It seems strange to call populism anti-democratic.
My understanding is that populists usually want more direct voter control over policy. The populist positions on immigration and international trade seem like stereotypical examples of conflicts where populists side with the average voter more than do the technocrats who they oppose.
Please don’t equate anti-democratic with bad. It seems mostly good to have democratic control over the goals of public policy, but let’s aim for less democratic control over factual claims.
Sorry for being unclear, I didn’t mean that populism must necessarily be anti-democratic- I’ve made a small edit to say that populism has any of the three features ‘anti-democratic, illiberal, or anti-technocratic’ to make this more clear—thanks for the feedback!
I’ve used my own rough and fuzzy definition of populism as a bit of a catch-all term for some things that are not liberal democracy, where illiberalism violates minority rights. So for example the Swiss Minaret controversy, where a majority banned the building of a Turkish Minaret through a popular referendum, I call populist here, despite being democratic. But you could replace ‘populism’ with another term, but I think it’s not worth to get hung up on definitions.
Please don’t equate anti-democratic with bad. It seems mostly good to have democratic control over the goals of public policy, but let’s aim for less democratic control over factual claims.
Yes, agreed- I don’t think direct democracy (a la Switzerland) is always better. But yes, in the long-term policy goals should ideally not be ‘anti-democratic’, even if they’re technocratic and not very illiberal (like the King of Jordan). If you have too much technocracy and too little democratic accountability that might lead to populist backlash (see David Autor’s studies on trade I cite here or Peter Singer’s case against migration). So let’s aim for whatever create most utility on the margin, which can sometimes be more democratic control (Jordan, but not Switzerland), sometimes more technocracy (e.g. US left), and sometimes more liberalism (e.g. US right).
It seems strange to call populism anti-democratic.
My understanding is that populists usually want more direct voter control over policy. The populist positions on immigration and international trade seem like stereotypical examples of conflicts where populists side with the average voter more than do the technocrats who they oppose.
Please don’t equate anti-democratic with bad. It seems mostly good to have democratic control over the goals of public policy, but let’s aim for less democratic control over factual claims.
Sorry for being unclear, I didn’t mean that populism must necessarily be anti-democratic- I’ve made a small edit to say that populism has any of the three features ‘anti-democratic, illiberal, or anti-technocratic’ to make this more clear—thanks for the feedback!
I’ve used my own rough and fuzzy definition of populism as a bit of a catch-all term for some things that are not liberal democracy, where illiberalism violates minority rights. So for example the Swiss Minaret controversy, where a majority banned the building of a Turkish Minaret through a popular referendum, I call populist here, despite being democratic. But you could replace ‘populism’ with another term, but I think it’s not worth to get hung up on definitions.
Yes, agreed- I don’t think direct democracy (a la Switzerland) is always better. But yes, in the long-term policy goals should ideally not be ‘anti-democratic’, even if they’re technocratic and not very illiberal (like the King of Jordan). If you have too much technocracy and too little democratic accountability that might lead to populist backlash (see David Autor’s studies on trade I cite here or Peter Singer’s case against migration). So let’s aim for whatever create most utility on the margin, which can sometimes be more democratic control (Jordan, but not Switzerland), sometimes more technocracy (e.g. US left), and sometimes more liberalism (e.g. US right).