Keyword

Populism can be thus characterized as a specific set of political strategies which use a distinct rhetorical style or discursive frame to gain power and change the institutional orientation of society in a non-liberal, autocratic direction. To frame political issues in such a way that they affect the identity of people is at the core of the political strategies that populists use.

This involves the use of narratives that discoursively “construct” the people and their different enemies. The narratives typically involve a demand for respect and recognition of the lives of ordinary, hard-working people, who are said to be left behind and ignored by different elites and experts. These strategies are based on several divisive, activist ideas and the deliberate denial of rational discourse, objectivity, and truth. These ideas originate, as we shall see, from thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt, later to be developed within post-modernism and critical theory, to form the basis for both left- and right-wing populism. It is a kind of collectivistic identity politics that is hard to reconcile with classical liberalism.

A Politics of Resentment and Recognition

Identity politics is a loose concept. It emerged in the US to describe the civil rights movements in the 1960s with leaders like Martin Luther King. According to Kenny (2004), identity politics later typically became used to highlight new kinds of social mobilization based upon various group or collective identities that were previously hidden, suppressed, or neglected. Women’s and gay liberation movements are the two most prominent examples. Just lately has it been connected to populism (Müller, 2016).

However, over time identity politics has more often been associated with political activism by various groups demanding special recognition for their unique experience. From having been a politics of equality of dignity, it developed into a politics of difference, to use the words of Talyor (1994)—everyone should be recognized for his or her unique identity. He argued that much of political discourse was driven by the invocation of recognition, from nationalist movements to demands on behalf of minority or subaltern groups in feminism and multiculturalism. Our identity is partly shaped, he argued, by recognition or its absence, and failures of recognition can cause real harm: misrecognition is not just a lack of due respect, but a vital human need.

According to his analysis, “the politics of recognition” is a major force in modern societies, demanding both the equal dignity and treatment of all citizens and a “politics of difference” which emphasizes that everyone is owed recognition of the unique identity of each individual or group. Populism can be said to be driven by both, when large groups feel resentment because, on the one hand, they are not equally recognized or respected, or, on the other, if they do not get sufficient recognition for the unique identity of their group. Critical theory has had a key role in the shift towards a politics of difference, supporting various LGBTQ movements, BlackLivesMatter, and other groups that were considered (relatively) deprived. Identity politics has also been used to describe separatist movements in Canada and Spain, or even as a synonym to multiculturalism (Bernstein, 2005; Izenberg, 2016).

Similarly, Fukuyama (2018) argues that humans do not just want things that are external to themselves, but also crave positive judgments about their worth or dignity, recognized by others. This—which he terms “thymos” building on the classical Greek concept—he believes is the reason behind today's identity politics, ranging from movements like MeToo and BlackLivesMatter to nationalism and populism. The quest for equal recognition from groups that have been marginalized in their societies, he argues, has been taken over by populist leaders like Donald Trump by frontally taking on “political correctness” to appeal to working-class supporters that feel they have been disregarded by national elites.

Another version of the same type of argument is Sandel’s (2020) suggestion that today’s societies’ left-liberal consensus on meritocracy, and especially on the importance of higher education, has generated resentment among those left behind. Similarly, Goodhart (2017) argues that society is divided into two camps: ‘anywheres’, with careers and education, who travel the word, and ‘somewheres’, who get their identity from their local community and who feel forgotten and unrecognized due to social changes and globalization.

The Ideas Behind the Populist Strategies

The ideas behind the populist strategies have their origin in Jean-Jacques Rousseau who in Du Contrat Social; ou Principes du Droit Politique (1762) gave legitimacy to the populist project of autocratization by claiming that politics should be an expression of the volonté general (general will) of the people (Riker, 1982). The collective will of the people would be subverted and should not be restrained by checks-and-balances, judicial review, division of powers, minority rights, and the like, and thus the state had no limits.

