1 POPULISM, SOUTH AND NORTH: Incorporation vs. social defenseCarlos H. Waisman Department of Sociology and International Studies Program University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093
2 ISSUES 1. “Populism” as a concept in social science.2. Environments conducive to the emergence and consolidation of populist movements and regimes. 3. Prospects.
3 1. IS POPULISM A USEFUL CONCEPT IN SOCIAL SCIENCE?
4 POPULISM: PEELING THE ONION3 levels: In everyday language, applied to politicians or parties that appeal to “the people”, especially the workers and the poor. In economics, applied to policies, in different regimes. In political science, sociology and history, the really existing movements and regimes defined as “populist”, especially in Latin America and Europe. Recent appearance in the U.S.
5 POPULIST MOVEMENTS AND REGIMESSOUTH: Latin American cases, either “classic” (postwar: Peronism as a paradigmatic instance) or contemporary, in the past two decades (Chavez and Maduro, Nestor and especially Cristina Kirchner). NORTH: Mostly European cases, in the past decades (Right-wing, Marine Le Pen; left-wing, Podemos). Now, Trump in the U.S.
6 THE QUESTION Does it make sense to have a concept that describes disparate movements and regimes, and in societies with different institutions and culture?
7 PRINCIPLES OF COMMONALITY AND DISTINCTIVENESSI am quite ambivalent about its use. Criterion of validity for concepts: their usefulness for social research. Two pre-conditions for validity are that the class of objects designated by the concept: - Share basic properties (principle of commonality). - Are substantially different from other classes of objects (priniciple of distinctiveness).
8 POPULISM AS A CONCEPT To what extent does ‘’’populism’’ satisfy these two principles? COMMONALITY: very partially. DISTINCTIVENESS: a little better. Conclusion: not a great concept, but it has some heuristic value.
9 THE CASE OF ‘’’TOTALITARIANISM’’“Totalitarianism”: a similar case. It comprises disparate regimes: - Right-wing: Italian Fascism and German Nazism. Very different regimes. - Left-wing: all communist regimes in their initial and institutionalization phases, from Stalinist Russia to Castro’s Cuba. Very different as well.
10 COMMONALITY AND DISTINCTIVENESS IN TOTALITARIAN REGIMESThese regimes: - Institutions: substantial similarities. - Ideologies: some similarities in their form, strong differences in their content. - Outcomes (economic and political): radically different. And yet, much better than “autocracies”, which lumps together totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Conclusion: some usefulness, but it is much more productive to treat fascism and communism separately.
11 BACK TO POPULISM In the case of populism, my conclusion will be similar: - Since there are some similarities and a stronger distinctiveness in the objects it designates, the concept has some (limited) heuristic value. - In any case, it is more productive to treat the different varieties (North-South/Left-Right) as distinct phenomena. Focus on the specific institutions, ideologies and outcomes of each type.
12 THE POINT OF DEPARTURE Populism, and other ideologies, a similar point of departure. GOAL: to defend or improve the lot of the poor or the workers (“the people”). MEANS: Classical liberal democracy and the open market economy are ineffective or dysfunctional. Cause: they serve the interests of elites and/or foreign powers, rather than those of the people. New institutions are needed.
13 COMMONALITIES: THE POPULIST POLICY PACKAGEThe populist ideological package, right and left, south and north, includes two common components: - Plebiscitarian conception of democracy [vs. republican]. - Strong economic protectionism, anti-globalization stance, economic nationalism [vs. open market economy, integration into the world economy].
14 DISTINCTIVENESS: POLITICAL POPULISM IN CONTEXTOther ideologies, opposed to classical liberal democracy, but different responses: COMMUNISM: a totalitarian state, in a command economy. FASCISM: a totalitarian state, in a capitalist economy with corporatist controls. SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY: a more inclusive democracy, anchored in a comprehensive welfare state.
15 DISTINCTIVENESS: ECONOMIC POPULISM IN CONTEXTOther ideologies, opposed to a market economy, but different responses: COMMUNISM: command economy. FASCISM: corporatist state-controlled capitalism, in a totalitarian framework. SOCIAL DEMOCRACY: redistribution, maintaining a market economy and engagement with the world economy.
16 TWO TYPES OF POPULISM MAIN SOCIAL BASE: working class, the poor.But a central difference: SOUTHERN POPULISM: Incorporation of excluded or marginal strata. Upward mobility. NORTHERN POPULISM: social defense, groups threatened with marginalization or exclusion, or already marginalized and excluded. Threat or reality of downward mobility.
17 VARIETIES OF POPULISM IVariations in their ideologies, along two axes: POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS: Southern populisms, both; Northern populisms, usually the economic dimension is stronger than the political one. RIGHT-WING vs. LEFT-WING POPULISM: indicator, presence or absence of immigration as a central issue, especially in relation to immigrants from Islamic countries (present in Northern populisms, absent in Southern ones).
