Populisms: Inherently Illiberal or Plausibly Democratic? Hybrid Regimes May Offer a Complementary Approach

Jaime A. Preciado Coronado

doi:10.22151/politikon.48.2

Authors

Jaime A. Preciado Coronado Universidad de Guadalajara

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22151/politikon.48.2

Keywords:

Democratisation, , Hybrid Regime, Illiberal Regimes, Political Theory, Populism

Abstract

The central question of this paper is whether a constructive relationship between populism and democratisation may exist, or whether all types of populism inevitably lead to illiberal regimes. Anglo-Saxon and Eurocentric traditions tend to identify populism with fascism, as in the case of authoritarian right-wing regimes, or with left-wing politics as in the case of socialist or communist systems that produce totalitarian regimes. Critical theorists consider populism to be a reaction to a perceived gap separating democratic institutions from the popular sovereignty from which political regimes derive their legitimacy. This paper examines populisms from three main perspectives: (1) negative views of populism from a liberal democracy perspective; (2) positive views from theorists who see populism as a legitimate expression of popular sovereignty; and (3) some ways in which populism may be viewed based on Leonardo Morlino’s definition of a hybrid regime and the experiences of several Latin American countries.

Author Biography

Jaime A. Preciado Coronado, Universidad de Guadalajara

Jaime A. Preciado Coronado, Member of the Mexican National Research System, is currently the Coordinator of Postgraduate Doctoral Studies of Political Science, and Research Professor at the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico, at the Department for Iberian and Latino-American Studies.

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