However, the distinct rhetorical style or discursive frame originated with some German philosophers and political thinkers. Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger cleared the ground by arguing that truth was a construct that could be changed by will. Rationality and reason should be replaced by emotions and the will to power. Carl Schmitt explained how political polarization and existential threats could be used to mobilize supporters.

Later post-modernists and critical theorists added additional elements to the populist rhetoric and strategies. In contrast to the modernism that originated with enlightenment philosophers and scientists like Descartes, Bacon, Locke, and Smith, post-modernists do not believe in reason, experience, and empirical evidence as sources of truth. Instead, post-modernists hold a social-linguistic, constructivist account of reality (Butler, 2002; Hicks, 2004). The “truth” and reality are viewed as constructed and contingent on historical, linguistic, and social contexts. This provided the basis for identity politics, but also cleared the ground for accusations of fake news. According to Foucault (Elden, 2021) and Derrida (Behler, 1991), leading contributors to post-modernism, Nietzsche and perhaps, in particular, his The Genealogy of Morals (1887 [1998]), has inspired what has been called “perspectivism”, the idea that knowledge and truth always are bound to the interpretive perspectives of the observers, i.e., there are no universal truths. Reality can be “constructed” and “deconstructed” (Koelb, 1990).

Martin Heidegger, the existentialist philosopher, and Nazi, in turn, was the predecessor to the radical Frankfurter school (Lafont, 2018). He extended the ideas of Nietzsche in several dimensions, perhaps of particular relevance here by adding an antagonistic dimension. He argued that:

An enemy is each and every person who poses an essential threat to the Dasein of the people and its individual members. … (The challenge) is to bring the enemy to the open, to harbor no illusion about the enemy, to keep oneself ready for attack …with the goal of total annihilation. (Heidegger 2010 [1934]: 73)

However, it was Carl Schmitt, the prominent legal scholar, and member of the Nazi party, deeply influenced by both Nietzsche and Heidegger, who formulated the populist strategy of polarization. In The Concept of the Political (Schmitt, 1932 [1996]: 26–27) he argued that the essence of politics is the creation of a conflict between friends and enemies:

The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy. … the political enemy need not be morally evil or aesthetically ugly... But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger….

The conflict is existential, the enemy is whoever is “in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien”.

As both Schmitt and Rousseau agree, the people cannot be represented, because they would thereby renounce their sovereignty. In Schmitt’s view, markets, civil society, and the rights of individuals are subordinated to the state, and even dictatorship would be legitimate in times of crisis. And a crisis was an opportunity not to be wasted.

To these activist ideas, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and other members of the Frankfurter school later added Gramscian Marxism and Freudian psychology to make their project explicitly radical left-leaning (Wiggershaus, 1994). The same is true for today’s two most prominent theorists of populism, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, who both work in the traditions of post-modernism and critical theory.

Critical theory, originating in the Frankfurter school, shares many of the ideas presented above but also seeks “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them”, as Horkheimer (1982: 244) put it. It is a social theory with the ambition of criticizing and changing society and existing power structures, not only to understand or explain things in the way normal social science tries to. To both post-modernism and critical theory there are grand (or meta) narratives that legitimize existing power structures that should be replaced by narratives that can activate the “lived experiences” of underprivileged social groups. These are the traditions that make up the ideational background of today’s “woke” culture at numerous university campuses around the world, where scholars and students who defend alternative views are accused of “hate speech” and are “canceled”.

Beiner (2018) has shown that the ideas of Nietzsche and Heidegger also play a crucial role for the populists on the far right. He traces the roots of such right-wing ideologues as Richard Spencer, Aleksandr Dugin, and Steve Bannon to the writings of these two philosophers, in particular to the aspects of their revulsion for modernity and the liberal-democratic view of life. This is a tradition that goes back to the so-called “conservative revolution” of the first decades of the twentieth century (Palmer, 2022; Woods, 1996).

In several influential contributions, Laclau and Mouffe have developed these ideas into an elaborate theory of populism, explaining how the ‘people’ and their adversaries can be deliberately “constructed” by activist movements; how to use the ‘us-versus-them’ logic to create a polarized antagonism and a direct relationship with people; and how democracy should be radicalized and the “neoliberal” narrative abolished to support a new “hegemonic” view of equality (see Laclau & Mouffe, 1985; Laclau, 2005; Mouffe 2018).

