Politics Assignment: Assessing Populism's Ideological Impact

This essay examines the significant rise of populism as a dominant ideology in contemporary politics, particularly within representative democracies like the United Kingdom. The essay argues that political parties prioritize populist strategies to win elections, often at the expense of traditional ideologies, and emphasizes appealing to the majority through policies and rhetoric. It explores how governments utilize nationalism, media management, and emotional appeals to garner support, sometimes leading to the marginalization of minority groups and the erosion of democratic principles. The analysis covers the impact of populism on political decision-making, the manipulation of public sentiment, and the potential for populist leaders to undermine democratic processes, referencing examples like Brexit and Vladimir Putin's leadership. The essay also discusses the role of media in shaping public opinion, the detachment of people from political parties, and the use of populist ideology as a blended strategy to gain power, highlighting both the benefits and detriments of this approach.

POLITICS

1
‘In politics today, populism seems to be the most important ideology’
In the time when the politics is only about winning, populism seems to be highly effective.
The culture of populism has become the art of winning. Democracy has become all about
praising the majority where it is seen that if any political party is able to attract the majority
will be able to remain in power for longer period of time (Riedel, 2017). Political parties have
to ensure that the policies that they are making in today’s time are able to benefit most of the
people and more importantly it is able to attract most of the population in the nation. In
representative democracy where the representatives have to face elections at regular intervals,
it has become critical for the political parties or governments to remain popular (Laclau,
2012). Even only those parties are winning that are able to praise the people even when at the
ground levels they are doing nothing. Ideologies have become the lesser affecting factor in
persuading the people. This can be seen in the case of United Kingdom also where there is
parliamentary democracy and people have representative. This essay is going to illustrate
about the way in which populism has become the most important ideology in the politics.
Populism is understood as the range of political stance that focuses on the idea of the people
and often juxtapose this group against the elites. It is seen that when the political parties are
not in the power it is the other ideologies that they follow (Engesser, et al 2017). Left and
right ideologies take the major spots in the world politics. However in the case of
governments it is mainly seen that people in power usually focuses towards becoming
populist. For this the ideology that they follow is to praise people. Governments are trying to
bring budgets that could lure more and more people. The policies that can make sure that
people love the government. It can be seen in terms of tax exemptions, people development
programs etc. Announcement of such schemes increases at the time when elections are on the
head (Mondon and Winter, 2019). This is done for showing that government thinks about the
people. This can be easily seen in terms of manifestos that parties launch for their campaign
where most of the things are done to become popular.
It is to be understood that populist ideology deals with the small area of focus and they try
that the narrative in the country also does not go out of that area. The two major populist
ideologies are the socialism and nationalism. This is because these both ideologies are very
much powerful in attracting the mind-sets of the people. Promoting nationalism has become
one of the best tools for showcasing that they are populist government. The governments that

2
show them that they are thinking more about the benefits of the nation are able to become
more popular. The governments that are able to take decision which others in the past have
not taken become more popular (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014). This is why the harsh words or
any kind of action against the enemy nations by the government is often liked by the people.
For becoming popular governments are playing with the emotions of the people.
Governments are first building the emotions of the people and work towards it so that they
can become populist. This is also done with the help of media. Narratives like pro-nation and
anti-national are very common. People also give votes on this background only and they
often forget their personal problems. This ideology has the power that it deviate the minds of
the voters from actual problems that they and their country are facing (Hadiz and
Chryssogelos, 2017). There is whole machinery in the political parties that works day and
night to build these narratives and then work towards that so that they remain popular. The
problems faced by people remains as it is.
It is a time of the politics where media management has become a critical part of winning the
elections. It is due to this that governments are very much concerned about their image and
hence they also take decisions that can keep them in headlines and can allow them to become
popular. Even when the government has not done anything at the ground levels they will
portray that they have done many things (Mazzoleni, 2014). Following this ideology
governments are not trying to make long term strategies rather they plan for small term
strategies that can give immediate benefits to the people. It has been also seen that
governments are trying to control the media in the nation. This is done for managing the
image of the government in front of the people (Aslanidis, 2016). The other side of the story
is also true where it is seen that governments are using different interaction platforms along
with the media to understand that what the people want from government and then they build
strategies in such a manner that they look good till the time the government is not elected
once again. The best example of both the cases can be seen in the case of refugee problem in
United Kingdome where first the government build the emotions against the refugees that are
coming to UK so that people do not go against the government when they pull out these
people out the nation.
Populism has affected the political decision making and it is seen that sentiments of the
people are always nudged by the governments. Due to this it is often seen that the people or
the group that are in the minority will be marginalised. The situation becomes worse in the
case when there is conflict between the majority and the minority (Mudde and Kaltwasser,

