Since Tocqueville (1835), civil society has been recognized as a cornerstone of liberal democracy. But populists claim to be the only legitimate representatives people, leaving no space for society. Are populism and enemies? To answer this question, we look at voters’ choices in Europe. We find that individuals belonging associations are less likely by 1.6–2.8 percentage points vote populist pa...

In his book on Liberalism against Populism, William Riker argued that Lincoln’s success in the 1860 election was the culmination of a long progression of strategic attempts by the Whig coalition of commercial interests to defeat the ‘Jeffersonian-Jacksonian’ Democratic coalition of agrarian populism. Riker adduced Lincoln’s success to his ‘heresthetic’ maneuver to force his competitor, Douglas,...

When voters fear that politicians may have a right-wing bias or that they may be influenced or corrupted by the rich elite, signals of true left-wing conviction are valuable. As a consequence, even a moderate politician seeking reelection chooses “populist’ policies i.e., policies to the left of the median voter as a way of signaling that he is not from the right. Truly right-wing politicians r...