It should be noted that Mouffe explicitly bases her ideas on Carl Schmitt (Mouffe, 2005), which is also true for some of the right-wing populists (Abts & Rummens, 2007; Bergem & Bergem, 2019), possibly through the ideas of Leo Strauss (Meier, 1995). Laclau is also clearly influenced by Schmitt (Camargo, 2013). Most likely, the ideational connections between these varieties of populism are stronger than may be expected.

The connections between post-modernism, critical theory, and populism are multifaceted. First, post-modernism and critical theory is closely linked to identity politics and multiculturalism, as pointed out by Fukuyama (2018, 2022). When different groups and minorities, be they real or constructed, want their identities, and lived experiences to be recognized and respected, it is not only a question of equal rights but also about special rights based on race, sex, gender, or some other characteristic, fostering a culture of perpetual offense and victimhood. Second, the view that “truth” and reality are constructed opened up opportunities for populists’ critique and allegations of media’s “fake news”. Third, if our interpretation of reality is made up of competing narratives, it takes just a small step to criticize the establishment’s “political correctness” and support different conspiracy theories and allegations of fraud elections. Fourth, we have the case of Laclau and Mouffe who not only developed but also actively supported populist political strategies.

A basic problem. however, in the discussion about identity politics is that “identity” itself seldom is defined. So, what is identity, and how can it be defined?

Identity as a Function of Meaning, Community, and Virtue

A need for identity is a fundamental human characteristic. Without identity, humans are deprived of a sense of belonging, and may also lack a purpose in life, character, pride, and self-esteem, all with negative consequences for mental well-being, physical health, etc. (Zika & Chamberlain, 1992). Identity is distinct from interests in the instrumental, material, or economic sense that economists usually use the term. Even though one could interpret identity as just a preference among others, such an analysis does not add to our understanding of the importance identity has for human behavior. In my understanding, humans are just as much identity-seeking creatures as they are rational in the economic sense.

Identity has many dimensions: individual, social, and collective. Personal or individual identity, in psychology, concerns our understanding of who we are, a sense of personal continuity and of uniqueness from other people. It is both backward and forward-looking, integrating the experiences, character, and ambitions of the individual. Individual identity is thus the self-understanding of a person. People also acquire social identities based on their membership in various communities or groups—familial, ethnic, occupational, and others, that help them define themselves in the eyes of both others and themselves (Erikson, 1950). According to Tajfel and Turner (1979) a person can have one personal but several social identities. For example, a person may hold various identities such as a teacher, father, or friend, based on different networks of organized relationships and communities. In this sense, we may thus have multiple identities. If one such social identity becomes more salient than the personal identity, people see themselves less as unique individuals and more as the proto-typical representative of their in-group (Van Stekelenburg, 2013).

Apart from individual and social identities psychologists speak of collective identities at the collective group level, which concerns the shared definition of a group that derives from members’ common interests, experiences, and solidarity (Taylor & Whittier, 1992). Cultural identity is a type of collective identity. According to Klandermans and de Weerd (2000), group identification forms the link between collective and social identity, and thus the bridge between the individual and collective level of identity. To both left- and right-wing populists, collective identities have a central role; they form the “we” in the ‘us-versus-them’ logic. At the extreme, the collective identity may dominate other identities of a person.

Collective identities are important for social and political movements (Bernstein, 1997). Such identities can be based on ideas about anything from ideology, religion, nationalism, gender, or some other worldview (Van Stekelenburg, 2013). To raise consciousness and mobilize group members, boundaries are drawn up between different “challenging” groups. As we have seen this is a theme picked up by the populists.

More generally, the quest for identity—individual, social, and collective—seems to be closely related to the basic human need for recognition and respect. If these are absent the identity of the individual or the group is threatened, with potentially negative consequences as pointed out by Taylor (1994) and Fukuyama (2018) referred to above. Consequently, as argued in the last chapter, identity, and culture may sometimes be an even more important explanatory variable than different interests.

