Populism

Populism is a political philosophy or rhetorical style that holds that the common person is oppressed by the elite in society, and that the instruments of the State need to be grasped from this self-serving elite and used for the benefit and advancement of the people as a whole. A populist reaches out to ordinary people, talking about their economic and social concerns, and appealing to their common sense. Most scholarship on populism since 1980 has discussed it as a rhetorical style that can be used to promote a variety of ideologies.

Modern populism, of all political hues

Populism is alive and well in various countries around the world. Examples of populists in the contemporary era include:

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• Pauline Hanson in Australia
• Winston Peters in New Zealand
• Jean-Marie Le Pen in France
• Carl I. Hagen in Norway
• Jerry Brown, Pat Buchanan, Howard Dean, Jim Hightower, Jesse Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, Bernie Sanders and George Wallace in the United States.
• Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma/Myanmar
• Silvio Berlusconi, Umberto Bossi and Alessandra Mussolini in Italy
• Nelson Mandela in South Africa
• Jörg Haider in Austria
• Viktor Orbán in Hungary
• Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil
• Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands
• Preston Manning, Mike Harris and Ralph Klein in Canada
• Hugo Chávez in Venezuela
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran.

It should also be noted, however, that not all politicians who adopt a populist campaign are in fact true populists. Some politicians adopting the rhetoric and language of populism are criticized for using populist rhetoric merely as an organizing tactic without any actual intent of standing up for common people.

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