The Integrative Critique of Democracy: Three Key Strands of Antidemocratic Thought in the History of Ideas and Their Recurrence in Contemporary Antipopulism

Abstract This article shows that contemporary antipopulism utilises antidemocratic figures of thought that date back to ancient Greece. First, three complementary strategies of defence against demands for equal political and social participation are identified on the basis of three stages in the history of ideas (Greek antiquity, the American Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and early liberalism in the nineteenth century). First, devaluation: Here, groups of people are described as irrational and easily seduced, which is why they are excluded from political decision-making processes. Second, institutionalisation: If the complete exclusion of the many is not possible, then the establishment of an institutional filter system offers the possibility of restricting their political scope. Third, without the other two strategies disappearing, since the 19th century there has been an increasing demand to educate the social classes, who are not yet considered politically capable, to become good citizens. Subsequently, the return of these three antidemocratic figures of thought is demonstrated using exemplary contributions to the populism debate. The article concludes with the diagnosis that contemporary antipopulism is faced with the challenge of labelling as democratic those institutions that are supposed to limit democracy. This is why the widespread invocation of democracy in the fight against “populism” seems so helpless.