The question is then how identities are formed. I shall argue that identity is a function of meaning, community, and virtue.

Meaning

According to several empirical studies, identity formation is closely linked to searching for and acquiring meaning in one’s life (Negru-Subtirica et al., 2016). Traditionally, religion provided the foundation for the meaning for most people, which is still true for some but not for all, as already Nietzsche pointed out. But even though there is no generally accepted definition of what is meant by saying that something is meaningful or what is meant by having meaning in life, some common ground can be found both among philosophers and psychologists.

In philosophy, there are many diverse opinions about what is meaningful, from antiquity and onwards. However, according to a survey by Metz (2022), at least in recent decades there is a standard view that life’s meaning is about intentional actions, which exhibit a high final value present in ‘the good, the true, and the beautiful’ and absent from the hypothetical lives of Sisyphus endlessly pushing his stone up the hill or of those in an Experience Machine. In other words, it is about purposeful action towards worthwhile ends.

For example, Wolf (2010) argues that having meaningfulness is an essential element in a fully satisfying life. To her “meaning in life consist in and arises from actively engaging in projects of worth … when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness, and one is able to do something about it” (Wolf, 2010: 26). In other words, meaning occurs when you do something that really engages you, something that you love doing, but something that also is “larger than yourself”, i.e., something the value of which has its source outside yourself, something that you believe is “objectively” good. These are, according to Wolf, activities that lead to fulfillment or meaning. Smoking pot or doing a gigantic jigsaw puzzle are examples she gives that do not fit the criteria. Similarly, according to Bauhn (2020), meaning is something we get by identifying ourselves with valuable purposes.

Wolf adds that the value of engaging in projects that can be seen as having a certain kind of objective worth partly arises from an interest to see one’s life as valuable in a way that can be recognized from an external point of view. This may contribute to one’s self-esteem regardless of whether this is a conscious concern or not through social feedback.

In psychology, there are a couple of classical theorists who have addressed the issue of meaning, perhaps most prominently Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, and Irvin Yalom. Frankl (2008) conceived meaning as a process of discovery and implies decision-making. It can be attained through creative, experiential, and attitudinal values that inspire individuals to produce, create and achieve, to love and appreciate beauty, and to face injustice with dignity. Although circumstances exert a powerful influence on the making and fulfilling of meaning, these are largely dependent on a person’s attitude toward their circumstances. Maslow (1971) saw meaning as a “meta-motive”, that becomes important only after the satisfaction of more basic needs. To him meaning is an intrinsic emergent motivational force in individuals dedicating themselves to some values, mission, or cause. Yalom (1980) saw meaning in life as a creative response, a commitment, to the world’s meaninglessness. Humans essentially choose and create their own meaning. Individuals need to commit themselves wholeheartedly to their chosen meanings and purposes if they wish to avoid the anxiety of nihilism. Later empirical studies seem to confirm these theories. For example, having a sense of purpose, efficacy, clear values, and of positive self-worth have been found to contribute to meaningfulness (Baumeister & Wilson, 1996).

While what is meaningful differs for different people, it is clear that meaning is an important element in someone’s identity. It involves doing and engaging in things that are valuable, that have a purpose, some mission or cause. Also, empirical results show an interesting connection between meaning and community: to be socially rejected and ostracized has been shown to reduce meaningfulness (Baumeister, 2022).

What populism does is to offer meaning, and a valuable purpose: to fight against dangerous enemies, elites, or ‘others’, real or constructed, that are believed to threaten the lives of ordinary people. It is a collectivistic meaning, in contrast to the individualistic and social purposes of a pluralist society.

Community

A second foundation for identity is community. Humans have a quest for community, for a sense of belonging, as argued by Nisbet (1953). Communities also form the context for what Bauhn (2017) has called a person’s “normative identity”, her beliefs not only about who she is, but what she ought to do because of who she is. We may here distinguish between smaller communities and larger collectives.

