3
I
The contested status of populism in democratic theory is reflected in definitional
difficulties as well as alternating generational assessments. Its “constitutional ambiguity”
(Taguieff 1997, 11), “awkward conceptual slipperiness” ( Taggart 2000, 1); “vagueness”
(Canovan 1999, 4) are traceable in part to competing conceptions of democracy itself.
Populist rhetorical references to “the people,” for example, are replicated in conventional
democratic discourse. The extent to which populist usage is distinct, and hence a defining
characteristic, depends in part whether the focus is in some ways either hyperbolic or
restorative. Thus both Richard Hoftstadter and Robert Goodwin place “appeals to the
people” as an essential element of populist thought. For Hofstadter, this “simple social
classification” overlooks “the idea that society consists of number of different and
clashing interests (64).” For Goodwin, however, this unitary trope is a “crucial
democratic insight” that is necessary for people create the confidence to experiment with
“new democratic forms.”
i
Similarly, the question of whether populism should be defined primarily as
agrarian protest raises the question of whether such movements primarily reflect a feeling
of dread of modernity in which “the central culture was swallowing up more and more of
the diverse local cultures” (Turner 1980) or whether populists intuited a “more decent,
responsible, and human social order” (Palmer 1980) in periods of economic and cultural
transition. Are populists composed largely of farmers and “small producers” and hence
retrograde movements destined to fail(Green 1980; Johnson 1983))? Or do populists
intuit the long term failure of economic consolidation and “progress” (Lasch 1991)? Even
a more general definition that expands populism beyond agrarian protest is sometimes
Convention