A Genealogy of Populism

This book traces the lineage and descent of ideas about populism within academic literature. Contemporary conceptions and definitions of populism are mostly, if not exclusively, pejorative, and used as an epithet for fascism, authoritarianisms of all stripes, and troubling forms of mass mobilizations. Adopting a genealogical approach, that investigates how the present arose out of the contingencies of the past, this book examines the consequential role played by American scholars of the 1950s in redefining the term away from its origins as a self-designation for a fledgling nineteenth century third party in the United States to a catch-all epithet for the very worst kinds of politics. It argues that the transmission of this pejorative definition to the European academy of the 1970s and beyond has bequeathed contemporary populism scholarship a troubling legacy that has largely gone unexamined and unquestioned. By demonstrating the lineage of contemporary ideas about populism, the book suggests that they rest on far flimsier intellectual foundations than is often assumed and that the concept of populism as a dangerous form of mass-based politics is more problematic and contestable than it appears.