I shall define a community as a fairly small group of people who have informal, direct, long-lasting, and multi-dimensional relations with each other, which forms the basis for the emergence of social norms (Karlson, 1993 [2002, 2017]). Such norms for how to behave in relation to others are social in the sense that the benefits to oneself accrue only indirectly through the responses of others, and in the fact that they are shared with others. Typical examples of social norms are to be honest, to keep promises, to do one’s share in common projects, to help others in need etc.

For social norms to be upheld the conditions of community, as defined above, are required—they resemble the conditions necessary for making reciprocal cooperation possible, sometimes called tit-for-tat, including giving sanctions of different kinds, where otherwise free-riding behavior would prevail. There is a large game theoretical literature supporting this conclusion, as well as empirical studies by Ostrom and others (Ostrom 1990). Typical examples of communities are families, workplaces, clubs, neighborhoods, and voluntary organizations of various sorts that together form what often is called civil society.

Communities should be distinguished from collectives, which are made up of large numbers of people who only have indirect relations with each other. Typical examples are here nations, classes, or even the ‘people’ itself. Being part of a collective may well give rise to sentiments of belonging since the members may share characteristics like a common language, history, religion, and the like. But a collective does not fulfill the conditions necessary for the emergence and sustenance of social norms. This distinction between communities and collectives partly resembles the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies’ (1887) classical distinction between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft. He argues that in the former people have direct face-to-face relations with each other spontaneously giving rise to emotions and sentiment of belonging, while in the latter, typified by modern, cosmopolitan societies human relations are more impersonal and indirect.

A collective, however, while not having the characteristics of a community, with a shared history, language, and culture may nevertheless offer a sense of belonging and identity. Think for example of soccer supporters or members of political movements. Also, religion, nationalism, or culture more generally, as understood by the anthropologists referred to in the last chapter, may provide such meaning and belonging.

I have argued in Karlson (1993 [2002, 2017]) that the social norms of smaller communities may be maintained in larger settings, or collectives, if the norms are internalized into a person’s identity (her normative identity), and if the different individuals belong to several overlap** communities, forming a network of communities, with cross-cutting cleavages. They may also be upheld by religion or some other shared belief system. However, if and when the underlying communities should disappear, the social norms in the collectives will eventually disappear as well. The same is likely to be true of the sense of belonging.

Populism offers this kind of collectivist sense of belonging to the nation, class, or some other larger group that is said to be threatened by external enemies or elites that are supposed to uphold an economic or social system that does not give the ‘people’ sufficient recognition or show it enough respect. This is perhaps particularly true of right-wing nativists or nationalists, but also of left-wing populists who construct classes and groups that are said to be unfairly treated.

Virtue

A third important part of identity concerns the character of a person, and the virtues that he or she holds. These are the individual’s behavioral traits or qualities that are considered praiseworthy or morally good and contribute to a good life. Typical examples of such character traits are to be honest, just, benevolent, tempered, courageous, prudent, trustworthy, industrious, etc.

Virtues are learned by practicing them, and by reflecting on these practices, throughout life. Together with the social norms they contribute to a person’s normative identity. Eventually, they turn into habits that become an integrated part of a person’s character and identity (Snow, 2016). Annas (2011) has argued that virtues in this way are similar to learned practical skills. Once attained such character traits are stable, fixed, and reliable dispositions. If an agent possesses the character trait of honesty, we expect him or her to act honestly in all sorts of situations, even when it is difficult to do so. It is an integral part of the agent’s identity.

There may be various kinds of virtues depending on the context in which the individual is situated. The virtues of a university professor, for example, are likely to be different from those of a mother, a poet, a businessman, or an athlete. This said, it is common to identify cardinal virtues, like the ones mentioned above. Sometimes Christian virtues such as faith, hope, and love are added (McCloskey, 2006). Virtues are since Aristotle regarded to lay between two vices, a vice of excess and a vice of defect. Courage, for instance, is contrasted with the vices of foolhardiness and cowardness. It is also possible to distinguish civic virtues that describe the character of a good participant in the system of government—the personal qualities associated with the effective functioning of the civil and political order.

