The term “populism,” increasingly heard in society, seems to be used as a synonym for demagoguery. It applies indiscriminately to governments, political regimes, forms of state, personalities or economic policies.
It is a term that we hear constantly and always in a pejorative tone, however, we see that before it was a word of common use in the media and political discussions, it was an academic term with different nuances.
- In this article we will analyze the origin and perspectives of populism.
- As well as the main characteristics of Latin American populism.
- Given its relevance.
Despite the difficulties in achieving a systematic conceptualization of the term, we can take into account three perspectives:
As we said, this term had an academic use before its common or popular use, it was first used in the late nineteenth century to name a stage in the development of the socialist movement in Russia.
This term has been used to describe the anti-intellectualist wave, a belief that socialist activists must learn from people before they can be their guides.
A few years later, Russian Marxists began using the term in a pejorative sense to refer to the Socialists who thought that the main subjects of the revolution were peasants and that the socialist society of the future should be built from rural communes.
So, in the international socialist movement, populism, to designate a movement that opposes the upper classes, but which, unlike Marxism, identifies with the peasantry and is nationalist.
On the other hand, and with no apparent connection to its use in Russia, the term began to be used in the United States to refer to the short-lived People’s Party, which appeared to be supported mainly by poor farmers with anti-elitistic and progressive ideas.
Thus, we see that, in both cases, the term referred to a rural movement with anti-inelectual tendencies.
However, in the 1960s and 1970s, other researchers adopted the term in a different sense, although related, in this way, populism ?, was used to name a number of reformist movements in the Third World (Peronism in Argentina, Varguism in Brazil). and cardeism in Mexico).
Here, the hallmark was the kind of leadership: more than institutional staff, without plural and emotional without rational.
This is how academia stopped using the concept of “populism” to define peasant movements and began using it to refer to a vast ideological and political phenomenon. By the 1970s, populism was already a movement that threatened democracy, always with negative connotation.
Latin American populism has always been recognized for its inclusivity, in particular, three elements define this characteristic:
We have seen how the term populism has evolved, acquiring a negative connotation that it initially did not have.
Thus, the term has, in principle, become a recognition of the disrecognise and need to learn for those who intend to govern to refer to certain political movements that seek to earn the sympathy of the people with their proposals, whether their proposals are better for the people or not.