A decade of Populism
A look back at the tumultuous decade that has been the 2010s through the phenomenon of Populism
(A note to begin with. I used to be a somewhat regular poster on my blog “Journal Entry” (previously hosted on Blogspot, but now transitioning to Substack) till about a few years back. But then inertia took over and I stopped blogging completely. This post is one of those incomplete posts, that have been lying in my drafts for a long time. Recently, with the pandemic and having to spend all this time sitting at home, it occurred to me that perhaps getting back to writing a bit again might be a good idea. And so I decided to start by working on publishing this topic first before moving on to other things.)
A decade of Populism - Part 1
What is Populism ? Is it a good thing or bad ? Have major democracies been caught up in a populist tide ? Is it doing well ? Do we see a course correction in the near future ?
Populism of course, is very difficult to define or pin down. Is it good or bad will depend on who is answering the question. I will return to this question at the end of this post, with my own tentative definition. For now, let's try to understand what happened in the last decade.
A number of significant electoral results through the last decade in the West have meant that Populism and along with it, allied concepts like Nationalism, have become a much discussed and one might even say much maligned topic of discussion in the mainstream media. The cultural forces which have had the wind on their backs, both on the left and the right, tend to be quite populist in their character.
So why did Populism rise ? This article, in WaPo which carried an interview of Dani Rodrick explained it simply. Read the interview for a quick look at both Left wing & Right wing populism.
For decades, it seemed like the world was on an unstoppable march toward closer integration. The world was flat and getting flatter, thanks to the spread of multinational corporations, new technologies like the Internet and international migration, all of which knit together far-flung countries around the world.
Since the financial crisis, however, globalization no longer appears inevitable. Countries, including the United States, have seen the rise of a populist backlash against more liberalized trade and international integration that could result in globalization playing out in reverse -- with countries' economies becoming more insulated and less integrated.
This paragraph made a key point highlighting the difference between the deep causes of rising population and the popular narrative around it used for packaging it.
I make a distinction between the deep causes of populism, and the political narratives around which they get wrapped. The deep causes of populism are economic and structural, generally speaking. There might be residues of racism and ethno-nationalism in the United States and other European countries, but I don’t think that’s what’s really driving populism. What’s driving it is the economic insecurities, the rising inequality, and the economic and social divisions that have been created, not just by globalization, but by the kind of policies we have pursued in the last few decades.
So, how disparaging was the coverage of this upsurge in Populism across the mainstream media ? Douglas Murray explained at length in this brilliant article. Some of the best bits that explain the attitude are reproduced here :
"..But, make no mistake, it is now being used as a sneering, pejorative term to describe the extraordinary social phenomenon sweeping both Europe and the U.S. as millions and millions of people express their anger at the ballot box over the indolence, corruption and complacency of their nation's political elite."
"..In all of these cases — and many, many more besides — the way the words populist and populism are used implies menace, accompanied by a hint of demagoguery and an insidious suggestion that the voters defying the West's governing classes have racist sympathies."
"..To liberals, the word populist indicates these voters are vulgar, ill-informed and under-educated. It suggests a lumpen mass of people — quite different, of course, from the well-informed and well-heeled commentators and political leaders who feel something has to be done about unsavoury views of the general public."
"Though rarely overtly expressed, that is the view of those who throw around the 'p' word. They believe that there is a respectable way of thinking — and then a populist, unacceptable way of thinking.
Historically one of the most defining aspects of populism has been a politics which sees the people in one corner, and the elites — especially the political elites — in another.
Populist movements have almost invariably concerned themselves with the difference between the gilded lives of those in power and the struggle of the people they were meant to represent.
The reason the word populist has especially dark connotations today, however, is that it is so often associated with the rise of fascism in Europe — when megalomaniac dictators such as Hitler and Mussolini climbed to power using crowd-pleasing soapbox oratory during the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s.
This is why it is so insidious when politicians and media outlets such as the BBC use the word populist with such abandon to smear views with which they disagree.
It is a play on language that repeatedly suggests it is the people, rather than the political Establishment, who are wrong.""..If a majority of voters in a country feel a certain way about something, then it is wise — especially if you are a politician — to at least consider the possibility that the public are right.
Instead of pretending the electorate has been lobotomised by brilliant but dangerous demagogues, it is far wiser to address its genuine concerns.""To disregard the concerns of the public is a serious mistake for any politician. They may be able to ignore it for a time, but at some point the people will be heard. Using words like 'populist' to insult the public is just a desperate final attempt to put off the inevitable."
