Mudde, Cas. "The Populist Zeitgeist". Government and Opposition, Vol.39, No.4 (2004): 541-563.

Mudde, Cas. "The Populist Zeitgeist". Government and Opposition, Vol.39, No.4 (2004): 541-563.

• Since the 1980s, academia has been freaking out about the rise of 'new populists', like the Austrian Freedom Party and Front National. Scholars tend to disagree on how to define these parties, but there is a general belief that they constitute a threat to liberal democracy (541).
• The two most common definitions of 'populist' currently used as both highly problematic. One defines 'populism' as politics based on emotion and simple solutions rather than complex, nuanced, or rational 'normal' politics. The other defines 'populism' as policies designed to be popular in ways that degrade the national interest, like debilitating tax cuts (542-543).
• These definitions are both pejorative and conceptually unclear. Multiple political perspectives can appear to be populist to different groups, meaning that this definition cannot provide an objective or clear categorization of populist parties (543).
• The author proposes a new definition of populism as an movement which rhetorically divides the populace into two distinct and antagonistic groups: the corrupt elite and the good common people. These populist movements claim that the corrupt elite and in control and that power needs to be restored to the people will (543). 
• Populism is the opposite of elitism. Whereas elitism claims that an amoral populace needs to be restrained and saved by a moral elite, populism reverses the presumed morality of the groups (543-544).
• The populist view of politics has important implications for the behavior of populist parties and movements. Unlike other political organizations who view opponents as misguided, populism views its elite opponents as actively malicious or evil, rending compromise impossible (544).
• The use of the term, 'the people', by populists has had mixed interpretations. The author supports the view that in populist rhetorical discourse, 'the people' refers to the imagined segment of the population which rejects the values and schemes of elites and remains a pure representation of the nation (545).
• Populists are not revolutionary, in that they neither seek to change the essential character of the people -- as fascist movements do -- nor the political system. Populists seek to improve the representation of the people in government by asserting power in populist parties, but are not opposed to the actual political system (546-547).
• Populism in Europe has appeared under a set of distinct circumstances. Populist parties emerge out of circumstances of deep resentment of politics, a perceived challenge to the lifestyles of citizens, and the presence of a charismatic populist leader who can politically organize these feelings (547).
• Populism in the West has existed since the American People's Party of the late 19th Century, but really became popular in Europe during the 1960s. Populism was initially a phenomenon of the Left, particularly concentrated around student movements, democratic leftism, and the Green movements of the 1960s and 1970s (548).
• Contemporary populism has largely migrated towards the political right, concentrating on nationalist rightwing parties who claim to represent the popular will of nations. These include both moderate and extremist rightwing political parties (549).
• This kind of populism had largely disappeared from Western Europe until the early 2000s, when rightwing politicians, including those in established and mainstream parties, began to criticize leftwing governments for representing the interests of a metropolitan liberal elite out of touch with the majority of the country (550).
• Populist politics are still found in the extreme leftwing, especially in France and Germany. While the mainstream leftwing has abandoned this rhetoric, radical leftwing parties continue to decry the corruption of elites (549).
• The arguments of corrupt elites made by populists are not more accurate in contemporary politics than they were in previous decades. Similarly, the political class in Europe has likely become less economically and socially stratified from the rest of the country than in previous decades. These facts show that populist parties have not become more successful because of a shift in material conditions, but because of changing perceptions of political life (552-553).
• The perception that corruption and alienation are increasing in politics has been created by changed in modern media, which increasingly focuses on negative elements and scandals in politics. The increased independence and commercialization of the media has created incentive to report tawdry and scandalous political news over other elements while reducing the political checks which previously censored these stories (553-554).
• Advances in the education of European populations have also resulted in an increased demand for good governance as Europeans have come to expect higher standards of governance and personal ethics from politicians (554, 556).
• The author frames this issue in terms of Max Weber's three types of authority: traditional, legal, and charismatic. Most liberal democracies are based primarily on legal authority, but as respect for politicians decreases and doubt about legal institutions increases, there is more societal space for charismatic authority (556).
• A depoliticization of politics and governance in many European countries during the 1980s and 1990s, especially Belgium and Austria, has created sterile political systems with a number of taboos and consensus sometimes opposed by the population. Populist parties have succeeded most here because they promise to repoliticize issues (555).
• The increased prevalence of political correctness in European political discourse, especially surrounding issues of race, has created new taboos for populists to break. The public resentment of political correctness feeds into support for populist politicians (554).
• The deindustrialization of Western Europe has destroyed many of the conventional political divides in Europe, while simultaneously creating new disenfranchised populations. This change has come at the same time as globalization has created radically new economic, demographic, and political situations, and the end of the Cold War has disempowered the rhetoric of conventional political parties (555-556).
• The populist politics of contemporary Europe are the opposite of the populism of the 1960s. Whereas the leftist populism of the 1960s wanted to overthrow the political order by educating the population and radically increasing participation in governance, the contemporary populist movement calls out to a 'silent majority' to provide political support to a new political class. The contemporary movement does not demand political participation, but support for strong leadership (557-558).
• This difference is best observed through the surprising lack of support among populist voters for participatory or direct democracy. These voters are angry with the current political order, but do not want to be more involved in politics. Instead they support candidates who will advance their views with the current system of limited participation (558-559).
• Like historical forms of populism, contemporary populism in the West alleges not only that ruling elites are corrupt, but that they are also in cahoots with 'alien' interests. While historically this has meant Jews, contemporary populists instead alleged that elites are serving the alien values of progressives and political correctness (561).
• "Despite all democratic rhetoric, liberal democracy is a complex compromise of popular democracy and liberal elitism, which is therefore only partly democratic. [...] populism is a biting critique of the democratic limitations within liberal democracies. In its extremist interpretation of majoritarian democracy, it rejects all limitations on the expression of the general will, most notably the constitutional protection of minorities and the independence [...] of key state institutions (e.g. the judiciary, the central bank)" (561).
• The author claims that populism comes in episodes, but that once populist parties have become temporarily victorious, or forced conventional political parties to accept their demands, the public interest in them will fade and populist parties will stop winning elections (563).