Populism versus Democracy

TLDR

Populism is a thin‑centered ideology advocating sovereign rule of a homogeneous people, while democracy is a regime in which power remains an empty place, as defined by Lefort. This article provides a comparative conceptual analysis of the logic of populism and the logic of (constitutional) democracy. The authors develop the logic of populism using Carl Schmitt’s framework, demonstrating how it generates all typical populist characteristics. The analysis shows that the two‑pillar model of constitutional democracy fails to capture its internal coherence, revealing that populism closes democracy’s empty place and is fundamentally discontinuous with democratic logic.

Abstract

This article provides a comparative conceptual analysis of the logic of populism and the logic of (constitutional) democracy. Populism is defined as a thin-centered ideology which advocates the sovereign rule of the people as a homogeneous body. The logic of this ideology is further developed in reference to the work of Carl Schmitt and is shown to generate all the characteristics typically ascribed to populism. The logic of democracy is analyzed on the basis of the work of Claude Lefort and defined as a regime in which the locus of power remains an empty place. This analysis replaces the widespread model of constitutional democracy as a paradoxical combination of a constitutional and a democratic pillar. This two-pillar model fails to appreciate the internal coherence and some of the main features of the (constitutional) democratic logic. Thereby, the two-pillar approach gives rise to an understanding of populism as continuous with the democratic promise of constitutional democracy. In contrast, our analysis explains populism as the closure of the empty place of democracy. This highlights the antagonistic discontinuity between the logic of populism and the logic of democracy.