Luke March

Left-wing populism: past and present, in research and politics

Interview by Giorgos Venizelos

From Populism Newsletter #2, July 2020, pp. 10-13.

European populism scholars have predominantly focused on the populist radical right. Recently, however, following the rise of the square movements in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, there is an increasing interest on radical left populism. Is there such a thing as a ‘left populism’? If yes, how would you define it?

Most definitely. It’s always been acknowledged that there is a left populism in Latin America, and most historical accounts would indicate that there were strong trends of ‘left populism’ in some of the ‘classics’, i.e. the US People’s Party and the Russian Narodniki.

Left populism is ‘left’ in two senses – one, the ‘left’ element is borne out in a focus on traditional left-wing issues, such as social justice, welfarism, internationalism and, above all, equality (e.g. on these Spanish Podemos isn’t very different from the more traditionalist radical left Izquierda Unida) – second, the ‘people’ and the ‘elite’ have a left-wing content (a focus on inclusion of the economically disadvantaged, defence of minorities and immigrants versus attacks on financial-economic elites).

Many populisms try to elide the starkest left vs. right divisions in the name of appealing to the people as a whole (being a sort of vox populi rather than the vanguard of the proletariat). Some left populists like Podemos and La France Insoumise have dropped some of the names and symbols of the traditional radical left (unlike Syriza – literally ‘Coalition of the Radical Left’). This can make positioning a populist party on the right or left difficult, particularly as some of the right-wing populists also adopt welfarist and social justice issues and some of the newer left populists also adopt political critiques of the elite and a focus on nationalism and/or sovereignty. However, the attitudes to exclusion/inclusion and equality/hierarchy are still distinct. Put simply, the right is exclusionary and hierarchical (anti-immigrant, nativist, traditionalist) and the left inclusionary and egalitarian (pro-immigrant, internationalist, progressive).

Many left critics argue that left-wing populism is a type of ‘reformist’ or social democratic politics, especially after SYRIZA’s trajectory in government, and perhaps also PODEMOS. How would you differentiate left populism from social democracy or Reformism?

This criticism has some validity but doesn’t compare like with like. In principle, populism as a ‘thin-centred ideology’ it is compatible with a wide range of ideologies of left and right. So there are some left-centrist parties which are by no means radical that have had populist elements (e.g. the Slovak Smer-SD) and some more traditionalist left parties (such as communist parties in the Czech Republic and Russia) have had populist elements. Some even say Stalin had populist policies, and you don’t get much less reformist and social democratic than that! Many of the Latin American left populists are more genuinely populist and more radical (in terms of renationalisation, wealth redistribution etc.) than their European brethren, and show that left populism isn’t simply reformism or social democracy. So there’s nothing intrinsically social democratic or reformist about left populism.

The European Radical Left, which is the natural vessel for left populism in Europe, is itself a compromised force. Indeed, many left critics have long argued that this ‘radical left’ (populist or not) is reformist and social democratic. It’s a particular penchant of (ex-)Trotskyist critics to state that the radical left is social democratic or even ‘centrist’.

That it is reformist isn’t particularly contentious – if we exclude the extra-parliamentary radical left, most parties support the parliamentary road to socialism, work through capitalist institutions, talk about revolution only in the abstract, and eschew insurrection and political violence. That they are social democratic is more debatable. Clearly, the more social democrats have become neo-liberal, Blairite etc. (although this development is now much in retreat), the more space for the radical left to occupy the former niche, appeal to disaffected social democrats etc. However, I’d still distinguish most of the radical left from the social democratic tradition on the basis of an emphasis on extra-parliamentary politics (social movements and the global justice movement), and a ‘radical’ critique of the capitalist system (particularly international manifestations such as NATO). This admittedly tends to manifest itself as anti-neoliberalism rather than genuine anti-capitalism.

So these critiques aren’t new, but are levelled at much of the radical left, and not just the more populist parties and movements. However, it’s true that the European left populists haven’t managed to counter this critique, and have often reinforced it, principally by performance in government as you state, but also by their aspiration towards catch-all politics and further hollowing out of traditional radical left symbols and class-based ideology. It’s not clear yet whether the newer left populists have replaced the traditional radical left with anything more durable or viable.

The experience of leftist populism in government (and institutions in general) renders visible a number of concessions and setbacks. For this reason, many critics think that the populist moment is over for the left. What is your view?

