Populist Nationalism in Europe and the Americas

Fernando López-Alves, Diane E. Johnson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429793813
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Populist nationalism fuses beliefs that citizens are being exploited by a privileged elite with claims that the national culture and interests are under threat from enemies within or without. Ideologically fluid, populist nationalists decry "out-of-touch" institutions such as political parties and the mainstream press while extolling the virtues of the "people." They claim that only populists can truly represent the nation and solve its problems, and often call for unorthodox solutions that appeal to the common people.

The recent spread of populist nationalism throughout the world has triggered a growing interest in the subject, led mainly by journalists. The Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump in the US have provoked a flurry of media coverage in Europe and the Americas, along with parliamentary debates. Some social scientists have sought to explain the resurgence of nationalism and the spread of populism in recent decades, but important questions remain and most of the scholarship has not adequately addressed the fusion of nationalism and populism. It fails to examine the combination of populism and nationalism comparatively, especially the contrast between the more progressive and leftist versions such as those in Latin America, and the more traditional conservative varieties that are gaining strength in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

This interdisciplinary collection by experts on Europe and the Americas fills this void. The volume examines various experiences with populist nationalism, and offers theoretical tools to assess its future. Some chapters are in-depth country case studies and others take a broader perspective, but all open the door for meaningful comparison.

Part I

Global Perspectives and Comparative Theory

Chapter 2

Populist Nationalism in Europe and the Americas

Past, Present, and Future

Fernando López-Alves

We have now sunk to a depth where the restatement of the obvious is the duty of intelligent men.

– George Orwell

First, I argue that today’s populism should be regarded as another type of nationalism. While all populisms are nationalistic, not all nationalisms are populistic. Nationalism is a broader concept. It claims to defend the “nation,” the “patria,” or the “country.” This includes references to “the people” but usually comprise geographical and institutional dimensions as well. Populism is more narrowly focused on a specific group of “people” that it claims to safeguard, defend, and represent. Populists have equated “people” with “nation,” but they typically refer to specific groups within a larger national community. Unlike nationalists, they do not usually make strong territorial claims. Second, I assert that the twenty-first-century combination of populism and nationalism is not new; rather, it results from a long historical process: the institutionalization of what today we call “national identity.” Finally, the chapter predicts that populist nationalism (PN) is not a fleeting phenomenon and that it is here to stay.

Concepts and Theories

Definitions of populism are controversial and mostly based upon the characteristics of populist rule in particular regions or countries, or philosophical principles removed from the practice of actual populist regimes. Exploring political identities, Ernesto Laclau, for instance, has somewhat obscurely defined populism as a particular “logic” (2015, 15) of achieving a sort of distinctiveness that is not harmful to democracy. Others see it precisely as a threat to democratic rule. Still others, like Mudde and Kaltwasser, claim it to be a “moral imperative” (2012). Students of US populism have pointed to its grassroots origins. During the 1890s, the Populist (or People’s) Party represented the interests of farmers, rural, and urban labor, in addition to other lower class folk “seeking to free” the political system from the “grip of money power” (Judis 2016, 72). Other scholars have explained the appeal of populism by pointing to the power of its discourse: “a language whose speakers conceive of ordinary people as a noble assemblage not bounded narrowly by class; view their elite opponents as self-serving and undemocratic; and seek to mobilize the former against the latter” (Kazin 1995, 22).

Torcuato Di Tella, an expert on Latin America, provides a definition that adds interesting nuances: “the connection between leaders and led is based on a convergence of interests but it must be backed up by charismatic appeal, anti status quo attitudes … and a common emotional mood” (1990, 31). For Di Tella, as for many others, only those who challenge the “upper strata” of society are populists. He expressly leaves out leaders like Marine Le Pen in France or Ronald Reagan in the US, and treats populism as a movement rather than a party. In this definition, the participation of organized labor (e.g., Peronismo in Argentina or Lech Walesa’s Solidarity in Poland) is essential, as is the tendency of populists to define their enemies an “anti-national” (ibid., 34). Di Tella’s definition, stressing charisma and clientele networks that allow the leader to reach down directly to his or her following, coincides with much of what we see in populist governments today. The growth of populism also has been linked to economic and political crisis, especially in Latin America.

