Columns, Opinion

Outside, Looking In: Populism takes many different forms

What do Bernie Sanders, Narendra Modi, Jeremy Corbyn, Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump have in common?  Each man is labelled a populist politician by supporters and detractors alike. Populism “seeks to defend the interest and maximize the power of ordinary citizens, through reform rather than revolution,” according to Britannica Encyclopedia.

But this generalization shoves them under an umbrella and masks the widely different contexts in which these and other leaders have emerged across the world. For example, what brought Modi, India’s prime minister, to power and his actions in office are different from what brought Bolsonaro to power in Brazil. In India, religious and anti-elite sentiments have resonated strongly in the last decade. This has happened on the back of weak public acceptance of constitutional rights and secularism, strong local governments, recently increased political power of minorities, political corruption and expansion of the welfare state. 

On the other hand, Brazil has had stronger regional governments, better civil society institutions and a more educated population. However, it also increased the political power of minorities over the last decades and considerably expanded its welfare state. These intersecting yet different states of the nations make the notion of ‘populism’ complicated. 

The U.S. has recently seen the rise of two strong populist movements against a backdrop of well-defined rights, strong local governments, a relatively small welfare state, increased political power of minorities and a somewhat recent financial crisis. Those movements have been led by Trump and Sanders. 

Sanders focuses his rage on the economically well-off elites through vertical politics, in which the bottom and middle battle the top. On the other hand, Trump’s support is largely based on immigration policies in addition to other divisive policies that pit cosmopolitan liberals against orthodox conservatives. Yet there’s a vast difference between the Republican infrastructure that supports Trump and the organization of Sanders’ campaign. Similarly, Modi’s party backing offers him a much deeper reach among the people than Bolsonaro’s nascent political outfit. The effects of these differences in organizational infrastructure can be seen in the way these leaders behave once they are in power. 

For example, Modi has used his party to mobilize fear, while Bolsonaro has relied more on social media to further his propaganda. Similarly, Sanders has never been able to truly tap into the Democratic party infrastructure the way Trump has the Republican party.

Sanders in the U.S. and Corbyn in the United Kingdom, both termed as leftist populists, have talked about reducing the power of ‘big banks’ and making growth inclusive when, in fact, both their political parties have previously acquiesced to the demands of capitalism that produces unequal growth. Despite similar rhetoric, the men deal with widely divergent systems to implement their programs if they win elections. In healthcare, for example, the U.K. already has a state-funded National Health Service while the U.S. does not. Thus, their demand of healthcare for all might end up very differently in the two countries. 

On the other hand, while Modi and Bolsonaro, both described as right-wing populists, have considerable support in cosmopolitan urban locales, Trump’s major support base is rural and industrial America. This seems to impact their foreign policy as well; Modi has a much more globalist foreign policy agenda than Trump, who sees foreign policy as a zero-sum game. In 1998, the Guardian published approximately 300 articles with terms “populism” or “populist”. In 2016, these terms were used in almost 2,000 articles. 

Populism thrives in contexts of social and cultural unrest and we need to understand the myriad of manifestations of populism across the world. This will help chalk a way forward, although differently for different countries, and can provide informed lessons from across the world.

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