As with my previous answer, I think it’s relevant not just to see left populists as populists pure and simple, but also (in the European context) as a subset of the radical left. So the general radical left is (as it has been since the 1990s) in a phase of decline and, perhaps more so, mutation, since, with a few exceptions (Portugal, Iceland etc.) the boost given by the Great Recession has proved to be rather temporary. Left populism seemed to be a kind of magical elixir for the mid-2010s, offering new strategies, organisational forms and support bases. Indeed, the newer ‘left populist’ parties were able to reach unprecedented support levels and created a buzz within intellectual and activist circles. But they haven’t ultimately been able to provide an answer for the fundamental strategic problems the radical left faces: how to provide a coherent and distinct radical left governing offer which might prove reproducible and lead towards a new hegemonic project. Conversely, the radical left is generally a minor actor in most European countries. In some, of course, it’s microscopic. Indeed, the left populists have made this issue worse, by promising something substantively new, and (so far) failing to deliver. In this sense, left populism, with its simplistic people-elite bipolarities, is a better ideology of opposition than of government.

Whether left populism is a durable part of the European radical left remains to be seen. Given the prevalence of exploitable issues, there’s no reason to think that the left populists won’t rise and fall cyclically. Ultimately, there won’t be a major upsurge until a left populist governs a (major) European state effectively and with a demonstrative effect.

Two of the most recent and prominent figures on the left, often seen as populist, are former Labour Party leader in the U.K., Jeremy Corbyn, and former Democratic candidate for the presidential nomination in the U.S., Bernie Sanders. Corbyn advocated a program ‘for the many, not the few’. Sanders launched a campaign against the interests of ‘the 1%’, for ‘universal healthcare’ under the slogan ‘not me, US’. Do you think they fit into the definition of left populism? What do their political style and popular appeal tell us about the face of leftism in the 21st century?

They have strong populist elements for sure, but it’s largely at the rhetorical and not ideological level, where they can be understood as more traditional democratic socialists. Clearly, they’ve drawn some slogans, styles and strategies from each other, as well as from the European left populists, and they have many supporters who translate their messages into a pure populist idiom (especially via social media, when ‘us-them’ dichotomies and anti-elite conspirology are rife).

I find it difficult to see them as purely populist, and that’s partly because they were both to a large degree constrained by more moderate/centrist party machines (Sanders as an unsuccessful nominee, and Corbyn as someone who never presided over a united party, especially in parliament). So perhaps their populism never ‘took wing’ as it might if they weren’t having to tailor their message to the diverse elements of their party coalition and could speak more confidently to the ‘people’ as a whole.

Corbyn in particular was a very compromised populist. There were multiple attacks on the ‘rigged system’ to be sure, but he was often (rightly) accused of speaking more to particularist issues than to the concerns of the general populace (and this was, ultimately, reflected in his very divisive image – lauded amongst party members and deeply unpopular in the wider electorate). Some of this is the product of a fundamentally biased media environment, but to some degree that has always confronted Labour leaders in the UK. So he had party and not popular appeal, and of course, Sanders’ popular appeal was never tested in a presidential election.

In terms of general lessons, it does show that even the traditional left needs to adopt elements of a populist idiom (speaking to people, not class, critiquing elites, adopting new campaign styles and forms of organisation beyond traditional parties). It indicates that the mainstream centre-left needs to take such issues into account or face near-insurrection in its ranks. However, such populist approaches, are, by themselves, not enough to gain popular appeal.

The contemporary literature on populism has grown exponentially in the last ten or fifteen years. Many scholars claim that the field has reached a consensus over the definition of populism. Do you think that this is indeed the case or could it be that the consensus hides other, perhaps bigger disagreements?

There is relative but not absolute consensus, and that could never be achieved. Indeed, even if possible, it would be unhealthy and would stifle debate. Equally, we could only wish to attain such a degree of consensus that academic definitions of populism were more widely shared in the media and practitioner realm (where populism is still far too often used indiscriminately as a synonym for ‘unscrupulous demagogue’). Moreover, articles with yet another exploration of what populism is can begin to be tedious and doesn’t help bringing the subject to a wider audience.

There is agreement on the fundamental planks of the populist appeal, and whether they think it is better conceptualised as ideology, discourse, style, form of organisation etc., there is still a large overlap in the essence of the concept and the cases they look at (with room for some disagreements, as above with Corbyn and Sanders). There is still disagreement over whether populism is positive, negative, or neutral, and such disagreements are located in different approaches to populism, as well as different underlying theoretical positions (e.g. scholars from the Laclauian tradition are more likely to regard left populism as positive, those from the ideational tradition are more likely to view both left and right populism as value-neutral in themselves). Moreover, the burgeoning literature on the causes and effects of populism is very rich and diverse and there are many emerging subjects of enquiry that have as yet to be fully explored (e.g. populism and gender, populism and social media and much, much more). The topic will no doubt keep us all busy!