Abstract This article explores the relationship between music and populism. It is commonly assumed that popular music in particular is intrinsically populist. There is, though, no necessary link between the two, and this article examines how and when music becomes implicated in the populist politics of the right and the left. It does this by focusing on the rhetoric of song lyrics, on the stylistic forms of music’s political communication and on the organisational resources that music and musicians bring to populism. The article ends by considering the tensions between music as commercial product and music as political expression, and how this affects its relationship with populism. It uses the example of the English protest song as its main case study
Abstract This article examines parliamentary incivility in Portugal in light of Chega’s parliamentary breakthrough in 2019. While “bad manners” have been theorised as central to the populist style, their empirical operation within institutional settings remains underexplored, particularly in the Portuguese context. Drawing on a mixed-methods design combining quantitative content analysis of 2,021 coded interactions, correspondence analysis, and qualitative discourse interpretation of plenary transcripts (2015–2025), the study compares incivility before and after Chega’s entry into parliament. Results show that instances of bad manners more than doubled following Chega’s arrival, with the party emerging as the principal driver of this change. Its communicative style, however, relied less on direct insult than on disruption and performative visibility. The findings advance the literature by reassessing bad manners within representative institutions and by highlighting how performative incivility reshapes democratic communication and the symbolic norms of parliamentary debate in Portugal.
Abstract This article analyses Alexis Tsipras’ rhetoric during Syriza’s 2022–2023 election campaign, focusing on the use of populist themes to mobilise support and structure political conflict. Employing a mixed-method approach that combines quantitative frequency analysis with qualitative discourse analysis, the study examines the presence of anti-elitism, people-centrism, and moral binaries in Tsipras’ discourse. It finds that political opposition is frequently framed not primarily in policy terms but in moral terms related to democratic legitimacy. The article further considers how this rhetoric implicitly questioned the established rule of recognition, as theorised by H.L.A. Hart, by challenging the authority of existing legal and political norms. Overall, the study contributes to understanding how populist discourse operates within democratic contexts marked by institutional strain and declining public trust, and how such narratives may influence prevailing conceptions of political legitimacy.
This introduction presents a special issue of Populism dedicated to the Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia, or FdI). Under Giorgia Meloni's leadership, the party secured a dominant position in the Italian government following the 2022 elections. The introduction argues that FdI's constitutive and dynamic ambivalence-simultaneously rooted in a fascist legacy and embedded within an established Western European democracy-cannot be adequately captured by static and univocal labels. The five collected articles address open issues in the literature by applying populism as a malleable ideological, rhetorical, and communicative tool across dimensions of gender and leadership, organizational dynamics, constitutional and legal strategies, chameleonic institutionalization, and discursive ambivalence in EU elections. The introduction also reflects on the normative implications of party labeling, emphasizing that such labeling may be a component of normalization strategies employed by political actors, as in the case of FdI.
The rise of new nationalist populism ( NNP ) and its radical version, new messianic nationalist Populism ( NMNP ), in democracies worldwide embodies anti-global, illiberal, majoritarian, divisive, and occasionally messianic principles, characterized by a typical rhetoric that spreads extensively through digital media. This study examines the rhetoric employed by Israel’s Likud-led National Camp ( NC ) leadership – known for their populist attitudes – focusing on the initial months of the Swords of Iron/Gaza War (2023–2024; the War). Through a qualitative and thematic analysis of leaders’ discourse, we show that unlike Israel’s traditional wartime democratic solidarity, which typically supports consensual resolutions to existential crises, during the War, NC leaders systematically employ radically divisive populist rhetoric, including hate speech. They set unrealistic and messianic war objectives, undermine national institutions, and delegitimize “rivals,” including international allies. Most notably, their rhetoric simplifies the complex reality and promotes an “exclusively Jewish, and messianic, Greater Israel,” posing challenges to Israeli democracy. These findings suggest that NNP and NMNP rhetoric is not merely a political tactic but a comprehensive strategy or even a core ideological framework, reinforcing theories about its growing influence.
