Populism as a Democratizing Illiberal Phenomenon

Abstract

During the last decade populism has become one of the most used and sometimes the most demonized terms by politicians, analysts and the general public who follow the political developments. After the victory of Donald Trump in US presidential elections the number of studies on populism among Western political analysts has significantly increased, and in 2017, "populism" was announced as the word of the year by the Cambridge dictionary. Despite there is no universal definition of this phenomenon, there is a consensus among researchers about one of the most important elements defining populism: It sees politics as a struggle between good and evil. Within the framework of this article, we study the origin of the term populism and the reasons for its negative perception. By conducting a literature review and analyzing expert interviews, this article aims to find an answer for the question “Why is the manifestation of populism in one case perceived as a positive, and in another case as a negative phenomenon? “. Within the framework of the article, populism is considered as a democratizing anti-liberal phenomenon.