Ancient Demagoguery and Contemporary Populism: Analogies and Differences in Historical Perspective

While the concept of populism is currently the focus of extensive scholarly attention, that of demagoguery has fallen into disuse in academic literature, often reduced to its everyday meaning of political manipulation. This is a peculiar situation considering that demagoguery has been a primary concern for political thinkers since classical Greece. Even when not explicitly discussed, demagoguery served as a backdrop against which reflections on themes like political leadership, civic education, tensions between oligarchic and popular factions, or between technical expertise and common sense, and the role of public rhetoric unfolded over centuries. This raises the question of how historical conceptions of demagoguery align with contemporary theories of populism. The first part of the paper reconstructs the classical conception of demagoguery and the reasons behind its dismissal. Influential views from thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Plutarch depict demagoguery as a corrupt form of regime where popular power turns into tyranny under unwise and unprincipled leaders exacerbating divisions between popular and oligarchic factions for personal interests. This conception, influential for centuries, became less relevant in the modern epoch due, among other factors, to the dismissal of classical idealism by realist approaches of thinkers like Machiavelli and Hobbes on one hand, and, on the other, the rise of liberal, representative democracy, which with its inherent tension between the principle of popular sovereignty and the highly mediated access to power it provides to the people, raises a whole different set of questions. The second part of the paper develops a comparison between the ancient conception of demagoguery and contemporary theories of populism, focusing on three main questions: a) the role played in both by the idea of the common good and morality, b) the rhetoric (and more generally the kind of communication) which they employ, c) and the different institutional framework in which they operate. Regarding the first aspect, the paper notes a significant difference as contemporary theories of populism tend to avoid references to the common good and moralist accounts. Critics such as Urbinati, Müller, or Rosanvallon, point to how populism interferes with the liberal, procedural principles of modern democracy. Apologists, such as Laclau and his followers, defend populism primarily as a mobilization strategy, downplaying its ideological content. However, both positions raise difficulties, explored in the paper, starting with that highlighted by theorists such as Muirhead of how to combine partisanship and democracy without a reference to the common good. Concerning the second aspect, the paper explores the consequences (in theorizing demagoguery and populism) of transitioning from an idea of language intrinsically linked to ethical considerations and practical judgment to the stances taken by contemporary scholars who generally view language as a freestanding entity, or submit it to highly formalistic normative models. Finally, the paper investigates the different rhetorical and ideological resources and hindrances that modern democracy (in the context of the tension mentioned above) provides to populists in comparison to ancient demagogues.