Research Paper on Populism: A Political System of Right and Left Wings

Introduction

Populism is a political system, or any organization advocating for the public, always through convenient contradiction to the noble class. Populism always incorporates both aspects the right and left wings, contradicting substantial corporate and financial entities, but still inimical to existing labour and socialist organizations. Populism can thrive in both democratic and dictatorial systems of governance. Populism primarily articulates political participation through representatives and any medium that connects the people with their government system. In case of a standard style, populism agitates for defending and promoting the power of civilians through democratic reform as opposed to revolution.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

In the United States, populism coined from public movements that gave birth to a favoured people's party in the year 1892. Several conditions of the party later got entrenched in major constitutional and legal processes such as the case of the progressive tax mechanisms. Determined populists demands for a democratic system through popular initiatives and referenda became a priority in the actual political system in the US.

However, it is imperative to realize that populism is often closely connected with an authoritarian system of governance. In that context, a populist leader is the one who appeals to the hearts of the people through various incentives to continue consolidating and wielding his political power.

In such a centralized system of politics, the essence of political parties becomes ineffective, and elections only perpetuate the vested interests and control of the leader as opposed to reflecting the will of the people. Populism became a simplified system of governance in the late 20th century among some of the South American leaders such as Hugo Chaves, Getulio Vargas, and Juan Peron. Many people use the term "populist" annoyingly to reprimand a leader for instilling fear and hopelessness on the people. Based on how one perceives populism, a populist economic system can either an environment that empowers both the citizens and the state, or a system that concentrates on the redistribution of wealth to maintain political power. In most cases, such leaders do not care about the adverse economic consequences like debt burden of inflation.

Post-Imperial Populism

So many contesting philosophies, ideologies, and theories have been changing the history of the world at different points of history. The combination of different approaches informs the effectiveness, sustainability of groups that could overcome the historical challenges and control new emerging orders of the world. History has always confirmed this reality since the period of traditional society to the modern world. Being in a globalized 21st century, the world as a whole has undergone political, social, cultural, and religious for whichever consequences. In other words, the world as a whole has been changing to severe ethnicization, tribalism, and nationalistic values, which impacted negatively on security systems, interdependence, and the state of globalization.

According to the textbook 'What is Populism' by Muller, it explains that populism is a political activity based on moralistic illusion as a method of understanding the political sphere that presents a morally ethical and united (Muller, 2017). However, functional groups that gang up against the noble class who are perceived to be corrupt and morally depraved. Most of them claim that it is only them representing the people.

Leaders who are populists utilize several means to attain their political interests. Most importantly, they own state resources by giving critical opportunities to their political cronies by way of state colonization. Again, they opine for developing reliable business partners in both material and non-material privileges to cronies for substantial political support.

As proponents of populist systems, the European Nations and the entire West have been struggling with escalating problems of illegal immigrants, socio-economic imbalance, the fear of Islamic religious threats, exaggerated patriotism, and racial isolationism to protect they're perceived traditional and domestic identity. That has ushered in a ridiculous electoral mentality in those systems.

When the cold war ended, it gave way for modern organized governance. It also gave rise to the populist mentality that has become the force that unites and binds all regions of Europe to launch the policies that outlaw illegal immigration. Moreover, it is a fact that from 1980 existence of discussion concerning the connection between democracy and populism, leading to the rise of many materials such as editorials, articles, and books, among others.

According to Muller, it is easier to draw the connection between both democracy and populism (Muller, 2017). However, there is a naturally occurring tension between the two phenomena. According to him, this link comes out easily because both styles have reference to a common factor "the importance of the people."

Besides, Abraham Lincoln gave a precise clarity of how democracy should be defined as "Regime of the persons, by the people, for the people", meaning that democracy cannot thrive without the people having the sovereign power (Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2015). Moreover, according to a populist perspective, more accumulated energy irrespective of the means is a sign of the promotion of democratic values. Therefore, many people argue that it can only be a reality if the sovereign power of the people anchored on the most critical aspects of a democratic government that strictly involves both the significance and intensity of competition in the political arena. The scope of knowledge and participation of the electorate, the chances of changing of representative institutions and the diversity of the democratic systems inform the status of governance. The systems and structures of integrity within a government can also characterize the political sphere or environment.

