Sentimental Allegiance and the Affective Foundations of Political Authority: Hume, Populism, and Political Realism

Abstract Most interpretations of Hume’s political philosophy cast him as either a conservative sceptic or a proto-utilitarian theorist of public utility. This paper argues instead that Hume’s central contribution lies in his realist account of political legitimacy and collective judgement as grounded in sentiment rather than rational justification. This interpretation illuminates both Hume’s distinctive position in the history of political thought and contemporary challenges to democratic authority. Against contractarian and deliberative theories, Hume shows that political obligation emerges from shared public sentiment shaped through sympathy, custom, and sustained institutional experience. Public opinion, on this view, is not primarily a set of beliefs but a socially cultivated structure of affective commitment. Reconstructing Hume’s distinction between violent passions and calm sentiments, the article shows how his political psychology anticipates key dynamics of contemporary populism while also diagnosing its intrinsic instability. Populist mobilization, from a Humean perspective, derives its power from the rapid circulation of violent political affects while simultaneously undermining the slow institutional formation of calm democratic sentiments on which durable political authority depends. The result is a form of political realism that illuminates contemporary democratic pathologies without collapsing into cynicism about political possibility.