Populism and Class Conflict

Abstract

The “classical” account of Latin American populism sees it as a phenomenon combining a particular form of ideology with certain organizational and social structural features. For “classical” theorists, populism in Latin America is a loosely organized multiclass movement united by a charismatic leader behind an ideology and programme of social justice and nationalism. In their view this linkage of ideology and organization is the strength of the definition; it links ideology with a definite mode of political participation. There is an implicit or explicit contrast with the supposedly class-orientated nature of politics in the advanced industrial societies of Western Europe. Popular participation in populist movements, it is asserted, does not take on a “class” character. Either the subordinate strata compose a “mass” or the working class does not yet have its own autonomous organizations. It tends, therefore, to be organized and led by other social classes or political forces in a heteronomous manner. The absence or weakness of an autonomous working class is central to the classical definition of populism.