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“A Sociological Framework for the Analysis of Populism” via Laurent Thévenot’s Sociology of Engagements

Tuukka Ylä-Anttila Helsinki Research Group for Political Sociology

Ñ  Preliminary attempts to interpret some of Laurent Thévenot’s concepts for the study of populism to see if they could be of use

...or actually:

Ñ  1. Public Justification Ñ  2. Personal Affinities Ñ  3. Liberal Individuals

Grammars of Commonality (Thévenot 2007, 2011a, 2011b)

Ñ  Imperative to justify when habitual action interrupted

Ñ  Disputes over worth Ñ  Conceptions of common good

1. Public Justification (Boltanski & Thévenot 2006)

Ñ  Individual’s or group’s right is to further its own interest

Ñ  This is the best way to achieve the common good, it is argued

2. Liberal Individuals (Thévenot 2011a, 12–14)

Ñ  Commonality via common relationship to shared cultural commonplaces

3. Personal Affinities (Thévenot 2011a, 14)

Ñ  Democracy as taking care of common issues Ó Public justification

Ñ  Democracy as fight for own interest Ó Liberal individuals

Ñ  Democracy as performing a community (?) Ó Personal affinities

Conceptions of Democracy

Populism

Ñ  “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté generale (general will) of the people” (Mudde 2004, 543)

Ñ  Nostalgia for “agrarian gemeinschaft” w/ rural community values, “heartland” (MacRae 1969, 156; Taggart 2004; lowercase g in original...)

Ñ  Against the complexity of modernity, for an “organic” community

Ñ  ...grammar of personal affinities?

Agrarian populism

Ñ  “ethno-pluralism” (Spektorowski 2003), “identitarianism” (Betz & Johnson 2004), “differentialist racism” (Taguieff 1993)

Ñ  Cultures as fundamental and not to be mixed Ñ  ...grammar of liberal individuals?

Contemporary Radical Right-Wing Populism

Ñ “Internationality is unquestionably a good thing and mustn’t be confused with glorification of multiculturalism. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is an excellent expression. I myself think it means that an immigrant must adopt Finnish practices and, above all, Finnish law. Everyone has a right to exercise their own religion, as long as it doesn’t require the input of the Finnish taxpayer, and doesn’t affect Finnish traditions e.g. in schools.”

Ñ “If Finns have to look at the religious dress of muslims and the subordination of women under the guise of religion, so we can without worry sing suvivirsi once a year! IS THIS QUESTION SOME SORT OF JOKE???”

Ñ “Work-related immigration is acceptable, as long as we take into account unemployed Finns.”

Ñ “Immigration should not be allowed as long as Finns are unemployed. First we employ the Finns and only then others. ”

Ñ  Detaching broader argumentative mechanisms from their specific usages

Ñ  Revealing conceptions of democracy behind arguments

So, what’s the point?

Ñ  Betz, Hans-Georg & Johnson, Carol 2004: Against the Current – Stemming the Tide: The Nostalgic Ideology of the Contemporary Radical Populist Right. Journal of Political Ideologies 9(3), 311–327.

Ñ  Boltanski, Luc & Thévenot, Laurent 2006: On Justification: Economies of Worth. Princeton University Press.

Ñ  MacRae, Donald 1969: Populism as an Ideology. In: Ionescu, Ghita & Gellner, Ernest (eds.): Populism. Its Meanings and National Characteristics. London: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 153–165.

Ñ  Mudde, Cas 2004: The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563.

Ñ  Spektorowski, Alberto 2003: The New Right: ethno-regionalism, ethno-pluralism and the emergence of a neo-fascist ‘Third Way’. Journal of Political Ideologies 8(1), 111–130.

Ñ  Taggart, Paul 2004: Populism and representative politics in contemporary Europe. Journal of Political Ideologies 9(3), 269–288.

Ñ  Taguieff, Pierre-André 1993: From Race to Culture: The New Right's View of European Identity. Telos December 21, 1993, 99–125.

Ñ  Thévenot, Laurent 2007: The Plurality of Cognitive Formats and Engagements: Moving Between the Familiar and the Public. European Journal of Social Theory 10(3), 409–423.

Ñ  Thévenot, Laurent 2011a: Oikeutettavuuden rajat. Yhteiselämää koossapitävät sidokset ja niiden väärinkäyttö. Suomentanut Veikko Eranti. Sosiologia 48(1), 7–21.

Ñ  Thévenot, Laurent 2011b: Power and oppression from the perspective of the sociology of engagements: a comparison with Bourdieu’s and Dewey’s critical approaches to practical activities. Irish Journal of Sociology 19(1), 35–67.

Thanks.