Democratic Populism in the Margins : Countering anti-immigration populism through democratic praxis

This workshop takes as a starting point the need to adopt a ‘reinvigorationist approach’ as opposed to an ‘insulationist/elitist approach’ to populist trends (Copson, 2016). Whilst the latter entails insulating policy-making from the public and confining it to the ‘experts’, the former entails taking populism seriously and opening up democratic debate to popular deliberation. Reinvigorationist democratic politics reject populist politics that oppose democratic pluralism and personalise power, yet they take seriously the demands inherent in the ‘populist moment’ (Mouffe, 2018), notably those concerning representativity and accountability. In particular, they take ‘placeism’ seriously – the sense of ‘a fierce sense of territoriality and…. a generalized suspicion of outsiders of all kinds’ (Evans, 2017, 217). A focus on ‘place’, particularly on the marginal or rural place that is often considered to be ignored by national and supra-national politics, might promote a radically different form of nationalism to anti-immigrant cultural nationalism commonly promoted by populist politicians. This would be an ‘ascending’ nationalism (Hall 1993), defined from below and associated with the everyday practices of ordinary people rather than with the institutions of the State. Democratic involvement can itself become a way of expressing one’s identity and pride in the nation. Such involvement must be something that is integrated into people’s daily lives, that starts at the level of community and works upwards to the level of national institutions. The sentiment of ‘placeism’ does not therefore have to lead to negative, nativist nationalism. Attachment to place can encourage new forms of democratic participation aimed at tackling issues which affect the locality, whilst participation in local politics can help to reinforce attachment to place. Thus, there exists a positive symbiotic relationship between a locally-based nationalism and reinvigorationist politics. The workshop aims to explore and test the validity of this hypothesis.