Anti-Populism and Pluralism: A Comparative Analysis

Populism, which posits 'the people' against 'the elite' is often labelled as one of the greatest contemporary challenges to liberal democracy. Namely, because of its supposed incompatibility with liberal-democratic pluralism, the understanding that political power should be widely diffused, reflecting the diversity of the political community and preventing power from accumulating in too few hands. In response to the rise of populism, a number of political, academic, and media elites have come to occupy an 'anti-populist' position, so as to defend pluralism from populist challengers. Such elites, however, have themselves been
accused of undermining pluralism through their supposed marginalisation of dissent and demonisation of those who challenge neoliberal governance. This PhD appraises the current adversarial responses to populism through an analysis of elite anti-populist discourses, from different national contexts, for their efficacy in promoting pluralism against populism's oft alleged authoritarian tendencies, Theoretically, this PhD also represents an inquiry into whether liberal understandings of pluralism are sufficient in advancing the democratic plurality that they claim to defend, or whether other radical-democratic alternatives offer a
more satisfying and robust conception. Understanding the efficacy of the responses of mainstream actors to populist challengers is central to ensuring that liberal democracy is robustly defended, in a context in which it has already been greatly destabilised by the global rise of the far-right.