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Few would deny the urgency of addressing democratic backsliding, authoritarian populism, and the global resurgence of the far right. Yet, attempts to respond to these challenges have only deepened ideological fragmentation.
Radical voices wholly deny the opinions of those they deem to be illegitimate, and moderates implore us to confine ourselves to the conventions of democratic engagement. However, a trend has emerged more recently where political figures around the world, primarily from the Left, have turned to the populist playbook to combat their far-right counterparts.
This strategy has fascinating implications, but to fully parse these we must first explore some more basic questions: What is populism? Is it exclusively a phenomenon occurring on the Right? More importantly, can populism coexist with democratic norms? Political theorist Chantal Mouffe, a leading figure in the theoretical tradition of Left populism, may offer some answers.
What is populism, and how does it relate to democracy?
Mouffe defines populism as “a discursive strategy of constructing a political frontier dividing society into two camps and calling for the mobilisation of the ‘underdog’ against ‘those in power’1”. Because populism is usually associated with either the Left or the Right, it may seem counterintuitive to conceptualise populism as normatively neutral. It is, after all, as Mouffe outlines, a strategy. Populism is therefore not an ideology—it is not exclusive to a particular political program. Still, we can apply this definition to examine how this strategy comes to be associated with forces on the Right, and how it can emerge from the flaws inherent to democracy.
For Mouffe and her interlocutors, democracy is inevitably exclusionary as its existence is predicated on a particular definition of ‘a people’—the politeia, or the political community that participates in democracy. This ‘people’ is identifiable and exclusive precisely because there exists another group from which it can be differentiated. In other words, if one can recognise ‘the people’, it is because one can divide individuals into who is part of ‘the people’ and who is not. This is the aspect of democracy that leads to the rise of populism, which exploits these existing divisions. Around the world, contemporary right-wing populist movements appeal to nationalist values, where those who truly ‘belong’ to the nation-state are determined based on essentialist characteristics—typically an intersection of race or ethnicity and socioeconomic class. Following this logic, the essential difference between populism on the Right and on the Left is which exclusionary characteristics are given to ‘the people’ and how this ‘in-group’ is articulated in relation to the rest of society.
Mouffe also highlights that alongside the exclusionary basis of democracy, the rise of populism in the twenty-first century has been further spurred by the widening gap between state and society associated with neoliberalism2, combined with increasing global inequality and alienation resulting from capitalist globalisation3. This is reflected in the rhetoric espoused by populist movements on the Right, where, in tandem with using racist and xenophobic definitions of who the nation ‘belongs to’, assign blame to immigrants for social ills and cultural shifts. The common threads outlined above run through the party programmes of the AfD in Germany, Vox in Spain, and Rassemblement National in France.
However, while it may seem like democracy’s inevitable exclusion makes the threat of right-wing populism inescapable, Left populism emphasises other integral aspects of democracy to build a form of engagement that is constructive and dynamic. Left populism tries to fill in the gaps left in democracy by emphasising the ideals of equality and popular sovereignty that are constitutive of democratic politics—ideals intuitively far more foundational to democracy than its exclusionary byproduct.
Fighting populism with populism
For Left populism to work as a counterforce to the right-wing wave, Mouffe builds on the ideas of political theorists Claude Lefort and Ernesto Laclau to argue that we must first revise our conception of democracy. These theorists argue that the conventional characterisation of constitutional democracy in terms of positive4 and concrete institutions only serves to reinforce democracy’s exclusionary basis. Simply put, these institutions only serve to make divisions clearer and more unchangeable. Advocates of Left populism instead subscribe to a radical conception of democracy as indeterminate, leaving open the arena for democratic contestation5. Therefore, Left populism and radical democracy are Mouffe’s interventions in Right populism and constitutional democracy.
More specifically, radical democracy does not mean that exclusion is ever eliminated. Rather, it refocuses the “aim of democratic politics […] to construct a ‘them’ in such a way that it is no longer perceived as an enemy to be destroyed, but as an ‘adversary’, that is, somebody whose ideas we combat but whose right to defend those ideas we do not put into question6”. Altogether, instead of antagonism, through which one’s political opponent is viewed as illegitimate, and therefore must be wholly quashed, Mouffe prescribes a form of contestation called agonism, where opponents are viewed as equal and legitimate. This means that instead of exclusion and antagonism, Mouffe’s conception of democracy (and therefore, populism) is centred on what she terms agonistic pluralism. Mouffe therefore refocuses equality in democracy as we recognise our adversaries fundamentally as our fellow citizens and, hence, our political equals.
