Populism as Threat to Democracy

In scientific and political discourse, populism is usually considered as a negative phenomenon that threatens democracy. In this study, the author aimed to define populism in this vein and to perform a critical analysis of the most popular approaches to this phenomenon. While refuting the idea of populism as anti-elitism or anti-pluralism, the article introduces an authentic definition of populism as manipulation of the masses by a politician. The new definition makes it possible to explain why heterogeneous phenomena designated by different authors as populism share similar negative characteristics. Populism poses a threat to democracy because it decomposes democratic culture, which can eventually destroy democratic institutions and result in authoritarianism. Moreover, it leads to rational ignorance and tyranny of the masses. Regardless of the specific reasons for the surge of populism in the late XX and early XXI centuries, its fundamental cause lies in the fallibility of human nature, which makes it a permanent threat to democracy.