What is the opposite of populism?

Question

The Guardian (a UK newspaper) is running a series on populism. Among other things, it has a quiz, which places you in a 2-dimensional political map, with axes being how populist and left/right-wing. The map looks something like this:

Regardless of what you think of the map (Evo Morales more right wing that Obama and Macron?...), I am curious if there is an antithesis to populism. In my vague understanding, it would be some sort of combination of liberalism, technocracy and globalism/internationalism? Is it? Is there a word that can capture the latter and be put in a 2D graph as the one above? Some references backing up a potential taxonomy would be very much appreciated.

Answer 1

One contender is technocratic, as in technocratic left.

A technocracy is characterized by expert leadership, which values long-term well-being of the country over short-term popularity.

If you look at the least populist leaders in the diagram, you'll find Merkel and Macron. They are indeed often described as technocratic leaders.

Answer 2

What is the opposite of populism?

Elitism

Merriam-Webster's definition of populist ⁽¹⁾:

2) a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people

So the opposite would be a non-believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people.

Which sounds a lot like elitism

1) leadership or rule by an elite

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^{(1) The first definition is "follower of a populist party" (paraphrased) so doesn't contribute to this discussion.}

Answer 3

I think Sjoerd's suggestion of elitist is the literally correct answer, but we can try to make it more specific, by asking which elite this refers to. One possible answer (given by MSalters) is that it is the technocratic elite. This leads me to suggest the perhaps almost synonymous term meritocratic.

Perhaps the following concise definitions are not too far off:

• populism bases decisions on the common people's preferences, opinions, and ideas
• meritocracy bases decisions on meritorious people's preferences, opinions, and ideas
• technocracy bases decisions on scientific people's preferences, opinions, and ideas

Answer 4

Populism as used in anglophone media discourse is vacuous. It has been used to describe movements of right-wing workers with reactionary politics that have been hegemonised by right-wing elites. (US tea party). It has not been applied to centrist (greens) or left-wing movements (“blockade” type politics, the Tarkine, Montreal, S11 etc.) despite mass working-class compositions of these movements. Populism is used as a dog-whistle by right wing media, particularly for violent reactionary and fascist organisations despite the non-mass composition of the think tanks that get media attention. In contrast reactionary and fascist mass-organisations of the working class such as /pol/ aren’t described as populist.

The term has no meaning except in the immediate context of a statement by the media. A critical element of the definition is control over a movement by nomenklatura or bourgeois elites; precisely the professional-managerial-technocratic elite which populism is contrasted against. In this case the Guardian is using expert as the antonym of popular. Without any conception that expert advice can be rendered separate to expert rule. So it is contrasting ignorance and expertise. I enjoy my media insulting me.

I would suggest that this is poor terrain to develop theory on.

Answer 5

This BBC article describes populism as follows:

The true populist leader claims to represent the unified "will of the people". He stands in opposition to an enemy, often embodied by the current system - aiming to "drain the swamp" or tackle the "liberal elite".

It also notes that while the term tends to be attached to the political right in Europe, that is not necessarily the case everywhere.

However the logical corollary of being anti-elitist is that, once elected, only the popular leader has moral authority; anyone who opposes the leader is automatically an enemy of the popular will and therefore lacking in legitimacy.

The elected populist therefore has a dilemma: does he (its nearly always "he") work with the elite who he once condemned, or does he continue to fight them? If he works with the elite then he becomes one of them, so therefore the only path is to "drain the swamp".

However the work of government must continue; someone must do the work. If the populist leader sacks the elite who used to do this, he has to replace them with new people. Naturally they will be his supporters because his rule is the popular will and he isn't going to appoint people who are opposed to the popular will.

Likewise any legal restrictions on the leader's power are illegitimate because they were put in place by the old elite in order to shackle the will of the people, and enforced by a judiciary who are part of that old elite; as a true representative of the real popular will, the populist leader has the moral authority to sack the judges and override or repeal the laws, and since his supporters now run the government he has the practical authority to do so as well.

Hence it is a short step from being populist to being a straightforward dictator who abolishes the rule of law.

So to answer the question, the opposite of "populist" is "liberal democracy under the rule of law".

Answer 6

I tend to agree with Samuel Russel's answer: populism is a label which has no clear political definition. If we were to follow the meaning of the word, it should entail that populist leaders defend the "normal people" against some form of elite (as suggested in Sjoerd's answer). Sure, this is what these leaders say to their voters, but this does not describe the political reality when these politicians come in power (for instance Trump's cabinet is made of a wealthy elite).

But when looking at the persons labelled as populists by the Guardian and the values that they defend, one may realize that there is nothing new here; and the more standard word for these values is extreme-right/left or far-right/left.

By definition, extreme parties reject the traditional political "game". They define themselves as more or less revolutionary compared to the "old guard". Thus to describe the opposite of "populism", I would suggest to use terms such as moderate, center or traditional politics.

Side note: I think using the word populism for these movements is a convenient but misleading way to represent the fact that there is a surge on both (extreme) sides of the political spectrum (though the extreme-right side has been much more successful so far). It is misleading because in terms of ideas there's little in common between the two; it also prevents using the appropriate terms for describing the extreme-right movement: ultra-nationalism and authoritarianism. In this case the opposites are well known: liberal and democratic.

Answer 7

I think that any ideology be it left or right, that is grounded in the set policies of any party could be considered the opposite of populism. Simplistic I know, but literally any politician on either side of the political spectrum could embrace populism without shifting political ideology and the reverse is also true.

Answer 8

Student on the cusp of a BA in Financial Economics here, and perhaps I can provide some insight through concepts I haven’t found addressed in this thread. Populism, it seems to me, can be described within a framework of organizational architecture. The issue populism addresses is one of decision rights and their distribution (i.e if I own my car, I get to decide when I sell it, to whom, who gets to drive it, etc under the law) at a national economy level.

Inherently, populism advocates for an architecture classified by decentralized decision-making, as people at the bottom of an organization/hierarchy get a fair amount of authority over decisions which must be made.

However, the embodiment/realized form of this ideal tends to divide on political lines: the left tends to believe that the government has already achieved such an organization and thus advocates funding it, the right believes the government to be inept and advocates business/corporate organization as a better alternative. With that said, I would classify populism as more an economic term than a political one since populist discourse tends to touch on politics as a means of achieving an economic end, so i’m not sure it’s possible to put it on a left-right spectrum.

Answer 9

The problem with meritocracy (or one problem) is that it very quickly comes to reinforce the status quo, allowing an elite to protect their place of advantage through measures that appear to be meritocratic. Take the internship process so common in the US today. Supposedly you get a coveted internship at a top law practice, newspaper, nonprofit org, because you merit it - you have worked hard, gotten top grades, etc. etc. But when more than of the population doesn't have access to the best education or parents who have time or money to have them take part in all the extra-curricular activities that position kids for the best internships, or have parents who have the connections with the people who own/direct/manage the places with the best internships, "meritocracy" becomes a self-reinforcing club for the elite. That doesn't even touch on family culture that prioritizes education and channels kids from their earliest years to excel, vs. a family culture that has to prioritize getting food on the table and keeping a roof over the kids' heads - and therefore only furthers the so-called "meritocracy" that protects the best for the elites.