2020 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 2(2) Müller, populism is an ideological position: the populist claims ‘exclusive moral representation of the real or authentic people’. 4 For Wojciech Sadurski, populism is more a form of political organisation, in which populists try to build bridges to the people over the heads of the intermediary institutions (parliament and courts) that mediate between the people and the exercise of power. 5 It seems that the major fault line in the populism debate remains how to understand the relationship between populism and democracy. As Andrew Arato points out, populism does not necessarily cause the breakdown of democracy. 6 Populism may be a fundamentally democratic phenomenon if we define populism in the Rousseauian sense, as a process of the self-creation of a popular subject. And there are real-world examples that anti-democratism and populism do not always go hand in hand. The Greek Syriza party won the general elections in 2015 with a populist economic program. Nevertheless, while in government, the party remained within the framework of democracy. And as we learn from Shaw’s book, the Syriza government even endeavoured to open up citizenship, beyond the existing ‘national’ range. 7 Nevertheless, even those who — unlike Müller and Sadurski — argue that populism is not by definition anti-democratic recognise that populism is problematic for democracy if we define populism as something that is based on personification, mobilisation from above, and friend and enemy relations among opponents within the system in the Schmittian sense. Whatever we think about this academic disagreement on the relationship between populism and democracy, we may acknowledge that today’s dominant populist trend, which is ethnonationalist and hostile to institutional pluralism is incompatible with the underlying principles of democracy. PEOPLE AND SOVEREIGNTY As Shaw rightly points out, the concepts of the people and sovereignty are essential elements of democracy. 8 Ethnonational populists do not abolish these concepts; instead, they reinterpret them. They do so because they accept the inevitability of democracy and speak of ‘managed’ (Vladimir Putin), ‘advanced’ (Recep Tayyip Erdoğan) or ‘illiberal’ democracy (Viktor Orbán). 9 They adopt the vocabulary of constitutional democracy, but they radically redefine its core 4 5 6 7 8 9 Jan-Werner Müller, ‘Populism and constitutionalism’ in Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser et al, The Oxford Handbook of Populism (Oxford University Press 2017) 593. Wojciech Sadurski, Poland’s Constitutional Breakdown (Oxford University Press 2019). Andrew Arato, ‘Three Faces of Populism: Movement, Government and Regime’, Central European University Department of Political Science (Web Page, 12 June 2019) <https://politicalscience.ceu.edu/article/2019-06-12/andrew-arato-three-faces-populismmovement-government-and-regime>. Mark V Tushnet and Bojan Bugaric, Populism and Constitutionalism: An Essay on Definitions and Their Implications (Working Paper No 2017, 21 April 2020) <http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3581660>. Shaw (n 1) 191. Arato (n 6); Shaw (n 1) 26. Sergei Markov, ‘The Future of Managed Democracy’, The Moscow Times (online, 27 January) 2004 <https://www.themoscowtimes.com/archive/the-future-of-manageddemocracy>. UPI, ‘Erdogan: Turkey has “advanced democracy”’, <https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/10/01/Erdogan-Turkey-has-advanceddemocracy/25981349101108/?ur3=1>.Viktor Orbán’s speech at the 25th Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp, 26 July 2014, Tusnádfürdő (Băile Tuşnad) Romania http://20102015.miniszterelnok.hu/in_english_article/_prime_minister_viktor_orban_s_speech_at_the_ 25th_balvanyos_summer_free_university_and_student_camp. 390