If we leave aside the issues of culture wars and identity politics for the time being, what is the economic side of populism ? Simply put, it is the reaction from the losers of globalization and free trade who have been suffering over the last few decades, without getting much of a voice from the mainstream politicians and the elites. Donald Trump's one time advisor, Steve Bannon made the case for "Economic Nationalism", which is explained as below.
Mr Bannon talks about economic nationalism as the antithesis of “globalism”, which he characterises as a governing creed which has put the economic interests of multinational firms and a wealthy international elite above those of ordinary working class Americans.
Assuming that the term reflects the kind of political and economic policies Mr Trump has been espousing, it seems to be a cocktail of trade protectionism, hostility to immigration (especially Muslim immigration), political pressure on domestic corporations and belligerent unilateralism.
Interestingly enough, it wasn't only Steve Bannon who was making the case against globalization pre 2016 elections. In this blogpost, Dr V Anantha Nageswaran, captures how well known liberals such as Paul Krugman and Noah Smith were making a case against globalisation and how !
Krugman says : But it’s also true that much of the elite defense of globalization is basically dishonest: false claims of inevitability, scare tactics (protectionism causes depressions!), vastly exaggerated claims for the benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of protection, handwaving away the large distributional effects that are what standard models actually predict. I hope, by the way, that I haven’t done any of that; I think I’ve always been clear that the gains from globalization aren’t all that (here’s a back-of-the-envelope on the gains from hyperglobalization — only part of which can be attributed to policy — that is less than 5 percent of world GDP over a generation); and I think I’ve never assumed away the income distribution effects….
… So the elite case for ever freer trade is largely a scam, which voters probably sense even if they don’t know exactly what form it’s taking….
… And if a progressive makes it to the White House, she should devote no political capital whatsoever to such things. [Link]
So, how is this wing of populism or nationalism doing. I think the early view of the impact of this was quite skeptical from experts. For instance it was noted that there was not much Trump did that was substantively populist in his early days, he was merely following standard Republican policy. Or take this piece from Ramesh Ponnuru where he says it is not clear how much economic nationalism which translates to skepticism on trade and immigration voters really want:
For one thing, it’s not clear that voters consider this debate central to their or our country’s fate. When Gallup asks Americans what they consider the most important problem for the nation, 8 percent say immigration. Foreign trade and the trade deficit get an asterisk, meaning that less than 1 percent of Americans volunteer those answers. By contrast, roughly 24 percent of Americans list economic problems without mentioning any tie-in to globalization.
An anti-globalist might reply that trade and immigration lurk behind the problems that worry Americans even if they do not realize it, and so politics will have to put these issues at the forefront. But that’s not right either. Low-skilled immigration may pull down the wages of native-born high-school dropouts. That possibility should certainly affect our immigration policy. But 88 percent of Americans have completed high school. The case that immigration is hurting them economically is non-existent. Controlling immigration is not vital to our economic future.
Neither is curtailing trade. A recent study strengthened the case that trade with China has hurt some communities. But even that study conceded that a large majority of job losses in manufacturing between 1991 and 2007 had nothing to do with trade — and it also said that the negative impact on manufacturing jobs was already over.
Much of Donald Trump's rhetoric and action around his economic nationalism agenda revolved around talking about trade disputes and imbalances. Whether it was China or Mexico, or even India, trade deficits and tariffs came into the fore. And so while there is still a question mark on whether tariffs and a trade war can bring back the jobs that went away with free trade and globalization, there is still a very good reason for the US to have that trade war with China from a strategic viewpoint. This piece in National Review makes a superb case for that.
China’s rise may be inevitable. But given the danger represented by that rise, America can choose to minimize its risk. It can reduce opportunities for China to erode the long-term competitive advantage of American firms through forced technology transfer and R&D migration, and reduce our dependence on Chinese manufacturing for crucial industrial and military supply chains. In a word: decoupling.
Trump’s trade war is a recognition that American policy toward China should seek to prevent American businesses from speeding the rise of an adversary. Tariffs are one piece of an emerging anti-China strategy. The Trump administration is rolling out new export controls to limit the transfer of sensitive technologies such as AI and quantum computing. And it has blacklisted high-tech Chinese firms such as the telecom giant Huawei from doing business in the U.S.
