Die Morphologie des Populismus

Abstract

"Populism has been considered as a complex phenomenon, a syndrome, and more recently as an ideology. This contribution gives some methodological indications in order to analyze populism as a particular kind of ideology. It is based on the morphological approach. This approach permits to find the core of populism and a cluster of central and peripheral concepts. The most important principle of the morphological approach is the de-contestation. As Michael Freeden showed, the de-contestation concerns the competition of the meaning given to the conceptual combination of the terms of the political sphere. This article assumes populism as a weak ideology with a strong core: the concept of popular sovereignty; an ideology very close to democracy, and to other non democratic ideologies." (author's abstract)