This, of course, is no mere accident, since populism was (re)introduced preloaded with normative baggage. As J.B. Allcock (1971) testifies, it was Edward Shils who first recoined the term in 1954, in such a way as to portray populism as an ideological phenomenon which consists of a threat to the rule of law, a threat to democracy. These normative connotations linger on to this day, nudging scholars to lean towards this side or the other when asked to classify political phenomena.…”

Çoğunlukçu Demokrasi̇ye Yöneli̇ş Olarak Popüli̇zm

“…35 Popülist demokrasinin sadece otoritenin güçsüzlüğüyle ilişkili normların olduğu yerde ortaya çıkması da beklenmemelidir. 36 Popülizm birçok rejim tipinde ortaya çıkabileceği gibi herhangi bir zamansal ya da toplumsal koşul aramamaktadır.…”

Avoiding Bias in the Study of Populism

“…As Edward Shils (1956, p. 103) suggested, ''[t]here is a straight line from Ben Tillman to Huey Long and Eugene Talmadge; from Bryan and LaFollette to Gerald L. K. Smith, Father Coughlin and Senator McCarthy, Gerald Nye, William Langer and many others.'' A speech by Shils in 1954 at the University of Chicago (Allcock 1971) and two influential volumes published in the following year, Richard Hofstadter's The Age of Reform (1955) and Daniel Bell's The New American Right (1955), proved pivotal in recasting the populist movement of the 1880s-90s as a dark and irrational force, a direct progenitor of every anti-liberal strand in American society that subsequently found its national representative in Senator McCarthy.…”