Last year, the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, or Brexit. The lash against the establishment is one that some say may signal its end. This year, U.S. President Donald Trump backed out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and has attempted to tighten the country’s border with plans to build a wall and impose travel restrictions on six Muslim-majority nations.
It may be easy to believe the rise of populist politics is a recent phenomenon, but such leaders date to Classical antiquity. Observers say populism is the result of an imperfect popular governing system.
“Populism is the manifestation of problems with democracy,” says Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College.
Political parties have existed since the earliest days of democracy and other forms of representative government, offering differing opinions on the best way to serve the interest of the people. And from the beginning, there have been groups that have made it their duty to protect the common public from society’s elites.
In the Roman Republic, dating back to before 100 B .C ., there were the Populares. Leaders such as Julius Caesar and Mark Antony promoted policies that would benefit the poor, such as land redistribution and cutting interest on debts.
In direct opposition to the Populares were the Optimates, the majority party that represented aristocrats and pushed for greater power of the Senate. The conflict between the elite and the commoners was at the heart of the Republic’s demise; Civil wars were fought over these differences, eventually leading to the Republic’s downfall.
Populist candidates pit the public against the elite, building distrust in the current system by saying it is at the root of any current frustrations or discontent. Whether those claims are real or imagined matters little to supporters of the cause, as the populist candidate serves as a symbol of change.
When people find that their usual political party “lacks solutions and helpful responses to social decline and economic decline, they look elsewhere,” says Berman, who this past week joined others to speak about the topic at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Voters feel disadvantaged or dissatisfied with how their individual needs are being served and find an enemy in the system, she says, making politics a “zero-sum game they’re losing and others are winning.”
Global interest in populism is four times greater today than it has been in at least the past decade, according to Google Trends. Interest began to grow in the summer of 2016 before the Brexit vote and seems to have peaked in January 2017, the month Donald Trump took office as the country’s 45th president.
But an increased use of the term doesn’t mean it’s a new trend.
An analysis of speeches from political leaders in Central and Eastern Europe by researchers at the Central European University found that the populist rhetoric has found a mouthpiece in various leaders across countries and years. Speeches were scored based on a rubric that measured how strongly they promoted the concept of “the will of the people,” and each political leader was rated relative to others on a compilation of his or her speeches.
In addition to last year’s Brexit vote and election of Trump, a candidate who touted himself as the anti-establishment candidate, a crop of populist candidates have taken foothold across the world. In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte swept into the presidency last year with crude rhetoric. His actions since as president, particularly in fighting crime, appeal to many Filipinos who have witnessed the drastic rise in crime rates. In Europe, a series of elections are testing populist sentiment. Earlier in March, Dutch voters rejected Geert Wilders and his far-right political party. Larger tests loom in France this spring and in Germany in the fall.
Experts agree that there is always some discontent with the system that rumbles beneath the surface, but a number of factors have led to the acceleration of the ideology’s success in recent years and months.
Christopher Garman, a lead analyst and managing director with the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, calls it a “tipping point phenomenon.”
Politics are driving the economy now, he says, and the growing income gap coupled with the migration crisis has created an “aligning of the stars” for populists to take power.
According to a survey conducted in 36 countries, more than 70 percent of people agree that institutions in society ignore their individual goals. The sentiment is above average in Latin American countries, which have historically elected populist leaders — like the Perons and Kirchners in Argentina — since the 1920s and ’30s, as well as Italy, which faced on a constitutional referendum to vote in 2016 to limit parliament’s powers, and France, where presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has polled well.
Nearly 90 percent of all global respondents agree that there is a leadership crisis in the world today, and about 60 percent think that their country is changing too quickly. Less than half said that they believe their country is heading in the right direction.
“The successful populist leader changes the rules of the game” to make it seem like they are bringing democracy back to the people, says Francisco Gonzalez, an associate professor of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Today, more than ever, he says, it is easier to diffuse those messages and build public appeal.
The Dutch general election in March was largely considered the first major test of populism’s current strength. While Wilders and his Party for Freedom did not win, Garman warns against simplifying the power of the movement’s sentiments into a binary of victory or defeat.
“Don’t overstate non-wins as the end of discontent,” he says. “There’s no reason to believe it will wane anytime soon.”
More from U.S. News
Global Democracy Faces Nationalist and Populist Movements
10 Most Corrupt Countries, Ranked By Perception
Populism’s Resurgent Rise Around the World originally appeared on usnews.com
