{"id":23,"date":"2018-08-08T19:18:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T23:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/?page_id=23"},"modified":"2019-03-25T11:08:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T15:08:00","slug":"9-13","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/9-13\/","title":{"rendered":"9\/13 | Left Populism &#8211; February 13, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dqe9nUDjuLE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Seyla Benhabib,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.columbia.edu\/faculty\/seyla-benhabib\">Columbia University<\/a>; Ay\u015fen Canda\u015f, <a href=\"https:\/\/pols.boun.edu.tr\/?q=faculty\/assocprof-aysen-candas\">Bogazici University<\/a>;\u00a0Jean L. Cohen, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/jean-cohen\/\">Columbia University<\/a>; Didier Fassin, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sss.ias.edu\/faculty\/fassin\">Institute for Advanced Study<\/a>;\u00a0Jan-Werner M\u00fcller,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/politics\/people\/display_person.xml?netid=jmueller\">Princeton University<\/a>,\u00a0and Bernard E. Harcourt, <a href=\"https:\/\/cgt.columbia.edu\/about\/people\/committee-faculty\/bernard-e-harcourt\/\">Columbia University<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">in conversation with Federico Finchelstein, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newschool.edu\/nssr\/faculty\/Federico-Finchelstein\/\">The New School for Social Research<\/a>,\u00a0Jason Frank, <a href=\"https:\/\/government.cornell.edu\/jason-frank\">Cornell University,<\/a>\u00a0Rosalind Morris, <a href=\"https:\/\/cgt.columbia.edu\/about\/people\/committee-faculty\/rosalind-c-morris\/\">Columbia University<\/a>, Jedediah S. Purdy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.columbia.edu\/faculty\/jedediah-purdy\">Columbia University,<\/a>\u00a0Joshua Simon, <a href=\"https:\/\/polisci.columbia.edu\/content\/joshua-simon\">Columbia University,<\/a>\u00a0Kendall Thomas, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.columbia.edu\/faculty\/kendall-thomas\">Columbia University<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">read and discuss<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>Chantal Mouffe,\u00a0<\/i><i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/books\/2748-for-a-left-populism\"> For a Left Populism.<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0Verso Books, 2018.<\/h3>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/9-13\/9-13-block-2\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4657\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4657\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/03\/9.13-block-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"694\" height=\"131\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/03\/9.13-block-2.png 780w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/03\/9.13-block-2-300x57.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/03\/9.13-block-2-768x145.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 694px) 100vw, 694px\" \/><\/a><\/h2>\n<p>In her new book <em>For A Left Populism\u00a0<\/em>(Verso 2018), Chantal Mouffe advocates in favor of an egalitarian, open and embracing, populist political strategy that could serve to unite all the people who have been marginalized by the neoliberal global hegemony during the past forty years. As a discursive and rhetorical device, Mouffe argues, left populism can construct an all-embracing \u201cwe, the people\u201d around the unsatisfied demands of all those left behind and opposed to the ruling powers. Mouffe identifies elements of this left populist project in the political discourse of Bernie Sanders and Jean-Luc M\u00e9lanchon, and in the approach of the Podemos and Syriza parties.<\/p>\n<p>Mouffe repeatedly underscores that her political project is constructivist and anti-essentialist: Mouffe is not trying to instantiate a \u201creal people\u201d and does not favor a hostile or exclusionary notion of \u201cthe people.\u201d She views politics through the perspective of agonism rather than antagonism, of adversarial relations rather than friend\/enemy relations. (93) Her project is to unite those who have been left behind by means of a more compelling discourse of equality, social justice, and popular sovereignty.<\/p>\n<p>Mouffe tries to avoid the near-consensus of criticism of populism by stating up front that her project is about praxis, not theory. Mouffe proposes a political intervention, not a theory of populism, and she emphasizes that she has \u201cno intention to enter the sterile academic debate about the \u2018true nature\u2019 of populism.\u201d (9) Nevertheless, those academic debates haunt the project insofar as they pose real risks associated with populist movements.<\/p>\n<p>Almost uniformly, scholars and commentators critique populism. Jan-Werner M\u00fcller, in his book <em>What Is Populism?\u00a0<\/em>(Penn 2016), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbvaopenmind.