Masterclass in Budapest: Kenneth Roberts on Populism and Contemporary Failures of Democratic Representation
The latest masterclass in Budapest, open for fellows in every hub, was held on January 14. Our project’s expert Kenneth Roberts (Cornell University) discussed populism and failures of democratic representation with the fellows and other interested researchers.

It is widely assumed that the contemporary rise of populist movements, parties, and leaders in different world regions is attributable to, or at least related to, failures or crises of democratic representation, and political parties in particular. What, however, is the nature of these failures or crises of representation, and why did they seemingly emerge—in both new democracies and old—at a time when democracy itself had made unprecedented gains on the global political stage? The class addressed these complex theoretical questions by locating populism within the broader sphere of political representation and its transformation over time. It sought, first, to clarify what is distinctive about populism as a logic or mode of political representation, in contrast to pluralist and class-based modes of partisan representation. It then explored the structural and institutional conditions that undermine these alternative modes of representation, generating crises of representation that provide a foundation for the populist (re)structuring of the political field.

Special attention was given to populism as a logic of political cleavage formation, and its contrast to political fields structured by either pluralist or class-based forms of interest representation. The analysis also focused on how both left-wing and right-wing expressions of the populist zeitgeist are rooted in the complex social heterogeneity of modern capitalism, the erosion of sovereign national authority associated with it globalizing dynamics, and the disarticulation of party-mediated interest representation.

The presentation was followed with a lively discussion with contributions from the in-person and online participants.

Before the class, the fellows were asked to read two important papers:
Kenneth Roberts, “Structural and Institutional Sources of Populist Resiliency,” forthcoming in Michael Bernhard and Carlos de la Torre, eds. Still the Age of Populism?
Noam Gidron and Peter A. Hall, “Populism As a Problem of Social Integration,” Comparative Political Studies 53, 7 (2020): 1027-1059.
Professor Roberts also suggested further readings on the topic:
Peter Mair, Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London: Verso, 2013 (pp. 1-21, 42-44).
Simon Tormey, The End of Representative Politics. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2015 (especially Chap. 3, “Are We Becoming Unrepresentable?”).
Kenneth M. Roberts, “Market Reform, Programmatic (De)Alignment, and Party System Stability in Latin America,” 46, 1 (2013).
Kenneth M. Roberts, “Populism and Political Parties,” in Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, and Pierre Ostiguy, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Populism (Oxford University Press, 2017).
Vicenzo Emanuelle, “Class Cleavage Electoral Structuring in Western Europe, 1871-2020,” European Journal of Political Research (2023).
Danielle Caramani, “Will vs. Reason: The Populist and Technocratic Forms of Political Representation and Their Critique to Party Government,” American Political Science Review 111, 1 (2017): 54-67.
Bernard Manin. 1997. The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge)
The Zoom recording of the class is available here.