Tariffs are failing if the goal is the lowest prices for consumers — the free traders’ preferred metric of success. But if strategic decoupling is the goal, tariffs are succeeding. The New York Times recently reported that “American companies that once believed the trade war would blow over are now scrambling to limit their exposure to China.” Dozens of American companies — including high-tech giants Apple, HP, Dell, and Google’s parent company, Alphabet — have outlined plans to move their supply chains out of China in the coming years. Future business is leaving too: 30 percent of CEOs surveyed by the U.S.–China Business Council have delayed or cancelled investments in China due to trade pressure. Trump’s call for American businesses to leave China is being heeded — not because of his tweets, but because of his tariffs.
All said and done, the case for bringing (back ?) manufacturing, perhaps imposing tariffs on an upcoming hegemon like China and basically re-structuring global supply chains, has been made best by the unfortunate circumstances of the Corona virus pandemic. As countries woke up to the fact that they are utterly dependent on China or incapable of manufacturing even basic things like medicine having outsourced manufacturing to lower cost locations totally, it hit home hard for folks that this level of globalization has made countries fragile.
India too, had it's moment of reckoning and so now, we have a new initiative called Atmanirbhar Bharat or Self-reliant India to basically manufacture more stuff within India. It calls for a fine balancing act to prevent oneself from becoming a protectionist or closed economy, while at the same time becoming anti-fragile and having manufacturing capabilities within the country of critical items. It is also about taking the opportunity provided by this crisis and become part of the global re-orientation of supply chains that will inevitably take place in the post Covid world.
Part 2
In part 1 of this post, my focus was predominantly on Populism from the Right. In case only the word 'populism' is used, typically it tends to refer to Right Wing Populism and the word is mostly used in the pejorative sense in mainstream media.
However, there is Populism from the Left as well, and often the terms Socialist, or Democratic Socialism are used to describe these movements. Not many use the term populism to describe these movements given the toxic character that the word has come to take. The most prominent left populist movement have been best exemplified by the likes of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. While these movements managed to capture significant mind space and generated tremendous interest in politics, especially from younger sections of the population, ultimately electoral success eluded them. Sanders, twice fell short of securing the Democratic party nomination. Corbyn, at least managed to become Labor leader, but ultimately failed to win the general election twice, including a historic drubbing in 2019, when he fell on the wrong side of the Brexit question.
Having said this, the success of these movements cannot be judged only by the ultimate electoral victory of otherwise of their figureheads. These movements have pulled their parties significantly leftwards in general as well as brought in more ideological members into Congress/ Parliament as well, the so called 'The Squad' in the US, being one such example.
So what are the broad themes or areas which are the distinguishing factors for the new populist left and how does it differ from the mainstream center left as well as other more progressive parts of the left, who may still not be fully populist. I think we can look at various key topics such as immigration, healthcare, environment, , social justice and so on. Let's try to look at these mostly towards the American context to begin with.
On Immigration, traditionally the Right was more pro high skilled immigration and anti low skilled immigration, while the Left was vice versa, with increasing rhetoric around open borders. However, this is where parts of the populist left diverge as they are not particularly enthusiastic about open borders and also more skeptical than the rest of the left on a lot of low skilled immigration as it is competition for the native working class population.
On Healthcare, the Socialist/ Populist Left is extremely keen on moving to a single payer system. As you move towards the center from that point, the puritanism of that solution gradually reduces and more of a role for the market is acknowledged and desired. However there is no doubt that the Left is far more keen on increasing spending on healthcare than the Right - the modalities vary depend on where on the Left one sees.
On Environment, one sees a similar trajectory, with the radical Green New Deal, being the desired goal for the Socialist/ Populist Left. Similar to healthcare, the radicalism perhaps reduces once you move to towards the centre, but again this is one more topic where the Left is far more animated about. The Populist Right on the other hand is pro Fracking for example.
Finally on Social Justice, another topic which truly animates the Left, different sections have different priorities and different levels of emphasis. However what can be said in general is that whether it is #BlackLivesMatter or #DefundThePolice, the Populist Left is certainly trying to be part of these animating movements which are currently sweeping across the landscape.
Ultimately though, populism has a few common characteristics, such as a revolt against elites, a repudiation of technocratic management and governance, a rallying cry often led by an outsider to the system. It is about culture over economics. It is about doing a politics of meaning and identity.
The success of the populist plank on the Right has been driven by this politics of meaning and identity, with issues like opposition to Immigration, Free trade, Outsourcing etc (or say Brexit in UK) galvanizing voters to it's side. The Left is in some sense also trying to do that and one way of understanding it would be through the various protest marches that have happened during the Donald Trump presidency.
