CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Kirlac, Orhun |
|---|---|
| Title | Populism as an Entity, Its Manifestations and the Study of Populism at the Regime Level: Rescuing Democratic Popular Parties from Populists |
| Summary | The existing literature on populism fails to answer many questions regarding the implications of populism at the regime level. This study argues that this is a consequence of not applying diverse definitions of populism to relevant questions. Through a theoretical evaluation of the existing definitions, it is argued that a distinction between populism as a political style and populism as an ‘entity’ should be made, and latter should apply to regime-related questions. Populism as an entity, however, should be studied at where it manifests itself, that is regime preferences. Based on these arguments, this thesis finds that the genus of populism at the regime level is made up of actors for regime ends. One of these actors is populists, which are elite-centred actors with authoritarian regime preferences. However, actors which have democratic regime preferences, and which constitute a channel for ordinary citizens to involve in government level politics should be distinguished from them, something which current theory fails to do. These actors are democratic popular parties. Finally, it is argued that these findings can help the study of populism at regime level by detecting a clearer analytical ground for research and separating the actors who have different regime-related actions from each other. |
| Supervisor | Bozóki, András |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/kirlac_orhun.pdf |
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