Abstract To understand populism’s threat to democracy, this chapter focuses on populism’s opposition to the institutional status quo. First, populist leaders have strong incentives to weaken democratic competition once in power. Second, populists come to power with a mandate to weaken liberal institutions that protect minority rights. Populist leaders can take advantage of popular resentment of the status quo to gain control of additional institutions they may claim seek to block this mandate; these might include the media, the judiciary, and the opposition in general. Third, the absence of internal party constraints on a populist leader provides them with the opportunity to take measures that erode the quality of democracy. This chapter examines how populists challenge three institutions of crucial importance to the maintenance of democracy: press freedom, electoral integrity, and the rule of law. It also discusses how experience helps populists make the transition to dictatorship.
Abstract The final chapter examines what comes after populism. Populism rarely provides the basis for stable democracy. At best, it has underpinned the formation of clientelist party systems. But the corruption these systems foster only tends to breed new forms of mass resentment. Populism’s anti-institutionalism means that it undermines, rather than fosters, the establishment of programmatic political parties. The social and technological changes of recent decades have made mass party building extraordinarily difficult. As a result, the legacy of populist government today tends to be a kind of serial populism, in which one populist leader follows another. I end the chapter and the book with some speculations on the future of populism and offer some thoughts on how we might respond.
Abstract This chapter examines what political scientists call the “supply side” of populism. If the demand side focuses on the motivations of voters, the supply side is about something different: the choices those voters are given. Populist movements have historically been rare, not because the demand for them didn’t exist but because the political landscape was dominated by two other powerful forms of organization: programmatic and clientelist parties. Relying on charisma, populist leaders are fundamentally different from the leaders of these more traditional political organizations. From a supply-side perspective, populism is less a question of ideas than of an implicit strategic calculation. Leaders will supply populism when it is cost-effective to do so. To understand why political leaders choose one approach over another, this chapter examines the costs involved in the clientelist, programmatic, and populist strategies, respectively.
The paper sets out to analyse a number of core dimensions of legal and constitutional change initiated by the Meloni-government, focussing in particular on the role and positions of Fratelli d’Italia (FdI). The dimensions discussed are: first, constitutional reform and the concentration of political power; second, the restriction of civic space; third, the rule of law and judicial independence, and fourth, gender, and sexual and reproductive rights. The discussion will show that the various legal dimensions of populism-in-government need to be studied in a comprehensive fashion to understand the broader potential impact of such legal actions and to identify a legal-political strategy. It cannot be claimed that the Meloni-government is strictly following the playbook of such populist governments as that of Viktor Orbán, where one could say the Hungarian democratic regime has been turned into a populist, illiberal one. Nevertheless, taking the various legal dimensions together, as manifestations of ‘legal’ and ‘populist constitutionalism’, it is possible to identify an affinity in the Meloni-government’s actions with exactly such a right-wing populist, conservative playbook.
Abstract This chapter puts forward a new approach to understanding populism, which both helps to integrate the best-supported findings of existing research and leads to a novel theory of the causes and consequences of populism that can be tested and refined in future research. The institutional approach defines populism as a politics of popular opposition to the institutional status quo. Like other approaches, the institutional approach concurs that there is no populism without the people—popular sentiment is at the heart of populism. In this sense, populism captures the sense that society’s rules of the game are rigged against regular people. It accounts for why charismatic leadership and identity politics are so central to populism.
Abstract To date, far more attention has been paid to the effect that populists in power have on the institutions of democracy themselves than on the more mundane aspects of forming and executing public policy. This chapter examines what else populists do in office. First, far from being autocrats who impose their will unchecked, populists seem to be particularly dependent on public approval. Second, rather than pushing in a consistent direction, populist policy is distinctively heterodox—challenging accepted norms. Third, populist policy implementation prioritizes results over conformity with domestic and international law. This chapter examines populist policy with respect to the economy, international affairs, and the treatment of immigrants, minorities, and criminals.
Abstract This chapter critically reviews the three main approaches to defining populism used today. The ideational approach argues that populism is a “thin-centered” political ideology, which views politics as an existential struggle between a “pure people” and a “corrupt elite.” An alternative definition, usually labeled the political-strategic approach, argues that populism is a political movement that rejects structured political parties in favor of the direct mobilization of the masses by a charismatic leader. A third option, labeled the constitutional approach, argues that populism is an “anti-pluralist” or “illiberal” way of governing that dismisses the rights of the opposition and minorities, and that erodes institutional limits on executive power. Although these approaches appear to describe distinct phenomena, there is remarkable agreement on which cases count as populist. This calls for a new concept that captures the strengths, and addresses the weaknesses, of existing approaches.
