Reconceptualizing Populism: A Genealogy of the Concept(s) of the People in Early Modern Political Thought

Populist parties and movements are gaining ground across the globe. They claim to represent the people and its interests against economic and political elites but are also accused of being a fundamental threat to liberal democracy. It has proven hard to define populism and its relationship to liberal democracy, which likewise claims to represent the people and its interests. My project will analyze the differences between them and their relationship based on what I claim is their diverging conceptualizations of the people. I approach this historically, reconstructing their diverging conceptualizations of the people, which produce very different and fundamentally incompatible conceptions of what it means for the people to rule and which are at the centre of contemporary debates between populists and liberals.