Populism, liberal democracy and the ethics of peoplehood

European Journal of Political Theory 18 (3):330-348 (2019)
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Abstract

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop normative standards that allow us to distinguish between more and less legitimate forms of populism. The point of this exercise is not to dismiss populism in toto; the article strives for a more subtle result, namely, to show that liberal democracy can accommodate populism provided that the latter conforms to particular discursive norms. What the article calls a ‘liberal ethics of populism’ turns out to be closely bound up with a broader ethics of peoplehood, understood as a way of articulating who ‘the people’ are in a way that is compatible with liberal–democratic principles of political justification. Such an ethics, concludes the article, inevitably has a much wider audience than populist political actors: its addressees are all those who seek legitimately to exercise power in the name of the people.

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original Wolkenstein, Fabio (2016) "Populism, liberal democracy and the ethics of peoplehood". European Journal of Political Theory 18(3):147488511667790

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Citations of this work

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The meaning of ‘populism’.Axel Mueller - 2019 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 45 (9-10):1025-1057.
Le défi nativiste à la démocratie libérale.Karel J. Leyva - 2024 - Politique Et Sociétés 43 (2).

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References found in this work

Democracy and Disagreement.Amy Gutmann & Dennis Thompson - 1996 - Ethics 108 (3):607-610.
Democratic Theory and Border Coercion.Arash Abizadeh - 2008 - Political Theory 36 (1):37-65.
Democracy's Domain.David Miller - 2009 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 37 (3):201-228.

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