According to Aristotle in the Nichomachean Ethics (350 BC) (Crisp, 2014) and many other virtue ethicists, the different virtues support each other and form the basis for a good life, or human flourishing, to be distinguished from hedonism, narcissism, or short-term preference satisfaction (LeBar, 2018). Since virtue is a life-long project of self-development, it may not require perfection or excellence, as many of the classical thinkers believed (Frede, 2015). Most virtue ethicists also recognize the importance of narratives to what it means to live a good life—a person does not just live; he or she lives a life (Ulatowski & van Zyl, 2021).

It should also be noted that there is a connection between virtue and community, as defined in the last section. Already Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1757) argued that virtues and moral behavior arise through a process where we sympathize with others, putting ourselves so to speak in the other person’s situation, which is only possible in situations similar to how I defined community above, in smaller groups with repeated interactions where we can identify with and recognize each other. Through such a process, humans, according to Smith, develop an “internal observer” that also judges the morality or virtuousness of our behavior.

In recent decades, there has been a cross-fertilization between virtue ethics and developmental and cognitive psychology (Lapsley, 1996; Swanton, 2016), which has added substantial empirical support to the claim that character formation has substantial importance not only for morality and a good life in terms of satisfaction and fulfillment but also in terms of mental and physical health. Sometimes this is labeled a “positive psychology” of what makes life most worth living (Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Seligman, 1991).

Now, a central thesis of communitarian philosophers such as Charles Taylor (1989), Michael Sandel (1982), and Alisdair MacIntyre (1984) is that the development of virtue requires community. However, in the terminology adopted here what they often ask for is really a larger collective with a shared understanding both of the good for man and the good of the collective (Gutmann, 1985). They argue that modernity meant the end of a common teleological idea that human life had a proper end or understanding of the good, be it religious, republican or something else. And therefore, they claim, society has lost its moral foundation. Instead of a liberal “politics of rights”, they favor “politics of the common good” (Sandel, 1996), based on settled traditions and established identities.

It is on this latter interpretation, the belief that a common end or common good is required for society to develop in the “correct” moral direction that populism relates to virtues. It is a virtue ethics from above, in contrast to the more individualistic and developmental-behavioral traits or qualities that were presented in the preceding paragraphs.

A Collectivistic Identity Politics

The populists’ appeal to the true ‘people’ is a way to create engagement and support, in a comparable way to any social movement’s appeal to a group’s identity. In this sense populism is always a form of identity politics: it uses identity as a mean to get into power. An important feature is that some people are excluded (Müller, 2016), in a similar way to the movements supported by critical theorists mentioned above. It is not equal recognition or rights that are demanded, but privileges based on the uniqueness and special experience of the group that shares the identity in question. For populism, however, it is the ‘people’, or at least a majority of it, that request special treatments. The Hindu populism of Modi, who governs over more than a billion people in India, is a perhaps an extreme example, but the same is true for nationalist populists in Poland, Hungary, and many other countries.

Interestingly, the social democratic ideology of the welfare state that for most of the second half of the twentieth century dominated the political development of the Western world is another example of this kind of constructs (Karlson, 2019). This was especially so in Scandinavia where social democratic parties dominated policymaking and the political arena. But also, in Austria, Germany, and many other parts of continental Europe the same kind of ideas had a stronghold, albeit sometimes with a Christian democratic or social conservative framing. These welfare states not only promised social protection and government support of social services from cradle to grave, the ideology of the welfare state also provided a comprehensive vision of an ideal that was said to be morally superior to markets and a liberal society. For example, T. H. Marshall in his influential 1950 lectures Citizenship and Social Class argued that the welfare state is a prerequisite for social rights and social citizenship (Marshall, 1950). The Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck even claimed that the welfare state was a “major achievement of modern civilization” (Lindbeck, 1993: 97).