In this debate about the meaning of populism, the very definition of “people” seems at times more an act of intellectual imagination than something based upon hard fact. Jan-Werner Muller explains populism as “a particular moralistic imagination of politics, a way of perceiving the political world that sets a morally pure and fully unified – but … ultimately fictional – people against elites who are deemed corrupt or in some other way morally inferior” (2016, 26). In their edited volume, Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (2012, 20) similarly define populism as a “thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, the ‘pure people’ and ‘the corrupt elite’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people.”

One common denominator in these discussions is the acknowledgment that the agendas of populist governments include strong nationalism. One way or another, populists usually point to the damaging effects of foreign influence and investment, to a national identity that begs defending from external influence, and to the need to shield the country from globalization. Populists have, at times, also tried to redefine the national community as a conflict between real patriots and others who – although living in the same territory – threaten “the people” by conspiring against them through entanglements with foreign powers. I submit that this common denominator is a key defining factor of populism and that populism stems from nationalism.

Populism as a Case of Nationalism

I understand nationalism as the defense of the nation, however conceived. I submit that it has a broader meaning than populism, and I see most types of populisms as cases of nationalism.¹

Other authors also have come to similar conclusions. Luckacs, for instance, argues that populism can be a special kind of clientele network or mass movement based on hatred of “the other” and extreme nationalism (2005). Nationalism has long postulated populism’s major claims and they historically have been intertwined in ways in which the former has shaped the latter, rather than the other way around. Like nationalists long have, populists believe that “the people” are a special, unique, and, at times, superior group of people that need defending against “the other,” especially from foreign threats and influence. These are also the true nationals. Most of the populist lexicon explicitly and implicitly uses nationalist rhetoric. In addition, nationalist movements and groups have, like populists afterwards, antagonized not only foreign but also local elites. Populism’s mistrust of foreigners, immigrants, and refugees can be traced back to basic postulates of nationalist ideology. And finally, nationalists also have promoted protectionism and rejected internationalization, which are key points of populist agendas.

Nationalism, unlike populism, preceded modernity (Greenfeld 2005).² In nationalist literature the notion of “nation” is broader than the notion of “people” as used by populism; it includes human, territorial, and institutional dimensions. Nations are defined as groups of people who believe or imagine that they share something in common (Anderson 1983). At the same time, that group should live under the jurisdiction of the same state and share similar values and historical trajectories. Even in diaspora situations, the relations between nations and states are essential to explain nationalism. The notion of “nation-state” means that the link between the two is indissoluble and that one state rules over one nation, and one nation only. When more than one nation lives under the jurisdiction of the same state or more than one state can rule over the same nation, states and nations also are intimately linked. Thus, regardless of different scenarios, the linkages between nations and states remain essential to strengthen or weaken nationalism and define the nation. This is something that twentieth-century populists have learned and applied, most times substituting the word “people” for the word “nation.” Thus, populists have placed an emphasis on the direct communication between populist leaders (the state) and “the people” that they are supposed to represent.

The origins and evolution of nationalist ideology explains the consolidation and projection of PN in our times. It originated in the West, both in the periphery (Anderson 1983) and center (Greenfeld 1993, 34–77), soon expanding worldwide (López-Alves 2015). By the nineteenth century it was clear that this complex ideological system could shape the way people and governments conceptualized national identity (Hobsbawm 1990). The writing of national history constantly has produced concepts that are incorporated into this ideology and shape the process of differentiation needed for national identity (Hill 2008). Nationalism comprises an intricate, complex set of concepts related to identity and conflict (López-Alves 2015) that has, among other things, paved the way for populism. One of the outcomes of this long process is that in the twenty-first century, our collective consciousness of belonging to “a nation” has actually become part of our individual identity. The progression of national identity formation, thus, is key to explaining present day PN, which should be examined within the framework of this multifaceted and rich tradition, rather than within the traditional discussion on populism.