3
2014). This is because government supports only those groups that are in majority so that
they remain in power. This often increases the power of the groups that are in the majority
and they sometimes become anarchist. This is why many people have stated democracy as
the new anarchy of the majority.
In order to become popular the easiest of approach that is taken by the governments is to give
things in free. There are examples where it has been seen that the parties that are promising
people that they will give certain basic amenities for living such as electricity or housing for
free often comes in power. The same is the case with the governments where it is seen that
whatever a government does is on the basis of what can give them benefits. This has a long
term impact on the democracy especially in terms of the fact that governments do not try to
work on the base strategies for development of their countries rather they focus on the
development of their image (Kriesi, 2014). This is why popular leaders are coming to power
again and again. It is seen that governments are giving free facilities to the people to win
elections but on the greater stage it is destroying the economy of the nations. Governments
only ideology is to praise as many people as they can.
It is seen that it is not only the government wants to become popular it is the populism of the
leaders that is making a government to come in the power again and again. There are many
examples in the past where the populist leaders have not done better for the democracy
(Moffitt, 2016). They have used their populist ideology to do things that has disrupted the
democratic procedures. Since they are popular and do media management of their image in a
better manner hence they are not getting out of the power. The best example of it is Vladimir
Putin the President of “Russia” who is just master in winning elections but the decisions that
he is taking is not good for the democracy. There are various other examples of different
leaders all across the globe that were first elected multiple times due to being populist but
they got converted into dictator (Wodak, 2015).
One of the perfect examples of it can also be seen in terms of the decisions like Brexit where
once the referendum had gone against staying in the European Union, the Theresa May’s
government decided to implement the Brexit. However the inside story is that it is the
government only that created such narrative about the Brexit. This was done so that anything
does not go wrong. One of the primary benefits that populist ideology gives to the
representative democracy is that governments want to engage people in the decision making
(March, 2017). This is done through various methods of communication. Since people have

4
also become very much vocal about their thoughts related to different national and social
affairs and they also keep on communicating it on the social media platforms. It becomes
easier for the governments to understand the narratives in the minds of the people and if they
see that majority of the people have same narrative then they make their decisions in their
favour. This is also highly likely in the case of law making or giving any rights to the people.
Governments have also understood that political ideologies that existed in the past have not
become relevant in today’s time. There was a time when the ideologies decided that what
kinds of decisions they will make and hence people also get associated with the political
parties but now since all the parties have more or less same ideas for making of policies
hence attachment of people is not so much. The party when stays in opposition criticises the
policies of the parties that are in power but when the opposition party comes into power they
also make the same policies hence people detachment from the political systems is obvious.
This is also why association of the people with the political parties have also reduced (Kriesi
and Pappas, 2015). This is why governments are trying to focus more on the ideology of
populism. If the political parties do not have good and loyal party workers then it is hard for
them to win especially when the political campaigns have become highly aggressive. In order
to deal with this situation the political parties had to adopt the populist ideology so that
maximum numbers of people can love that political party and they do not require higher
amount of efforts to win elections. Political parties also highlight only those points that depict
them to be more people friendly (Germani, 2019).
Populist ideology destroys the feeling of “we the people” in any state hence people in the
society is not able to live a life that is peaceful and bring unity in the society. Populist
ideology allows a political party to divide the society into fragments and attracts most of the
fragments to remain in power. However it is also a fact that unlike other ideologies it does not
goes into the minds of the people rather it plays with the hearts of the people where the
parties following this ideology continues to play with the feelings of people and they have to
do it on the regular basis so that they remain popular (Pirro, 2015). It is also seen that populist
ideology is used as a blended ideology as it is used in the form of mixed ideologies. This can
be understood in terms of the fact that there are both left-wing populist ideology and right-
wing populist ideology.
Many researchers have said that becoming populist was not easy in the previous time but in
the current political era it has become easier. It is the money power that makes any political