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/BBVA-OpenMind-Jan-Werner-Muller-The-Rise-and-Rise-of-Populism-1.pdf\">argues<\/a> that populism is inherently an anti-pluralist strategy that, when it succeeds (invariably with the collaboration of more traditional conservative elites), veers towards exclusionary practices and mass clientelism. Nadia Urbinati, in her <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/nadia-urbinati-political-theory-of-populism\/\">article<\/a> \u201cPolitical Theory of Populism\u201d (2019), maintains that populism is parasitic to democracy insofar as it exploits democratic failures by means of an us and them logic, but that when it takes power it inevitably pushes the notion of the people into an extreme or authoritarian direction leading to the distortion of democratic institutions and practices (e.g. the rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances, etc.) Jean Cohen, in her paper \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong with Normative Theories of Left Populism?\u201d presented at the <em>Constellations\u00a0<\/em>conference at Columbia University on November 30, 2018, focuses specifically on the dangers of <em>left <\/em>populism, arguing that it cannot avoid the authoritarian pitfalls of populism more generally.<\/p>\n<p>What is clear from the confrontation with academic critics of populism, though, is that Chantal Mouffe is focused on\u00a0<em>how to gain power<\/em>, whereas most of the critiques of populism are focused on the populist style of governing <em>when in power<\/em>. This reflects, to a certain extent, the distinction that Urbinati draws between populism as \u201ca movement of opinion\u201d versus populism as \u201ca ruling power within the state.\u201d (2019: *12)<\/p>\n<p>But even with this distinction in mind, the core claim of the academic chorus is that a populist <em>mode\u00a0<\/em>of gaining power will inevitably <em>distort\u00a0<\/em>democracy in practice. In other words, that there is <em>path dependence<\/em>: it may not be possible to separate the way a movement takes power from the way it exercises power. There is, certainly, evidence for this. Donald Trump rose to power on a New Right exclusionary populism and has only accentuated the exclusionary nature of his politics in office\u2014to the point where it is now fair to say that he is fueling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/daily\/2018\/11\/29\/how-trump-fuels-the-fascist-right\/\">a fascist, white supremacist, ultranationalist American counterrevolution<\/a>. There is also evidence for this on the left side of the populist spectrum.<\/p>\n<p>The question for us, then, in reading Mouffe\u2019s book, is whether she has crafted a political strategy of an egalitarian and socially just populism in such a way as to disrupt the path dependence? More concretely, is it possible that Bernie Sanders <em>in power <\/em>could avoid the problems of really-existing populism\u2014such as its authoritarian tendency, mass clientelism, and democratic distortion? Or Jean-Luc M\u00e9lanchon? Did this happen in Greece with Syriza?\u00a0 Really-existing political phenomena are notoriously difficult to assess, so perhaps we will need to retreat back to theory\u2014but the central question is whether a left populism strategy can be crafted that would avoid the pitfalls of prior populist experiences.<\/p>\n<p>How then do we evaluate Mouffe\u2019s political strategies when the history of populism is so littered with corpses? Perhaps we need to return to the history books and study less spectacular left-populist coalitions like the <em>Front populaire <\/em>in France (1936-38). Perhaps we should instead project forward and imagine an Ocasio-Cortez or Beto in 2024. Or perhaps we should return to the sharp discontinuity between praxis and theory\u2014which is so central to Chantal Mouffe\u2019s own political intervention. These are the\u00a0central questions for Praxis 9\/13 and they highlights once again the need to directly address the relationship between critique and praxis\u2013between theory and tactics.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to Praxis 9\/13!<\/p>\n<p>[To continue reading, click <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-introduction-to-left-populism\/\">here<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a9 Bernard E. Harcourt.]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/9-13\/img_1407\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4586\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4586 \" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_1407-e1550164971862.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"628\" height=\"326\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_1407-e1550164971862.jpg 1632w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_1407-e1550164971862-300x156.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_1407-e1550164971862-768x399.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_1407-e1550164971862-1024x532.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 628px) 100vw, 628px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seyla Benhabib,\u00a0Columbia University; Ay\u015fen Canda\u015f, Bogazici University;\u00a0Jean L. Cohen, Columbia University; Didier Fassin, Institute for Advanced Study;\u00a0Jan-Werner M\u00fcller,\u00a0Princeton University,\u00a0and Bernard E. Harcourt, Columbia University in conversation with Federico Finchelstein, The New School for Social Research,\u00a0Jason Frank, Cornell University,\u00a0Rosalind Morris, Columbia&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/9-13\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1603,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-23","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}