The Populist Conception of"People":Differentiation and Reflections
The danger of populism lies in its abuse of the concept of people on which democracy rests.In re-sponse to the challenge of populism,we need first to clarify the real difference between democracy and populism in terms of the view on people.This paper reviews and analyzes the existing academic understanding of the pop-ulist view on people in the perspectives of"anti-institutionalism","anti-elitism"and"anti-pluralism",and ar-gues that although these labeling assertions have some elements of truth,their ambiguity,tension and limitations need further clarification.On this basis,this paper points out that"anti-pluralism"is indeed the essential feature of the populist view on people,but"anti-pluralism"here cannot simply be equated with referring to the people as a whole.In other words,the essential difference between populism and democracy does not lie in whether they accept or reject the people as a whole,but in their different ways of conceiving the people,that is,whether the people as a whole has a fictional meaning or not.This paper is an effort not only to deepen the understand-ing of populism,but also to provide a framework for rethinking the theory of democracy.
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