18 VARIETIES OF POPULISM IIRIGHT-WING LEFT-WING PLEBISCITARIAN CONCEPTION OF DEMOCRACY yes ANTI-GLOBALIZATION, ECONOMIC NATIONALISM ANTI: IMMIGRATION /ISLAM, JIHADISM YES NO
19 SOCIAL DEMOCRACY VS. POPULISMFrequently, South American populist regimes conflated with the other leftist variant, social democracy (Lagos-Bachelet in Chile, Lula-Rouseff in Brazil, Vazquez-Mujica in Uruguay). Both: expansion of the welfare state and political inclusion, but oriented to the institutionalization of profoundly different economic and political regimes: integration into the world economy vs. autarkic capitalism, republican vs. plebiscitarian democracy.
20 Social democracy Populism Property rights Stronger Weaker SOCIAL DEMOCRACY VS. POPULISM IN THE SOUTH: CONTRASTS IN ECONOMIC POLICIES Social democracy Populism Property rights Stronger Weaker Investment Private Public Protection for manufacturing Variable Very strong - World Economy Opportunity Threat
21 SOCIAL DEMOCRACY VS. POPULISM IN THE SOUTH: TYPES OF WELFARE STATESocial democratic Populist Selection of beneficiaries Universalistic Particular- istic Criteria of allocation of benefits Statutory Discretionary Expectation of reciprocity Unconditional allocation Conditional allocation
22 2. CONTEXTS CONDUCIVE TO THE EMERGENCE OF POPULIST MOVEMENTS AND REGIMES
23 THE CENTRAL CLEAVAGE Marine Le Pen: The central cleavage is between patriots and globalists. Steve Bannon: “globalist” as a characterization of the opponents to the nationalist agenda, even within the Trump administration.
24 The emerging central cleavage in industrial societiesCentral cleavages since the beginning of the 20th Century: - Capitalists vs. workers, before the constitution of the welfare state (Conflict: over allocation of the surplus). - Organized vs. disorganized sectors, during the broad welfare state (Conflict: over allocation of revenue). - Globalists vs. nationalists, since deindustrialization, contraction of the welfare state, and intensification of globalization (Conflict: over defense vs. integration into the world economy).
25 BASIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN POPULISMSSTRATEGIC ORIENTATION: Southern populism is oriented toward political transformation through inclusion (albeit of a dependent type), and northern populism is a movement of social defense, not oriented toward political change (but both: loosening of integration into world economy). INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT: republican democratic institutions are weak in the South and strong in the North.
26 CONDITIONS CONDUCIVE TO POPULISM: SOUTHBoth classic and contemporary Southern populism: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY generated by windfall revenue (frequent in commodity booms). POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY generated by the availability of excluded or marginal strata (workers in the postwar, the urban poor today). LOW LEGITIMACY of republican institutions, due to their perceived lack of efficacy.
27 CONDITIONS CONDUCIVE TO POPULISM: NORTHThreats, economic and political (globalization, terrorism). Main economic threat to lower classes: the IT revolution, but globalization presented as the culprit. Perceived ineffectiveness of conventional parties and politicians in the management of these threats. Seeks to replace them, rather than transforming the political institutions, as does Southern populism.
28 THE CONCEPT OF AVAILABILITYThe urban poor (in the South), working classes threatened with marginalization (in the North): Available (Germani). Two situations: - Weakly incorporated into the polity (South). - Fully Incorporated, but failure of their parties to address their concerns (Left in Europe and the US). -
29 HOUSEHOLD INCOME,
30 SKILLS AND INCOMES (median wages, 2010).
31 INCOME AND COMPUTER USE
32 DECLINE OF EMPLOYMENT IN MANUFACTURING AND GROWTH IN SERVICES
33 MANUFACTURING AND SKILLED SERVICES AS PERCENTS OF GDP
34 UNIONIZATION RATE, USA
35 3. PROSPECTS
36 POPULISM: THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE?Conditions conducive to populism: likely to become permanent in the North, and to remain a recurring opportunity in the South. However, due to the differential strength of the republican institutions, more likely to seize power in the South.
37 CONSEQUENCES OF GLOBALIZATION AND THE IT REVOLUTIONIn the North and South: Growing economic inequality. Growing impact of the digital divide on the occupational structure. Decline of manufacturing and growth of services. Growing differentiation within services (growth of the skilled services sector). Decline of trade unions. BESIDES, in the NORTH: Persistence of the Jihadist threat.