The narrative of the welfare state ideals in this way provided meaning and a sense of collective belonging and pride to the majority of the electorates in many Western democracies. Klein (2005) has called these welfare state ideas “the people’s romance” and argues that this kind of political arrangements offer the romantic notion that “we’re all working together”, creating an encompassing sense of community, making people support the expansion of the state beyond rational argumentation. Buchanan (2005) in a somewhat similar way explained the support of the welfare state as an urge for “parentalism”, meaning “the attitudes of persons who seek to have values imposed upon them by other persons, by the state or by transcendental forces” (Buchanan, 2005: 23).

The populists offer something similar. Their constructed conception of identity and identity politics is, as indicated above, primarily collectivistic or group oriented. It appeals to the’people’ by constructing narratives that give a sense of belonging, to the nation, class, religion, or some other trait, and by offering a worthy purpose and meaning, namely, to defend the people against enemies like corrupt elites or threatening others. They argue that to do so is a kind of virtue in the name of the common good. Note however that this is not a personal virtue like the cardinal virtues discussed earlier, it is rather a value or belief that is promoted from above.

In terms of meaning, populists offer a cause that is larger than the individual herself. This gives a collective sense of belonging, a sense of pride, that may boost self-esteem and a sense of dignity. Just to give one example, think of the Yellow Vests in France, uniting a remarkably diverse set of protesters. The collective identity may even dominate any personal identity and even group identity. This is the essence of the populists’ politics of recognition. People are “seen” when they rally at mass meetings, participate in campaigns, or when their leader talks directly to them via television, Twitter, or other social media.

It is noteworthy that the populist identity politics as interpreted here is not—at least not in the longer run—compatible with community in the sense of small groups of people who have informal, direct, long-lasting, and multi-dimensional relations with each other, which forms the basis for the emergence of social norms. Neither is it compatible with individual virtue and character, as the examples of many populists’ leaders’ behavior and “flaunting of the ‘low’” indicate. The populist, collective identity dominates and undermines individual character and long-term relationships in communities, as I have argued above.

An important element of this kind of collectivist identity is to have strong opinions about certain values and about what a good life is, and the conviction that it is legitimate to use the state to promote them. Since they, the true people, and their leader, represent the volonté general and the will of the majority no restrictions should apply. In the case of left-wing populists, this typically involves substantial redistribution to promote equality of outcomes, while for right-wing populists it instead often involves regulations to promote traditional social values towards Christianity, homosexuality, and immigrants. The good becomes politicized.

In both versions, the populist offer, as part of their narratives, polarized recognition but most often also unserious and ill-founded policies as well as various kinds of encroachments of the rule of law and constitutional democracy to favor their favorite ideas, be it protectionism, restrictions on pluralism or markets, or support of redistribution and expansive welfare program.

As briefly pointed out earlier, this is not something entirely new. This kind of populist identity politics is typical of Marxists’ and socialists’ deliberate framing of class struggles—one class being virtuous, the other greedy and corrupt. It was also the rhetoric used by the radical conservatives and fascists in the 1920s and 1930s when they hailed the heroic history of their nations and attacked and exterminated minorities and other “enemies to the people”. Deliberately constructed narratives, symbols, and propaganda were prevalent. The same is to a considerable extent true for conservatives and nationalists who frame history, ethnicity, traditions, and national culture as being threatened by foreign forces or immigrants. For a comparison between fascism and right-wing populism, see Rydgren (2018). A leader like Vladimir Putin in Russia is using exactly this kind of rhetorical framing and arguments, just a Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. In fully autocratic polities such as China, North Korea, and most of the Arabic world it is just as visible. Islamism is populist identity politics taken to the extreme.

What is noteworthy is how prevalent tendencies of this type of politics have become also within Western democracies. As argued in the last chapter, digital social media undermining the belief in truth and the ability to activate the “tribal mind” are likely to have had important roles in this process. It is apparent that populist, collectivistic identity politics is attractive to many, and therefore a serious threat to liberty and the open society. The question is what can be done about it?