5
party popular in the country. The populist ideology not only benefits the party but it also
brings the culture of Familyism in the parties. The political leaders that are popular often
project their children and they also become popular in due course of time. It is due to this that
new people are not getting chance to come into the direct politics (Pauwels, 2014). This is
developing an elite group in the societies who is continuously winning and are coming into
the power again and again. This has long term impact on the development of the democracy
within the nation especially the representative democracy. Votes are casted in the name of the
popular leaders and other people also take advantage from it. The speeches of these leaders
are also concentrates on specific topics and most of the time about themselves like they are
selling them.
In conclusion it can be said that populists ideology is getting mixed with the other ideologies
in the country and it benefits the country in terms of the fact that political parties tends to put
the nation first while it also brings evils in the political system such as majority rule.

6
References
Aslanidis, P., 2016. Is populism an ideology? A refutation and a new perspective. Political
Studies, 64(1_suppl), pp.88-104.
Engesser, S., Ernst, N., Esser, F. and Büchel, F., 2017. Populism and social media: How
politicians spread a fragmented ideology. Information, communication & society, 20(8),
pp.1109-1126.
Germani, G., 2019. Authoritarianism, fascism, and national populism. Routledge.
Hadiz, V.R. and Chryssogelos, A., 2017. Populism in world politics: A comparative cross-
regional perspective. International Political Science Review, 38(4), pp.399-411.
Kriesi, H. and Pappas, T.S. eds., 2015. European populism in the shadow of the great
recession (pp. 1-22). Colchester: Ecpr Press.
Kriesi, H., 2014. The populist challenge. West European Politics, 37(2), pp.361-378.
Laclau, E., 2012. Politics and ideology in Marxist theory: Capitalism, fascism, populism.
Verso Trade.
March, L., 2017. Left and right populism compared: The British case. The British Journal of
Politics and International Relations, 19(2), pp.282-303.
Mazzoleni, G., 2014. Mediatization and political populism. In Mediatization of politics (pp.
42-56). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Moffitt, B. and Tormey, S., 2014. Rethinking populism: Politics, mediatisation and political
style. Political studies, 62(2), pp.381-397.
Moffitt, B., 2016. The global rise of populism: Performance, political style, and
representation. Stanford University Press.
Mondon, A. and Winter, A., 2019. Whiteness, populism and the racialisation of the working
class in the United Kingdom and the United States. Identities, 26(5), pp.510-528.
Mudde, C. and Kaltwasser, C.R., 2014. Populism and political leadership. The Oxford
handbook of political leadership, pp.376-388.

7
Pauwels, T., 2014. Populism in Western Europe: Comparing Belgium, Germany and the
Netherlands. Routledge.
Pirro, A.L., 2015. The populist radical right in Central and Eastern Europe: Ideology,
impact, and electoral performance. Routledge.
Riedel, R., 2017. Populism and Its Democratic, Non-Democratic, and Anti-Democratic
Potential. Polish Sociological Review, 199(3), pp.287-298.
Wodak, R., 2015. The politics of fear: What right-wing populist discourses mean. Sage.