38 CONSPIRACY THEORIES Joseph Uscinski and Joseph Parent, American Conspiracy Theories: Those on the left and the right believe in conspiracies roughly equally. But education matters: “42 percent of those without a high school diploma are high in conspiratorial predispositions, compared with 23 percent with postgraduate degrees.” High-stress situations like job uncertainty “prompt people to concoct, embrace and repeat conspiracy theories.” Other research shows that conspiracy theories can be a coping mechanism for uncertainty and powerlessness.
39 UNCERTAINTY AND PROPENSITY TO RISK“People’s decisions over fixed choices change in light of context. In times of gains, people tend to avoid risk. In times of loss, they are more willing to go for the gamble” (Kahnemann and Twersky).
40 SOCIAL DUALISM: TWO FORMSOLD: strata not incorporated into formal urban employment. SOCIAL BASE OF SOUTHERN POPULISM. NEW: strata “released” from formal urban employment, due to technological change and globalization, and not reintegrated into the formal sector. THEY, OR UNDER THREAT: SOCIAL BASE OF NORTHERN POPULISM.
41 SOCIAL DUALISM, SOUTH AND NORTHLATIN AMERICA: social dualism as its “deep structure”. Mostly “old”, but in the past decades also “new”. INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES: absorption of marginal strata through industrialization, and large-scale emigration as safety valve. Typically, small urban poor population. But the impact of IT and globalization: appearance of large-scale dualism of the “new” type (“release” from manufacturing and skilled services) in these societies.
42 THE FUTURE OF POPULISM IN THE NORTHTransformation of the Northern social structures, and generation of permanent conditions conducive to defensive populism: The impact of globalization and the IT revolution. Immigration. The Jihadist threat.
43 THE FUTURE OF POPULISM IN THE SOUTHIn the South, recurring opportunities for the coming to power of populist movements: Cyclical fluctuation of commodity prices. Continuing institutional weakness. Continued availability of excluded or marginal strata (the urban poor) as a political base. Populist economic policies distribute income to the poor, but maintain them in poverty and dependence (welfare payments and educational inclusion, rather than expansion of sustainable formal employment and improvement in the quality of education).
44 INHERENT CONTRADICTION IN SOUTHERN POPULISMObjective: the strengthening of the state, in order to use it as an instrument for the institutionalization of a closed economy and a plebiscitarian democracy. However, a plebiscitarian democracy, especially if it slides into elective authoritarianism, implies the politicization of the state apparatus (public administration and the judiciary). Outcome: the de-bureaucratization (in a Weberian sense) of the state, i.e. its weakening as an instrument for social transformation.
45 A DURKHEIMIAN MOMENT IN THE NORTH: REVISITING EDWARD LUTTWAK AND WILLIAM KORNHAUSERIn the emerging Northern polity, among the lower-middle class and the blue-collar working class: High levels of insecurity. Erosion of connection to established parties. Decline or disappearance of unions. Two distinct segments: Those who still have “good jobs” in the old economy, but feel threatened (Luttwak’s argument). Those who have lost the “good jobs”, i.e. the newly excluded. Weaker social ties (Kornhauser’s argument). The big question of our time: are Luttwak’s and Kornhauser’s arguments empirically valid?
46 LUTTWAK: FASCISM, WAY OF THEFUTURE?Edward Luttwak’s argument, recently resuscitated, thanks to Trump (and applicable to the blue-collar working class): [After the dislocation produced by globalization and the contraction of the welfare state]“A vast political space is…left vacant by the Republican/Tory non-sequitur, on the one hand, and moderate Left particularism and assistentialism, on the other... (T)his is the space that remains wide open for a product-improved Fascist party, dedicated to the enhancement of the personal economic security of the broad masses of (mainly) white collar working people.” (“Why Fascism is the Way of the Future”, London Review of Books, 1994)
47 KORNHAUSER: SOCIAL TIES AND TOTALITARIANISM“The Politics of Mass Society”(1959): weakening of social ties and support for extremist movements (a Durkheimian argument). Dismissed as an explanation for twentieth- Century totalitarianism, but similar arguments in the current environment. Applicable to workers who lost manufacturing jobs and were “released” into part-time / short-term work or the unskilled services sector.
48 A SOCIALDEMOCRATIC ALTERNATIVE?Economic and social obstacles. A social-democratic formula would entail: Welfare state expansion: larger but sustainable, and “enabling” rather than just supporting. Education overhaul: provision of technical skills (programming, data management, etc.) to the sectors at risk. This, more feasible with younger workers than with the older ones (for whom the goal might be attained in relation to the next generation).
49 CONCLUSION This Durkheimian moment may be temporary, a phase in the development of the West, but it has the potential to have major political and economic consequences (as happened in structurally similar situations: 18th-19th Century industrialization and the Depression of the 1930s).