81. Liberty, Affect, and The Rise of Populism
- Author:
- Colin Anthony MacNairn
- Publication Date:
- 07-2025
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
- Institution:
- Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
- Abstract:
- In this essay, I reinterpret Hartley B. Alexander’s early 20th-century account of liberty and democracy in light of the 21st-century populist resurgence, integrating the economic analysis of Jonathan Hopkin and Mark Blyth. By combining Alexander’s concerns surrounding the ethical collapse of democratic citizenship with Hopkin and Blyth’s diagnosis of structural economic disenfranchisement, I construct a dual account of populism’s rise as the convergence of moral atrophy and institutional decay. From Trump’s America to Modi’s India, populism emerges as a liberty weaponised against itself. I argue that populism is a condition wherein the form of democracy is preserved, but its substance is debased, thereby reduced to spectacle, demagoguery, and institutional dysfunction. Drawing on specific examples and institutional analysis, I further argue for a reconstruction of liberty grounded in moral formation and institutional responsiveness, thus offering a normative pathway beyond the populist condition.
- Topic:
- Economics, Ethics, Populism, Liberty, and Political Philosophy
- Political Geography:
- India, South America, North America, and United States of America