Momina Anwar

21020364
Instructor: Dr. Ahmed Yunus Samad
Group # 10
Annotated Bibliography
Project Title: Q9 Is populism compatible with liberal democracy or is it a challenge? What are

the implications of populism for democracy and is it a progressive or regressive development?

Your evaluation needs to be theoretical and comparative.

1. Juon, Andreas, and Daniel Bochsler. "Hurricane or fresh breeze? Disentangling the

populist effect on the quality of democracy." European Political Science Review 12.3

(2020): 391-408. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-political-science-

review/article/hurricane-or-fresh-breeze-disentangling-the-populist-effect-on-the-quality-

of-democracy/0DA616D3C82308A6AD94368FC1F85A4E

Juon and Bochsler takes a multidimensional approach to differentiate between populist in power

and opposition. The authors evaluate populism’s influence on democracy and present seven

hypotheses that explain the relationship between democracy and populism. They mainly state

that generally, populism improves mass participation in the electoral process. However, they also

deduce that populism is corrosive for democracy because it harms the ‘procedural aspects of

democratic quality’ and leads to erosion of individual and minority rights. The study is an

ambitious and comprehensive project comprising of data from 53 countries between the period

of 1990-2016. The article is a viable source for understanding the impact of populism on

democracy empirically.

But the shortcoming of the hypotheses is that it does not take into account the regime types of the

chosen countries and hence leads to generalization while constructing the hypotheses. The data is
unable to address the effects of populism on hybrid or semi-authoritarian regimes. Countries

such as Turkey and Pakistan, which could be called hybrid regimes, the regimes where

democratic institutions are not as solid as in western democracies. Hence, the implications of

populism in such democracies could be far-reaching and unpredictable. The article can provide

great insights into understanding the effect of populism on democracy and compatibility with

development. As it a quantitative study, it can supply reliable data to support the effects of

populist ideas on economic development of democracies.

2. Canovan, Margaret. "Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of

democracy." Political studies 47.1 (1999): 2-16.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9248.00184?

casa_token=_GBMkLkj0gAAAAA

%3AclPlvO2UnidCOAXMIwle7oLddMOJf4G1xbpxnsk_bAomoKFSgfOkjF5lngCgVyI

kTrySQjrOlNF3&

Extending Micheal Oakeshott’s ‘politics of faith’ and ‘politics of skepticism’, Canovan in this

article, says that there are two faces of modern democracy: ‘pragmatic’ and ‘redemptive’. The

pragmatic face represents the electoral side — the electioneering process of balloting. The

redemptive side is ‘vox populi’, ‘or the government of the people, by the people, for the people’.

The tension between two faces is inescapable for democracy. According to Canovan, the gap

between these two faces creates space for populism in a democracy. While the pragmatic side is

just a normative form of government —a way of running the institutions, it is the redemptive

side where the power lies and where ‘salvation is promised’ to the people. Canovan explains that

the redemptive sides make democracy vulnerable to populism. The article is important to

understand how intrinsic features of populism make it compatible with democracy.

democracy like a shadow’, Canovan does not throw any light on some of the other conditions

created by democracy itself over the years, which make it susceptible to populism. Here what

one is referring to is the argument of rising economic grievances of the people and a

disenchantment in general with the economic system, known as neoliberalism. Is such an

economic system endemic to democracy as well? If yes, can we expect the redemptive side of

democracy always to be in a perilous conflict and viable for populist mobilization? These are

some of the questions the article does not seem to answer.

3. Gudavarthy, Ajay. India after Modi: Populism and the right. Bloomsbury Publishing,

2018, i-xv.

Ajay Gudavarthy’s polemical contribution to the study of populism in India is an exciting

scholarly addition to the understanding of the rise of right-wing populism in India and its impact

on Indian democracy. According to Gudawarthy, the rise of the right-wing populist party, BJP,

has been possible due to the gradual eradication of the congress system and the emergence of a

distinctive post-congress system, now captured by the right-wing. This has been possible because

the right completely understood and absorbed the politics of the left and its rhetoric. Gudawarthy

calls this process a ‘performative dialectics’ (Gudawarthy, xv) where the right-wing ‘feels like a

subaltern and thinks like the elite’(Gudawarthy, xiv) — helping it capture India’s rather pluralist

democratic institutions and making them more authoritarian now.

For Gudavarthy, the rise of BJP and its populism in India presents both a prospect for the

existence of democracy and simultaneously a vacuum for it to be turned into a totalitarian

regime. The gap between the social and political aspect of Indian democracy would have to be

lessened in order to curtail the threat of populism. The book is important to understand the
shortcomings of democratic influence on the government over the years, especially in India,

giving rise to right-wing politics. Gudavarthy makes some very compelling arguments,

particularly about his analysis about the right’s appropriation of the left politics in India. The

analyses although fall short in explaining the alternatives to undo the damage perpetrated by the

current populism of Modi on Indian democracy; and how the on-going and widening gap

between the social and the political sphere could be a prospect?

4. Pappas, Takis S. "Populists in power." Journal of Democracy 30.2 (2019): 70-

84.https://muse.jhu.edu/article/721647

Takis in this article, explains the modus operandi of the populist leaders in power and its impact

on liberal democracy. According to Takis, populists, when in power use the following four

strategies to go about their governance: they rely on charisma, the unbridled political

polarization, capturing of the state institutions through their ‘loyalists’ and by using state

patronage for their political ambitions. Through comparative analysis of different cases, Pappas

then show that how careful usage of the strategies mentioned above in different cases impact the

political systems of the respective countries. In cases like Argentina and Greece, populism

becomes a dominant and attractive mode of politics. In Hungary and Venezuela, it turns into

'political autocracy' and often dictatorship. While doing so, Pappas refutes the argument that

populism could be a corrective force for democracy. He is also pessimistic about the current

‘illiberal brink’ being reverted to liberal democracies again. Through the case studies, Takis

shows the regressive impact of populism on democracy. This source is essential to understand

the variegated impact of populism on democracies around the world.

explain whether the strategies used by populists in respective states could be used in every state

or if they are tailored according to the regime and that country’s political institutions?

5. Mounk, Yascha. "Pitchfork politics: The populist threat to liberal democracy." Foreign

Aff. 93 (2014): 27.

https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/fora93&div=105&g_sent=1&casa

_token=pGaoL59EEzsAAAAA:ykBn-

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Calling populism ‘pitchfork politics’, Mounk thinks that the rise of populism has been possible

to due to the identity crisis; the public’s dissatisfaction (economic and political) with the

mainstream political elite; intrinsic shortcomings of democracy and alluring alternative provided

in the form of populist leaders who use these contradictions for their advantage — couching it in

rhetoric of ‘us vs them'. Mounk thinks democracy has never been a perfect system and

democratic values have declined gradually over the years, e.g., American McCarthyism and

‘Nixon’s blatant disregard for the rules of the democratic game’.

But the rise of populism is a serious regressive threat for democratic institutions, one that could

seriously backslide the democratic norms of plurality. The article is vital to understand the

germination of populist politics and the regressive impact it is having on democracies. While

doing so, Mounk at times becomes too biased in his critique of right-wing populism and its

effects on democracy and presents a celebratory account of the left-wing politics. Moreover, this

approach does not help us understand the holistic picture of the demise of the political
establishment over the years, creating space for right-wing populism of which the left-wing was

equally part of.