Uprisings such as the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street signal a
resurgence of populist politics in America, pitting the people
against the establishment in a struggle over control of democracy.
In the wake of its conservative capture during the Nixon and Reagan
eras, and given its increasing ubiquity as a mainstream buzzword of
politicians and pundits, democratic theorists and activists have
been eager to abandon populism to right-wing demagogues and
mega-media spin-doctors. Decades of liberal scholarship have
reinforced this shift, turning the term "populism" into a
pejorative in academic and public discourse. At best, they conclude
that populism encourages an "empty" wish to express a unified
popular will beyond the mediating institutions of government; at
worst, it has been described as an antidemocratic temperament prone
to fomenting backlash against elites and marginalized groups.
Populism's Power argues that such routine dismissals of populism
reinforce liberalism as the end of democracy. Yet, as long as
democracy remains true to its meaning, that is, "rule by the
people," democratic theorists and activists must be able to give an
account of the people as collective actors. Without such an account
of the people's power, democracy's future seems fixed by the
institutions of today's neoliberal, managerial states, and not by
the always changing demographics of those who live within and
across their borders. Laura Grattan looks at how populism
cultivates the aspirations of ordinary people to exercise power
over their everyday lives and their collective fate. In evaluating
competing theories of populism she looks at a range of populist
moments, from cultural phenomena such as the Chevrolet ad campaign
for "Our Country, Our Truck," to the music of Leonard Cohen, and
historical and contemporary populist movements, including
nineteenth-century Populism, the Tea Party, broad-based community
organizing, and Occupy Wall Street. While she ultimately expresses
ambivalence about both populism and democracy, she reopens the idea
that grassroots movements-like the insurgent farmers and laborers,
New Deal agitators, and Civil Rights and New Left actors of US
history-can play a key role in democratizing power and politics in
America.
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