The Perception Gap in Western Democracies
When people are asked what they think about democracy, the results usually show a clear pattern: Citizens in the Western hemisphere overwhelmingly support the principles of liberal democracy, but they are less convinced that their own country lives up to these principles.
There is a gap between democratic aspirations and perceptions of how democracy works in reality. In addition, citizens, on average, have low levels of trust in parliaments, political parties, and politicians. They generally do not believe that politicians care what they think and often doubt that they can influence political decisions.
Globalization and modernization have undoubtedly taken place, and their negative consequences for some groups help to understand the rise of populism.
Finally, citizens believe that parliament should change policies if large majorities want to, but they do not believe that parliaments would do so. All in all, most citizens, even in long-established democracies, have a rather sober view of democratic reality. Democracy does not work well for all of them.
These empirical patterns are not unfounded. At least, there are good reasons to believe that democracies have moved further away from some of their principles in the last decades. If democracy worked better again, populism would resonate less with citizens. At least, this is what we argue in The Democratic Regression.
Understanding the Rise of Populism: Economic, Cultural, and Political Factors
The causes of populism have been widely discussed in the scholarly literature. Two strands stand out. First, many have argued that support for populist parties is a consequence of economic change. Globalization has put pressure on low-skilled workers in particular, as they face increased competition from abroad and an abundance of labor at home. Losers from globalization—or those who fear becoming losers—turn to populist parties that promise to protect them.
The economic and cultural accounts need to be complemented by a genuinely political account of the rise of populism.
A second strand of literature focuses on long-term cultural change. As societies become richer and economic hardship less urgent, younger cohorts develop more socially liberal and post-material values, which in turn challenge established norms, traditions, and practices. Especially those people who lose their dominant role in society turn against the change.
But even many of those who grew up with these older values feel pushed aside and fear that their way of life is being devalued. Again, the losers of modernization, as we can call this group, are more likely to vote for parties that defend a (poorly defined) past when life was better, the country was greater, and people were more decent.
Once in power, authoritarian populists become populist authoritarians.
Globalization and modernization have undoubtedly taken place, and their negative consequences for some groups help to understand the rise of populism.
But these changes do not come about on their own, and there are many ways in which politics can either contain them or respond to them.
Moreover, the empirical support for hypotheses looking only at cultural or economic issues is not very strong. Thus, the economic and cultural accounts need to be complemented by a genuinely political account of the rise of populism.
While these two perspectives seem to place the causes of populism beyond the reach of democratic politics, we argue that we can only make sense of its rise by focusing on the discontents of democracy. It is the politically selective handling of long-term social change that provokes a populist defensive reaction.
The political explanation of populism begins with democracy’s real deficits in representation. Not all social groups are equally well represented, and the interests of the better-off receive more than their fair share of attention. Explanations of populism cannot ignore these weaknesses of democracy.
The Erosion of Democratic Responsiveness
There are two mechanisms that erode representative democracy and contribute to citizen frustration. The first is the transfer of decision-making power from parliaments to “non-majoritarian institutions” (NMI) such as central banks, constitutional courts, or international bodies such as the European Commission.
There are good substantial reasons for shifting decision-making power. For example, governments may be overwhelmingly concerned with the short-term consequences of policy decisions at the expense of long-term ones. They may also react too swiftly to changes in public opinion, leading to inconsistent and potentially contradictory decisions. Moreover, some decisions have to be made in international institutions to be effective in a denationalized world.
The political explanation of populism begins with democracy’s real deficits in representation.
However, the well-documented shift from elected officials to unelected bodies also means that accountability decreases and citizens find it more difficult to assign responsibility.
In extreme cases, as in Greece during the European financial crisis, elections may bring about a change of government but not a change of policy, because large areas of economic sovereignty have been surrendered. But even in less dramatic cases, parliaments are limited in the choices they can make, which makes them less responsive to citizens’ interests and preferences.
From a democratic point of view, the delegation of decision-making powers is not necessarily problematic if it can be revoked and if the agencies act in a neutral manner. However, especially in the international context, changing the mandate of an NMI may require a complex renegotiation of treaties with very high majority thresholds. This is often not possible.
Both positive action and inaction can lead to imbalances in political responsiveness.
In addition, the composition of NMIs may be biased in favor of free markets and individual liberties. Because of the selection mechanisms, the staff of the organizations is often highly educated and international in outlook. They may favor a different set of policies than citizens. In the absence of an accountability mechanism, people feel dominated by political bodies that they cannot influence.
