Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 What Is the Problem?
- 3 The People and Popular Sovereignty. Back to Basics, and Onward …
- 4 The Nationalization of the People
- 5 Fantasies and Paradoxes of Populism
- 6 Myths and Misconceptions
- 7 Sweden-Intransigent Moralities at War in the Peopleâs Home
- 8 Catalonia-Toward a State Truly Our Own!
- 9 Hungary-Righteous Revenge for Historic Humiliations
- 10 Brexit-Between Despair and Delusion
- 11 The United States-Normalizing a Superpower by Abnormal Means
- 12 Extractions and Perspectives
- References
- Index
3 - The People and Popular Sovereignty. Back to Basics, and Onward …
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 What Is the Problem?
- 3 The People and Popular Sovereignty. Back to Basics, and Onward …
- 4 The Nationalization of the People
- 5 Fantasies and Paradoxes of Populism
- 6 Myths and Misconceptions
- 7 Sweden-Intransigent Moralities at War in the Peopleâs Home
- 8 Catalonia-Toward a State Truly Our Own!
- 9 Hungary-Righteous Revenge for Historic Humiliations
- 10 Brexit-Between Despair and Delusion
- 11 The United States-Normalizing a Superpower by Abnormal Means
- 12 Extractions and Perspectives
- References
- Index
Summary
Questions that keep popping up when populism is the subject of discussion or analysis regularly have to do with “the people,” since populists always refer to the people as the ultimate source of legitimacy, authority and rightful rule. What then is the people, how does it manifest itself, what are its relations to sovereignty, nation, democracy, constitutionalism and “the masses,” and how should we understand the concept of popular sovereignty, which everybody seems to support but which nevertheless constantly gives rise to disagreements, debate, worry and differing— sometimes even mutually exclusive— interpretations?
Many enlightened and well- informed efforts have been made to get to grips with these issues (among them Kalyvas 2005; Laski [1919] 2008; Loughlin and Walker 2007; Marchart 2005; Morgan 1988; Morris 2000; Ochoa Espejo 2011; Spång 2014), but in recent times most notably by Margaret Canovan, who in her The People (2005) makes a valiant effort to ask many of the right questions and to answer them extensively and succinctly, both conceptually and with a view to the historical intricacies of the notion in a variety of nation- states and from the vantage point of different academic disciplines (history, politics, philosophy, discourse theory, linguistics, etc.). She is herself steeped in the Anglo- American tradition and makes no bones about it (see notably Chapter 5), but is also able to include the views of both German and French intellectuals and some Latin and South American approaches to boot.
Canovan is mainly concerned with unveiling the ambiguities and confusions surrounding the concepts of “the people” and “popular sovereignty,” both synchronically and diachronically. Is “the people” a collective unity or just a mass of individuals; abstract or concrete; sovereign nation or sovereign “in reserve”; constituent or constituted; dignified or “rabble”? These are some of the problems that pervade her account throughout, exemplified well in the following quote:
that sovereign people is an elusive entity, not to be equated simply with a majority vote at a particular time. Indeed, “the people” as an entity or group capable of exercising power is/ are not readily available. Far from being a given, it/ they has/ have to be in some way constructed, mobilized or represented to be in a position either to wield power or be checked in doing so.
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- Information
- Paradoxes of PopulismTroubles of the West and Nationalism's Second Coming, pp. 23 - 36Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2020