The Institutionalization of National Identity and Populism

In order to centralize power, facilitate governance, and achieve unity in the face of more urban, heterogeneous populations, during the 1700s western states started to institutionalize national identity. They accomplished this through rituals, myths, nationalistic discourse, the “invention of tradition,” and war (Hobsbawm 1984, 1990). A rising consciousness of belonging to a larger whole and a stronger sense of nationalism soon began to emerge and consolidate. For some, this provided the needed cultural values for the growth of capitalism (Greenfeld 2005). Nationalism also proved divisive and virulent (Marx 2003). During the late 1800s, nationalism grew into a much more coherent and powerful ideological system worldwide; this is the time in which we see the formation of populist movements in the US and other regions of the Americas. Nationalism became capable not only of inciting war but also of setting the tone for public policy discourse and foreign policy. During the 1900s, it provoked collective action and war to an extent that no prior epoch had witnessed. Thus, while states never ceased to encourage nationalism, they tried to harness its destructive power (Hechter 2000, 3–23).

Dividing peoples between “us” and “them,” nationalism conceptualized and redefined the notion of “people,” a key concept of populist doctrine. Nationalists, like populists, argued that culture, ways of life, and religion had to be protected (Hill 2008; Hobsbawm 1984). The struggle against colonialism and post-colonialism also became part of nationalist (and populist) ideology, and this applied both to the colonized and the colonizer. It is no wonder why nationalism, a powerful tool able to accomplish political and social change as well as provide legitimacy to rulers, became a complex and growing ideological system with its own semantics, routines of meaning, social practices, and rituals (López-Alves 2015, 171–178).

Similar to what contemporary PN has argued about “the people,” nationalist ideology cemented the idea that nations had a right to self-determination and that they should defend themselves against the “other,” even by war. In the aftermath of World War I, people began to accept that public institutions were viable (and unbiased) if and only if they served the interests of the “national community” (Mee 2014). Constitutions, it was argued, should be written or rewritten to reflect the interests of the nation (or “the people”), public policy should be tailored to benefit nationals and exclude outsiders, and foreign policy should be devised to safeguard the welfare of a particular group of people. Throughout the 1900s, nationalism became the theoretical justification and institutional foundation of different kinds of regimes worldwide, populist ones included. Both in center and periphery, the growth of nationalism was unstoppable. No matter how dangerous it became, governments kept strengthening it. Indeed, after the horrors of World War I and during the time of the Versailles Peace Conference, Georges Clemenceau told the French Parliament that France’s priority was to defend its “identity” by “securing the borders of [the] homeland [and] … maintaining a strong army.” After World War II, both democratic and non-democratic regimes continued to resort to nationalism as a powerful political tool.

During the 1950s, professional bureaucracies devoted to education, immigration, border controls, visa processing, policing, and taxation, consolidated collective consciousness about belonging to a larger group of people called the nation. Borders were secured, military budgets were increased, and special bureaucracies were created, in order to defend the “national interest” and regulate the status of foreign nationals. Public bureaucracies also created national memorials and enlarged the foreign service. In Europe, the US, and Latin America, passports and ID cards were issued massively, further strengthening that feeling of sharing a national identity. Only a tiny minority of Europeans and even fewer Latin Americans possessed a passport in the late 1800s; after World War II, proof that individuals belonged to a particular “people” and “patria” became a necessity.³ Bureaucracies dedicated to intelligence, espionage, and surveillance multiplied, adding to a collective consciousness of “us” and “them.” The enemy also could undermine the nation from within, which led to tighter control over the movements of peoples around the world; indeed, in 1949, “national security” became an official goal of the US government. During the twentieth century, populists adopted and expanded on these notions. In the twenty-first, PN has used these arguments to antagonize its foes and defend its friends.

Populism has thus adopted concepts that emerged over the four centuries that marked the consolidation of the notion of national identity. Populists, like nationalists before them, constructed a discourse that intends to speak for the discontented, the left behind, and the losers of internati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART I: Global Perspectives and Comparative Theory
• PART II: Case Studies from Europe
• PART III: Case Studies from North America
• PART IV: Case Studies from Latin America
• Conclusions
• Index