Populism

Populism is a contested concept for a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the "common people", often in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed in the late 19th century and has been applied to various politicians, parties, and movements since that time, often assuming a pejorative tone. Within political science and other social sciences, different definitions of populism have been employed.

The term "populism" has long been subject to mistranslation. Further, the term has also been used to describe a broad (and often contradictory) array of movements and beliefs. Its usage has spanned continents and contexts, leading many scholars to characterize it as a vague or overstretched concept, widely invoked in political discourse, yet inconsistently defined and poorly understood. Against this backdrop, numerous studies have examined the term's usage and diffusion across media, politics, and academic scholarship, highlighting the reciprocal influence among these spheres and tracing the semantic shifts that have shaped the evolving meaning of the concept.

The word first appeared in English in 1858, where it was used as an antonym for "aristocratic" in a translation of a work by Alphonse de Lamartine. In the Russian Empire of the 1860s and 1870s, the term was associated with the narodniki, a left-leaning agrarian movement whose name is often translated as "populists". Russian populism in the late 19th century aimed to transfer political power to the peasant communes^{[disambiguation needed]} through a radical program of agrarian reform, and would constitute a breeding ground influencing the Russian revolutions. In English, however, the term gained broader prominence through its use by the U.S.-based People's Party and its predecessors, active between the 1880s and early 1900s. The People's Party championed small-scale farmers, advocating for expansionist monetary policies and accessible credit, and was relatively progressive — for its time — on issues concerning women's and minority rights. Although both the Russian and American movements have been labeled "populist", they differed in their ideological content and historical trajectory.

In the early 20th century, particularly in France, the term shifted into the realm of literature, where it came to designate a genre of novel that sympathetically portrayed the lives of the lower classes. Léon Lemonnier published a manifesto for the genre in 1929, and Antonine Coullet-Tessier established a prize for it in 1931.

The term entered the Latin American political lexicon in the post-war period, becoming a defining feature of the region's political landscape. It was initially associated in the media with charismatic leaders capable of mobilizing recently urbanized populations, particularly those displaced by rural migration. These new urban groups, increasingly integrated into electoral politics, were seen as escaping older systems of clientelist control such as "halter voting" (voto de cabresto or voto cantado) and began to redefine national political life. Although often viewed with suspicion and associated with manipulation or demagoguery, populism in this context frequently carried a positive connotation and was openly embraced by political actors.

Until the 1950s, use of the term populism in academia remained restricted largely to historians studying the People's Party. In 1954, however, two pivotal publications marked a turning point in the conceptual development of the term. In the United States, analyzing the rise of McCarthyism, sociologist Edward Shils published an article proposing populism as a term to describe anti-elite trends in US society more broadly. Simultaneously in Brazil, political scientist Hélio Jaguaribe, responding to the country's emerging "populist hype" in the press, published what is considered the first academic text on Latin American populism, framing it as a form of class conciliation.

Following Shils’ intervention, the 1960s saw populism gain increasing traction among US sociologists and other academics in the social sciences. Notably, historian Richard Hofstadter and sociologist Daniel Bell reinterpreted the legacy of the People's Party through a critical lens, portraying it as an expression of status anxiety and irrationalism. A parallel trend unfolded in Latin America, where scholars—often influenced by Marxist frameworks—began to investigate populism as a political phenomenon tied to modernization, mass mobilization, and developmentalist ideologies. Despite the growing interest, scholarly consensus on the definition of populism remained elusive. Notably, a 1967 conference at the London School of Economics that brought together many of the era's leading experts failed to produce a unified theoretical framework.

The convergence of new—and often contested—academic interpretations with the use of the term by political forces critical of those labeled as populists has contributed to its increasingly negative connotation. The absence of a coherent ideological platform or consistent programmatic formulation among self-proclaimed populists, combined with the lack of a coordinated international movement, has further enabled the term to vary widely in meaning. As a result, populism has come to be applied across a broad range of political contexts and figures, often without clear or consistent definition. The term has often been conflated with other concepts like demagoguery, and generally presented as something to be feared and discredited. It has often been applied as a catchword to movements that are considered to be outside the political mainstream or a threat to democracy.