Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Breaking The Populism ‘Doom Loop’

John Fitzgibbon 20th July 2018

John Fitzgibbon

John Fitzgibbon

According to many commentators, we are now in a crisis of democracy – or rather, ‘liberal democracy’ as Cas Mudde persuasively argues. The time has long since passed where the increasing vote share of populist parties could be regarded as a ‘canary in the coalmine’ for democracies. They are now running governments around the world. Given that populists are winning elections and their policies are being adopted by ‘mainstream’ parties, populism can indeed be described as popular. The concern for interested observers, however, is that once in positions of political influence, populists could either strip-away or co-opt political and civil society institutions to undermine liberal democracy itself. It is this tension – between the basic democratic legitimacy of populists and their anti-liberal democratic actions – that Mudde has identified as being the crux of the populist crisis.

But we are still less sure of why voters are either voting for, or tolerating, this dismantling of the institutions of liberal democracy. I believe that there are two key factors to consider in untangling this question. Firstly, we need to consider that voters may have simply lost faith with liberal democracy and its ability to improve their lives. Secondly, we should appreciate that the comprehension of what liberal democracy actually means, and why it is important to the everyday lives of ordinary citizens, has gradually disappeared from public consciousness.

To the first element, it is fair to say that electorates around the world have lost some faith with liberal democracy. Liberal democracy as represented by diverse elements such as the judiciary, the EU, “experts”, and elite politicians, have become scapegoats for many social ills. In particular, the lack of public consultation over national participation in the processes of globalisation, namely immigration and financial liberalisation, has been ruthlessly exploited by populists. Populists have become successful in large part because they are engaging the public on issues that liberal democracy has failed to engage the public with.

When they raise issues that are of genuine concern to voters, populists from Trump to Grillo put forward simple solutions to complex issues – “Worried about immigration? Build a wall!”, “Tired of low pay and poor social services? Leave the EU!”, “Frustrated at how our nation is insulted by the global elite? Kick-out George Soros!” – that will not solve them. If populists have a point in highlighting the failures of liberal democracy with regard to managing immigration or facilitating increasing economic inequality, their opponents have failed in explaining that it is only with the consensus and compromise building approach inherent in liberal democracy that they can be solved.

It is not enough for defenders of liberal democracy to wait on the sidelines for populism to fall on its sword. When the actions of populists fail to deliver change to the major policy challenges they promised to solve, there will still be popular resentment about the – both perceived and real – distance of liberal democracy from the lives of ordinary voters. This situation I describe as a ‘populism doom loop’. As liberal democratic institutions and actors continue to resist reform, the ‘doom loop’ of support for populists caused by distant and disconnected liberal democratic institutions and actors will continue. The loop must be broken for the crisis of democracy to end.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

As Peter Mair’s final work ‘Ruling the Void’ conclusively argued, the post-war period has witnessed the departure of both citizens and political elites from the public political arenas inherent in liberal democracy. This withdrawal needs to be reversed. Such a process can begin with two distinct courses of action: enhanced civics education for citizens on why civic participation as citizens matters, and the meaningful inclusion of citizens in the policy-making process. Though some have argued that an era of fissiparous media consumption has removed the standards and basic facts from national political debates that previously held populism in check, the converse position is that information about our political systems has never been so accessible to so many.

The key issue here is with the ability of voters to process this information critically. This is not to label the electorate as ignorant or stupid, far from it. Rather it is to point to the desultory state of civics education around the world. Citizens have not received the kind of comprehensive education required to become active, involved, and informed citizens in an era of information oversaturation. Massachusetts has recently taken a step forward in this regard by passing a bill aimed at modernising civics education with a focus on explaining how the US political system works across its different levels, as well as promoting critical engagement with the media.

For any civic education initiative to be successful and sustained, it must be accompanied by openness to change and a willingness to innovate from elite political actors. The Irish Citizen’s Assembly is a perfect example of how liberal democracy can innovate and allow for citizens to make a meaningful contribution to the political process. Drawing from the work of academics and civil society groups, the Irish government initiated a deliberative democracy process to include citizens in a national debate on constitutional reform. This process of deliberative democracy in Ireland has been consistently extended to cover more issues related to wider policy questions. The recent referendum to remove an anti-abortion clause in the Irish constitution originated in the Citizen’s Assembly where over many weeks ordinary citizens and politicians carefully analysed complex legal, medical, and religious issues related to abortion in the Irish constitution. The recommendations from the Assembly informed the Parliamentary Committee hearings which followed and laid the foundations for the recent referendum where the result closely matched the outcome of the Citizen’s Assembly.

There is little doubt that democracy is in crisis. Electorates are voting in increasing numbers against a liberal democratic system they neither understand nor believe serves their best interests. The slow process of resolving this crisis, however, can begin with two symbiotic actions; making the importance of liberal democracy clear to voters through extensive civics education, and making it relevant to them by finding new and innovative ways to include them in the policy-making process. The US state of Massachusetts and Ireland offer two concrete examples of how the process of breaking the ‘populism doom loop’ can start.

This post originally appeared on the European Politics and Policy (LSE) blog.

John Fitzgibbon

John Fitzgibbon is adjunct faculty in Political Science in the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College and was previously an Associate Professor of European Politics at Canterbury Christ Church University.

You are here: Home / Politics / Breaking The Populism ‘Doom Loop’

Most Popular Posts

Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic
Orbán,Hungary,Russia,Putin,sanctions,European Union,EU,European Parliament,commission,funds,funding Time to confront Europe’s rogue state—HungaryStephen Pogány

Most Recent Posts

reality check,EU foreign policy,Russia Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a reality check for the EUHeidi Mauer, Richard Whitman and Nicholas Wright
permanent EU investment fund,Recovery and Resilience Facility,public investment,RRF Towards a permanent EU investment fundPhilipp Heimberger and Andreas Lichtenberger
sustainability,SDGs,Finland Embedding sustainability in a government programmeJohanna Juselius
social dialogue,social partners Social dialogue must be at the heart of Europe’s futureClaes-Mikael Ståhl
Jacinda Ardern,women,leadership,New Zealand What it means when Jacinda Ardern calls timePeter Davis

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The EU recovery strategy: a blueprint for a more Social Europe or a house of cards?

This new ETUI paper explores the European Union recovery strategy, with a focus on its potentially transformative aspects vis-à-vis European integration and its implications for the social dimension of the EU’s socio-economic governance. In particular, it reflects on whether the agreed measures provide sufficient safeguards against the spectre of austerity and whether these constitute steps away from treating social and labour policies as mere ‘variables’ of economic growth.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The winter issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The sequence of recent catastrophes has thrust new words into our vocabulary—'polycrisis', for example, even 'permacrisis'. These challenges have multiple origins, reinforce each other and cannot be tackled individually. But could they also be opportunities for the EU?

This issue offers compelling analyses on the European health union, multilateralism and international co-operation, the state of the union, political alternatives to the narrative imposed by the right and much more!


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube