New Perspectives on Elitism and Populism: The Elitism-Populism Nexus

Abstract

While "populism" has been the buzzword for an enormous amount of research centering partly on the phenomenon proper and partly on the wave of new right-wing antidemocratic parties in Europe, the relationship of populism to elitism has been under-researched. The starting-point of this panel that presents papers by several members of a new collaborative research group is the assumption that populism is usually a reaction to a perceived betrayal of democracy by political elites and that elites in turn tend to shield their power even further from public influence, thus provoking yet the next wave of populist mobilization. Hence we are assuming an 'elitism-populism nexus' as an appropriate focus for analysis and propose a focus on the interaction effects of populism and elitism and their combined impact on the transformation of democracy. The proposed papers on the hand seek to clarify the concepts of populism and elitism and establish an understanding of their potential interplay. On the other hand they present empirical references to two cases (the EU and Italy) in which these interactions might be most fruitfully analyzed.

Title	Details
The Concept of Populism: Towards a More Systematic Approach	View Paper Details
The Role of Elitism in the Elitism-Populism-Nexus: Conceptual Issues	View Paper Details
Towards a Comparative Analysis of the Populist Critique of the EU and its Institutions: Populists Vs. Technocrats	View Paper Details