Still, a populist system does not reject all the democratic structures between the people and their leaders but use the people to generate political power and any other unpopular analytical issues. Moreover, (Muller, 2017) stated that most, number of overemphasizing clarity are applied instead of "people." The author also provides three more directions on how to define the original description from many constitutions around the world, including the US constitution saying.

This concept indicates that the people are natural citizens bestowed with the sovereign power liberties, rights, and responsibilities that they execute within the dictates of the constitution and other written existing laws. The act of having the people bestowed with sovereign power defines the whole meaning of democracy.

The concept disputes people as the "undifferentiated mass of individuals" as a populist system recognizes. Again, the people can also be defined as a nation, while not confining to the citizens mandated by law to have the same rights, but also related by history, tradition, and blood. From a democratic point of view, this definition does not align with the principles of democracy. In another aspect, there is another definition of the people that focuses on the social and economic classes within society. Here, what constitutes to the people are the lots that are labouring and languishing in hardship to survive, who are oppressed by the elite, and those who are within the trade organizations and labour parties are known as "The people." This perspective of the people depicts the origin of both the left and right wings of populism. It is entirely significant to realize that the three definitions do not seek to justify the uncertainty that classifies the people of democracy and populism. The possibilities, therefore, makes it more challenging to depict the specific distinctions of the values that potentially disfavors the principles of justice.

So many definitions have been presented to describe populism around the world. Therefore, most thoughts can be extracted from vital analysis as per (Kaltwasser & Mudde, 2018);, (Engesser et al., 2017); plus (Manucci, L., & Amsler, 2018). Majority if not all the definitions emphasize the value, power of the people within a system of government, the role, and the decisiveness that come with it. Despite the significance of this matter, there lies further need to recognize the methods and means that the people should explore to enable them to exercise the sovereign power effectively.

However, the most critical factor to note is that so many uncertainties still cover the link between democracy and populism, based on the research derived from many authors. The thought declared via (Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2015) elaborates the target of populist as a move that cannot be done away with or dismantled elect a government. Instead, all the populist ideas and values do not entirely denounce the principles of freedom but can be compatible in some contexts. Is it equally significant to note that in practice, populism has always succeeded in countries where the principles of democracy are feeble and changed the names of those regimes?

Moreover, the populist opinion seems to disregard not the democratic systems, but rather the necessity of democratic values. According to the populists, democratic elections are not essential and can be manipulated by those in power and the will of the people subverted. Besides such populist spearheads may have thoughts of dismantling a government because its vital keys motivated via increase appetite of personal engrossment of populist impartiality (Aslanidis, 2016).

Considering all the dynamics between populism and democracy, it is evident that it is only through proper scientific research into the reality that can bring out the real populist characteristics and values. It is only such research that can ascertain whether or not populism is a friend or an enemy of democracy. However, the scenario of the Finnish True Finns Populist Party may offer some sense of reality to the author that populism is not an integral part of democracy.

Purpose of the Study

A lot of unconfirmed sayings employed on the post-imperial Nations such as Turkey and England concerning the idea of populism. Believed that in the past thoughts of populism has clouded the attitude of the most populists today, making it confusing for some people. They further assert that the employed political actors, as well as the issues that are involved in the daily political arenas, awake the populism ideas. This paper will, therefore, addresses the broad topic of populism in which the article tries to find out whether the fact that a country is a post-imperial nation offers itself to the enlargement of the philosophical system and feeding a yearning for the past. In so doing, the trigger factors explored, that is to mean that the paper will examine factors that awaked the attitudes. The article as well determines the beliefs and history makes the populists more susceptible to the positions that they assume. The primary purpose of this paper is, therefore, to determine the underline causes of populism and the possible solutions to help democracy thrive. In doing this, the article will focus on Turkey and England. The reason for choosing these two countries is because; Turkey European Union candidate and both countries are post-imperial and Eurosceptic nations.