Populism, Popular Sovereignty, and Popular Rule

Abstract Is it possible to rescue the concepts of ‘the people’ and popular sovereignty from their use and abuse at the hands of right-wing populist politics? In this article I look at two competing challenges to populist ideas of popular sovereignty. Underpinning a liberal critique of populism is a constrained view of democracy that either rejects any ideal of popular sovereignty altogether or reserves popular sovereignty for hypothetical moments of constitutional justification. The second view, which I call democratic pluralism, defends a dispersed view of popular sovereignty in which the people are conceived of as both inclusive and as ruling. In conclusion, I argue that this second option offers the most adequate answer to the populist challenge.