Publication Title
Populism
Document Type
Article
Department or Program
Sociology
Publication Date
7-29-2024
Keywords
electoral successes, emotions, populism, private sphere, public sphere
Abstract
What can explain the remarkable electoral successes of populist leaders across the world in the last two decades? This article contributes to the growing research on possible answers by proposing a new perspective. Modern societies have long featured, and largely benefited from, a split between the private and public spheres. Each sphere has functioned according to its own logic. Populist leaders have attacked and delegitimized the public sphere by destabilizing it with the logic of the private one. Since large numbers of citizens have increasingly felt left behind by the public sphere and unable to make their voices heard, they have seen in populist leaders daring representatives of the thoughts and emotions that they have for too long been unable to express openly. This explains their visceral and emotional attachment to those leaders, and their votes at the polls. Evidence comes from some of the most important cases of populist leaders across the world. The paper concludes with reflections on who in society can actually assume the roles of populist leaders, and on the consequences of such a breach of the public sphere for the functioning of the political system.
Recommended Citation
Duina, F. (2024). The Great Breach: Populism and the Undermining of the Public Sphere with the Logic of the Private One. Populism (Leiden, Netherlands), 7(2), 174–196.
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Bates College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Required Publisher's Statement
Original version is available from the publisher at: https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10063
