The Multifaceted Nature of Populism

The Department of International Studies, Political Science and History organised a webinar on Populism titled ‘The Multifaceted Nature of Populism’ by Ajay Gudavarthy. Ajay Gudavarthy is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Political Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has been a visiting fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Charles Wallace Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His most recent book is India After Modi: Populism and the Right (2018). Dr Madhumati Deshpande—Coordinator, Department of International Studies, Political Science and History, Christ (Deemed to be University)—delivered the introductory remarks and formally welcomed the guest speaker. Dr Gudavarthy begins his talk by pointing out that populism is not a new phenomenon and in the present times, the need for a multifaceted approach has arisen where it is necessary to draw approaches from other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, economics etc to study populism. Populism generally signifies a mode of conducting politics in a certain manner. Populism can also be termed as politics pursued outside the constraints of the liberal framework, circumventing the liberal procedures and depicting a direct connection between the ruler and the ruled. Dr Gudavarthy opines that populism must be seen in the context of the crisis of liberalism and not a crisis of democracy because the democratic machinery is still functioning. He then mentions some of the characteristics of Populism such as extra institutionalism. Direct democracy, majoritarianism, anti-plural, strong leader etc. He proposes a framework that helps us to view populism from three domains namely Sociology, Psychology and Political Economy. From a sociological point of view, he points out the shift that has taken place from Sociology of culture to cultural sociology. Cultural sociology assumes that interpretation, idea, imagination, representation and symbolism have their own logic and cannot be drawn to certain social positions which are contrary to the assumptions of Sociology of culture. Dr Gudavarthy also cites works of Jeffery Alexander, Benedict Anderson and Edward Said. He then speaks on the psychological approach to understanding populism where he refers to Freud’s concept of subconsciousness which harbours ideas and decisions that are irrational or non-rational along with impulses that go beyond rationality. He then refers to Martha Nussbaum’s book, Political Emotions where the author argues that liberalism has undermined emotions and emphasises contractual and organic emotions are displaced when ends justify the means. He further cites Michael Walzer who regards liberalism as an art of building walls between public and private life. In this context, populism attempts to break down these walls and questions liberal artificiality. Dr Gudavarthy then moves onto explain the political economy approach to understand populism. According to Nancy Fraser, in the heart of populism lies its link with neo-liberalism and the inequalities that the latter carries. He also refers to Partha Chatterjee’s work ‘I am the People’ and gives insights into populism from a political economy approach. He concludes his talk by saying that Populism is presenting a transdisciplinary challenge to understand it and the phenomenon of Populism demands an extra-institutional explanation to explain how the popularity of a leader is growing while the economy of a country is in shambles. The session then moved to an interesting and interactive Q&A session where both faculties, as well as the students, took part. The webinar came to an end with Dr Vagishwari SP, Professor, Department of International Studies, Political Science and History, proposing the formal Vote of Thanks. This report was compiled by Mohammed Yaqoob Saleem