Yet, who can be a ‘them’ in a form of politics that seeks to counter exclusion? Recognising that one of the dominant threats to equality and popular sovereignty—and therefore, democracy—is neoliberalism, Mouffe thus calls on Left populists to federate democratic demands into a collective will to construct a ‘we’ against a common adversary: the global oligarchy. Therefore, while right-wing populists cast internal enemies based on essentialist and unchangeable characteristics, Left populism seeks to create broad-based society-wide unity against an enemy that truly threatens our democratic ‘way of life’.
Left populism at work?
The New York Times recently published a guest essay recognising the potential of what the author terms ‘eat-the-rich’ populism through senatorial candidate Dan Osborn and mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani to counterbalance MAGA rhetoric. The essay’s author, Timothy Shenk, argues that these American politicians are not symbolic of “scattered revolts against the status quo” but that “in the right hands, these grassroots rebellions could become the basis for a new progressive majority”. Despite their widely differing political affiliations on paper, Osborn and Mamdani employ strategies aligning with Mouffe’s conception of Left populism. Both figures emphasise the interests of the working class, whether it be unions and Social Security in Osborn’s case, or the general cost of living in New York City for Mamdani. Moreover, both Mamdani and Osborn eschew divisive rhetoric, with Mamdani moderating his stances on Palestine or the police establishment, while Osborn positions himself in the ‘middle of the aisle’ by running as an Independent. Most importantly, these populist strategies are effective: Mamdani looks like the likely candidate to win New York City’s mayoralty, while Osborn only lost Nebraska’s 2024 Senate race by a margin of four per cent, with plans to run again in 2026.
Aside from the United States, we can identify successful Left populist projects elsewhere in the world. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the centre-left party, the PSOE, has defended his position from the country’s far-right and nationalist parties, all the while centring on the cost of living crisis in Europe as his government’s policy platform. Sánchez’s coalition government has focused on the demands of the working class through minimum wage increases and an expansive labour market reform, all the while emphasising the threat of ‘technomillionaire’ oligarchs to democracy. Brazilian President Lula also reflects Mouffe’s Left populism in various ways: His historic association with labour organisations and the successful implementation of the poverty-reduction program Bolsa Família highlight his allegiance against the neoliberal elite that has historically exacerbated inequality in Brazil. Moreover, Lula’s recognition of liberal democracy’s dangerous entanglement with global capital plainly echoes Mouffe’s arguments.
What is the way forward?
While subversive in many ways, the political figures above are certainly not applying Mouffe’s theory to its most radical extent. But to enact substantive change in today’s political climate—one that is deeply polarised and antagonistic—perhaps the most pragmatic strategies are ones that present some form of compromise. One does not have to openly declare war on the oligarchic elite to criticise corrosive aspects of neoliberal capitalism, just like one does not have to accept the hateful logic of the Trump administration and its allies abroad to recognise some of the real and pressing concerns that underlie their voter bases.
However, democracy’s predication on exclusion is undeniably a pressing issue, made obvious by the vulnerability of our democratic systems to divisive and hateful far-right populism. And, of course, who can say with certainty that we will be able to successfully operationalise Mouffe’s Left populism to de-centre exclusion and promote democracy’s ethics of equality and popular sovereignty? At the very least, however, Left populism looks like an encouraging alternative to its far-right counterpart: examples in Brazil, Spain, and the United States are emblems of this possibility. There may yet be hope.
Edited by Martín Rojas Remolina
The argument defended in this article is solely that of the author and does not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Science, the Political Science Students’ Association, or the McGill Department of Political Science.
Featured image by Emergentes
- Mouffe, For A Left Populism, 10-11 ↩︎
- Taken here to mean the economic regime largely originated by Milton Friedman and characterised by deregulation of markets, large-scale privatisation, and the retreat and/or disappearance of social safety nets ↩︎
- Mouffe, 11 ↩︎
- In the sense of ius positum (positive law); man-made, definitive ↩︎
- See Claude Lefort’s ‘empty place of power’ ↩︎
- Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 102 ↩︎