Shadi Hamid, wrote this excellent long article wherein he imagines what a Left Populist plank would look like. Here are some of the paragraphs which summaries the most key issues:
Identity over Politics - To be a good populist, whether of the Right or Left variety, requires a different set of starting assumptions about human motivations. In his oft-pilloried 1993 article “The Clash of Civilizations?,” Samuel Huntington wrote, “The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.”7 Right-wing populists instinctively grasp this point. The Left by contrast, continuing a debt (however remote) to Marxism, tends to view history as a clash of classes—a dominant class that owns and controls the means of production and a subordinate class that does not. At the heart of Marxist thought is historical materialism, which asserts that human civilization and cultural institutions—morality, religion, law—are determined by the structure of economic activity.
Toward an Economics of Meaning - If politics is ultimately about our deepest fears and desires rather than about, say, tax policy or better health care, then what place is there for a Left whose raison d’être will always be tied to improving the economic fortunes of the least fortunate? One answer is to begin to outline an “economics of meaning,” where economic or class critiques are a means to channel anger, create meaning, and build solidarity rather than to implement better policy outcomes (although, of course, policy changes would be good on their own, for moral rather than necessarily electoral reasons). This requires changing standard conceptions of what elections are for and what it means to win.
But if, for the populist, politics is not about “what works,” it also isn’t about building consensus, resolving differences, fostering civility, or many of the other things the center-left and center-right hold dear. Democracy, instead, is about conflict. To be democratic is to embrace conflict as a natural and even healthy feature of political life. These two starting premises—that political cleavages are fundamentally about culture rather than economics and that democratic politics is inherently confrontational—offer a more promising and realistic foundation for leftist politics and specifically for Left populism.
At the same time, a Left populism must be populist. Populists, more so than center-right and center-left parties, accent the popular element of popular sovereignty. A greater level of democratic responsiveness thus lies at the heart of every populist project. Such an emphasis may mean taking into account public discomfort with “high” levels of immigration, slowing the pace of immigration accordingly, and prioritizing integration. This effort may be in tension with ideal conceptions of justice, but Left populism’s duty to be anti-racist should be distinguished from determinations on levels of immigration. Here, the distinction between the treatment of citizens and noncitizens—one that good leftists are increasingly uncomfortable acknowledging—is critical. Would-be immigrants do not have the same legal and constitutional rights as American, French, or Spanish citizens. Within a country’s own borders and when it comes to those who are already citizens, however, a Left populism can and must uphold an unequivocal anti-racism and a moral commitment to equality before the law.
The Task of Left Populism : The challenge for left-wing populists lies in developing a coherent ideology that embraces the “economics of meaning” without reverting to a failed orthodoxy. In recent decades, the strategy of the technocratic Left has been to separate economics from meaning and to divorce policy from politics. But this strategy increasingly yields diminishing returns, since debates over economics are always about more than simply improving material outcomes. It is also disingenuous: the technocratic consensus never transcended the fundamental, agonistic realities of politics; it simply refused to acknowledge them.
The task for Left populist movements is to do the opposite. If they can reconnect economics with meaning and successfully reinterpret economic questions as fundamentally moral rather than material, they can reshape, perhaps decisively, how Western democracies think and talk not just about economic justice but about culture, identity, and demography.
If you do take the time to read the article in detail, you will find that in all this, Left populists do have a tough task of attempting to very delicately balance often seemingly contradictory impulses. From trying to infuse meaning into dry economics issues, or trying to remain being champions of anti racism, while also trying to control immigration levels which are palatable to the masses, clearly this is going to be a challenging road ahead. And yet, current events in the West, in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder gives me the impression that tectonic shifts are underway in western society and the Left could be suddenly in a very dominant position politically, in addition to it's primacy in the cultural sphere.
Part 3
In parts 1 and 2, we looked at the phenomenon of Populism, primarily at the American but also broadly Western political scenario. If we look at the Indian scenario however, we see that the usage of the term populism is slightly in a different and more limited context.
India's culture wars within politics are contested on the secularism vs nationalism argument. Populism is mostly looked at from an economic sense. One sees the term "freebies" often associated with the narrative around populism in India. It is common for political parties to offer free goods (such as food grains, bicycles or even televisions) and services (reduced charges for electricity / water or even free).
To understand populism in the Indian scenario, this article by Anil Padmanabhan in Mint, is extremely useful. The article was written in the context of the Indian election commission issuing notices to certain political parties on the appropriateness of several so called "populist measures" in their manifestos. The author argues that this should ideally be left to the wisdom of the electorate.
