On the misinterpretation of the concept of populism in the work of Margaret Canovan

Abstract

The British social researcher Margaret Canovan is nowadays considered to be one of the most important classics of the sociological concept of populism, especially thanks to two works on this subject regarding Populism and The Peoples. Undoubtedly, the division of populism, proposed by the author, into agrarian and political populism has become the canon of the interpretative allocation of the meanings of the concept of populism. Canovan with great reliability presents the links between populist mobilization of the masses and their disappointment with  social  functions of   political  elites, presenting in her  writing this dichotomy as  an constant  component of populism (Canovan, 1981: 9, 139, 297). Reading more carefully Canovan, however, I could not help the impression that the author in her analyzes is not entirely objective and even misinterprets the concept of populism. This text is therefore an attempt at some critical interpretation of the ideas proposed by the author. Appreciating the author's huge and unquestioned contribution to the discourse on populism, I also wanted to capture the imperfections of this way of thinking about populism as a social phenomenon. This is important because Canovan imposed a certain interpretative framework, stimulating the discourse on the subject of populism on the one hand, and giving it negative connotations above all and showing it as a destructive force. Avoiding in her analyzes the presentation of positive functions of populism, she led to the consolidation of one-sided interpretations of the phenomenon, hence my voice is also an attempt to show the positive social functions of populism.