PolPsy notes on Müller
PolPsy class notes re Jan-Werner Müller (2015).
Populists are:
Anti-elitist
Non-pluralist
Morally absolutist.
pp 2-3
“The major differences between democracy and populism should have become clear by now:
democracy [democracy] enables majorities to authorize representatives whose actions may or may not turn out to conform to what a majority of citizens expected or would have wished for; |
populism [populism] pretends that no action of a populist government can be questioned, because ”the people” have willed it so. |
[democracy] assumes fallible, and contestable judgments by changing majorities; | [populism] imagines a homogenous entity outside all institutions whose identity and ideas can be fully represented. |
[democracy] assumes, if anything, a people of individuals, so that in the end only numbers (in elections) count; | [populism] takes for granted a more or less mysterious ”substance” and the fact that even large numbers of individuals (even majorities) can fail to express that substance properly |
[democracy] presumes that decisions made after democratic procedures have been followed are not ”moral” in such a way that all opposition must be considered immoral; | [populism] postulates one properly moral decision even in circumstances of deep disagreement about morality (and policy). |
Finally—and most importantly—[democracy] takes it that ”the people” can never appear in a non-institutionalized manner and, in particular, accepts that a majority … in parliament is not “the people” and cannot speak in the name of the people; | [populism] presumes precisely the opposite.” |
pp 77-8