In areas where parliaments still retain sovereignty, their decisions are biased toward better-off groups, and that’s the second source of the representation deficit. Several empirical studies have shown that decisions in the United States more closely reflect the preferences of the rich than those of the poor. In particular, when the two groups have conflicting preferences, policy decisions follow those of the rich and the better educated.
A key author in this literature, Martin Gilens, argues that the need of politicians to find wealthy donors to finance their campaigns creates this advantage for the rich. However, several other studies have found the same patterns for European countries such as Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands, which rely on a very different type of campaign financing.
Where populists rule, the quality of democracy deteriorates, conflicts intensify, and polarization increases.
While several other potential factors have been identified, one important one seems to be the composition of parliaments. In rich democracies, men, university graduates, and the wealthy are over-represented, while workers, for example, are hugely under-represented. In addition, more and more MPs are “career politicians” who have never worked outside professional politics and who are more loyal to the party leadership than to any particular cause.
Unequal responsiveness does not necessarily mean that parliaments make decisions in line with the preferences of the rich but can also be expressed in non-decisions. If the status quo is biased in favor of some groups and politics fails to take action to mitigate this, it is also unequally responsive. Especially in political systems with high barriers to implementing policy reforms, the status quo can be very difficult to change. In short, both positive action and inaction can lead to imbalances in political responsiveness, and these imbalances have been documented in several countries.
Populism as a Response to Democratic Discontent
Given the two mechanisms that undermine the responsiveness of representative democracy at the national level, there are reasons why some citizens feel alienated from it. In fact, the socioeconomic voting patterns in favor of right-wing populist parties closely reflect which groups feel better and worse represented.
The bitter irony and danger of populism is that it does nothing to improve democracy.
In general, people with lower incomes and lower levels of education are most likely to agree that their voices are not heard and that, for them, politics is a game not worth playing.
The deck of cards seems stacked against them.
Many who feel this way stay home on election day, but some also turn to anti-establishment parties that promise to speak for them. The populist zeitgeist is fueled by the shortcomings of representative democracy.
The Destructive Impact of Populism on Democracy
But the bitter irony and danger of populism is that it does nothing to improve democracy. Indeed, where populist parties and leaders took office, they did everything to weaken democracy. In countries like Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and Venezuela, populists have undermined judicial independence, harassed opposition parties, sought to control mass media, and changed electoral laws to their own advantage. Where populists rule, the quality of democracy deteriorates, conflicts intensify, and polarization increases. Their main goal is to ensure that elections no longer threaten their rule. Once in power, authoritarian populists become populist authoritarians.
One indication of the metamorphosis is that populists are sore losers at the polls, in spite of calling for the rule of the majority. They adhere to a worldview that opposes “them” and “us” and sees “them” as an out-of-touch elite, traitors, or even enemies. Therefore, losing is not something to be accepted gracefully, as Donald Trump and his supporters have made clear. Losing means not only that you do not value certain policies, but also that you are governed by people you resent.
Established parties may fall prey to populist attacks as they are put on the defensive.
In fact, if politics is the division between friends and enemies, losing is tantamount to defeat, and winning is tantamount to victory.
Moreover, because populists believe that there can be no reasonable disagreement about what the right policy choices are, and that the people are united in their opposition to the elite, it is hard to imagine ever losing an election.The very fact of losing signals to populists that the process was rigged and that there must have been electoral fraud.
Winning, on the other hand, is seen not only as the outcome of an election that one personally favors, but also as the “right” side winning. For populists, winning or losing an election is an indication of the functioning of the democratic system itself. As a result, once in power, they are willing to manipulate the rules of the game to ensure that they do not lose in the future.
The Populism Trap and the Future of Democracy
In sum, the populists’ attacks on so-called mainstream parties and their promise to speak for the people partly resonate with citizens because there are real shortcomings in the way representative democracy works.
However, the response of non-populist parties and politicians to this challenge is often to dismiss the criticism as unfounded. Instead of becoming advocates of democratic reform, these parties do become defenders of the status quo that many citizens perceive as unsatisfactory.
We can call this the “populism trap”: Rather than acknowledging the need to readjust representative democracy, non-populist parties point at the dangers of populism. But warnings that democracy might suffer are less convincing when many people already think it is not working well enough and have little trust in parliaments and parties.
A better, but much more demanding, response would be to outline a positive vision of how democracy can be deepened and the promise of political equality more faithfully fulfilled. Established parties may fall prey to populist attacks as they are put on the defensive. Defending a weakened form of representative democracy may hand power to those who will further unravel it and impose more autocratic forms of rule.
