Πόσο ελκυστική είναι σήμερα η ιδέα της δημοκρατίας πέρα από τα σύνορα της Ευρώπης και πόσο εφαρμόσιμη είναι η ίδια η δημοκρατία στις χώρες που γειτονεύουν με αυτήν; Για πολλούς ευρωπαίους, ακόμη και η σκέψη ότι η δημοκρατία θα μπορούσε να μην αποτελεί επιθυμητό αγαθό των κοινωνιών είναι σχεδόν αδιανόητη. Η πραγματικότητα όμως λέει μια διαφορετική ιστορία—την ιστορία μιας Ευρώπης που διαπιστώνει ότι η εξαγωγή στην ίδια τη γειτονιά της του πολυτιμότερου πολιτικού προϊόντος που διαθέτει, δηλαδή της δημοκρατίας, δεν έχει μεγάλη ζήτηση.
The following is the text of a keynote address I gave at the 7th Prague Populism Conference on May 16, 2022, in Prague, Czech Republic. To my knowledge, this is the first attempt to locate populism within a parsimonious general theory of political systems across time and space. The analysis is based on years of conceptual, theoretical, and comparative empirical research, originally encapsulated in this infographic.
I am happy to be once again in this Prague conference on populism, which by the years has become one of the most important in Europe on the subject. As this is not my first time to participate in this event, I recall some extraordinary thinkers who in previous years shared important ideas about populism in this room. I am humbled. For my more modest part, what I am going to try today to say something that is original, since I have never presented it before, and which I hope, will also appeal to your own interests on the subject of populism. So, the title of my presentation today is “Populism as democratic illiberalism” and my more particular focus will be on how this populism fits a general political systems theory. Ultimately, I am going to present a typology of the universe of political systems in which populism will take its own specific place. Let us then begin from the source of all contention, which is the concept of “populism.”
A political system is a particular way is which a polity, or state, is organized and governed. Political systems are distinguished by the different ways they allocate political authority in the interactions that take place within them between the state itself, organized groups in society, and each citizen individually. This infographic presents a typology of all modern political systems, including populism, classified into clearly defined types that are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. It also offers minimal definitions for each type of political system. In May 2022, I presented this typology in a conference on populism in Prague, Czechia, and, if interested, you can read my keynote speech here.