The article also contains this excellent chart on what are some of the populist promises made by political parties in India.
Source: Livemint
Below are some of the parts of the article, which along with the table above give a fair idea about what is populism in the Indian context and why it may not be a bad thing.
The Oxford dictionary defines populism as: The quality of appealing to or being aimed at ordinary people. In a country like India, where the ordinary people grossly outnumber the khaas aadmi (the elites) and the levels of absolute poverty, despite the decline, are staggering, such intentions are totally understandable.
Yes; populism is to be condemned when the undeserving benefit from such offerings. An apt example would be the Delhi government’s scheme for subsidized power, which includes the well-off in the list of beneficiaries. It is unfair when the rich are beneficiaries, and they will voluntarily never let go—visible in the reluctance of the well-off to comply with the Union government’s request to voluntarily give up on their LPG (cooking gas) subsidy.
The larger question to be answered is, why is it that such basics—like providing three square meals a day and basic healthcare—inevitably proffered at the time of elections are such a challenge seven decades after India gained independence.
In my view, populism is something that can be looked as a quick fix measure to solve a problem or fulfill a need as opposed to more systematic measure or reforms which may be more beneficial in the long run, but by design will take time to deliver results. And since politicians always have limited time before the next election cycle comes up, it is always tempting to delay reforms and come up with populist measures to solve problems.
Populism vs reform sometimes does play out to a larger disadvantage as whenever a ruling party tries some major reform like say Land Reforms as was attempted by the NDA govt in it's first term, it was attacked for following a "pro-business" policy by the opposition (the infamous suit-boot jibe by Rahul Gandhi comes to mind) and that made the ruling party somewhat retreat. Of course, it isn't true that populist attacks always scuttle reforms, the GST being an example in the other direction.
Narendra Modi has the interesting characteristic of being called a Right wing populist by the western media (apart from various people), while also being attacked by more populist opponents at home. I suppose one could say he is looked at as a Right wing populist from a cultural angle from the outside (which makes him a Nationalist at home), while he is definitely to the right of most of his opponents as far as economic matters go. One does have to note, that all Indian political parties are broadly to the Left of center on economics, but still it is a matter of magnitude - between communists, socialists and center left etc.
And this push or pressure from the left of the center has certainly influenced Narendra Modi's policies as a Prime Minister. Demonitization could be described as a populist measure seen to take on the elites. Similarly, despite being a critic of MGNREGA in the past, Modi did not scrap the scheme, but continued it with certain modifications. We have seen the populist / welfare focussed side of Narendra Modi in various other schemes as well such as the Ujjwala Yojana for example Rajeev Deshpande in this article gave a good explanation of Modi's policies, using the term Compassionate Conservatism to describe his policies.
To end, this 3 part post on populism, let me try and summarize Populism as I see it broadly in terms of it's commonly observed characteristics:
Populism is often a politics of meaning, feelings, passion rather a politics based on policy effectiveness. One of the more common features of this feelings based politics is In-Group vs Out-Group related narrative that is often brought up by populists ;
Populists are often but not always coming from what is perceived as outside the mainstream of politics. This outsider status makes it easier to attack the status quo/ entrenched elites ;
Populists are likely to be Nationalists or even Localists as opposed to Globalists. The Davos consensus about Globalization around Free movements of goods, services, capital and labour is unlikely to be accepted as a fait accompli by populists ;
Populism seeks to solve problems quickly or immediately rather than wait for a more slower, reform oriented process and stands in opposition to what can be described typically as technocratic managerialism ; and finally
Populists don't need to win elections to change the trajectory of politics or even achieve their desired outcomes, sometimes just their significant presence or pressure is able to change the directions of policies towards their desired direction.
Whether, populism is good or bad - I don't think it is really a useful question anymore, as populism of some nature is ultimately inevitable in today's world given the inequities around us. And while populists might not make the best administrators, they do provide an insight to the issues facing the common man, which hitherto have been ignored by lot of the professional political classes. And ultimately, no serious political movement or party, irrespective of their branding, can ignore these insights and concerns.
Populism definitely was one of the most discussed phenomenon in politics around the world in the last decade. It will perhaps continue to be very crucial as we go into the new decade. The 2020 US elections will be an early indicator on the shape of politics to come this decade. It will be interesting to see how traditional or mainstream political parties (factions within parties) adopt to the recent changes and challenges that are coming from populists as they struggle to maintain their relevance and impact.