He worst political phenomenon of our time is the populism. His analysis left behind the quarrel between capitalism and socialismand between left and right. He populism It is a political idea that has been strongly permeating multiple countries. It goes far beyond any ideological geometry, doctrinal current, and form of government. No country is exempt to suffer this political catastrophe. Mexico neither.
Over the past few years, it has grown in many geographic regions and in various social and political causes. As an example we have Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, Peruand now also in Mexico. But the developed powers Nor have they been immune to the populist disease. Among other countries, they have suffered Britain, USA, Spain, Italy, Greeceand Hungary.
There are multiple academics who analyze in depth the populism. Among them, for example, Yascha Mounk, Ece Temelkuran, and Nadia Urbinati stand out, with her excellent book I, the People, where she analyzes the populist phenomenon, not only as an ideology, but also as a government project. Urbinati maintains that populism replaces representative democracy, and is built based on a direct relationship between a charismatic leader and the people who are defined as good and wise.
He populist leader He comes to power through the popular vote, and destroys public institutions arguing that they are corrupt and do not serve the people. In fact, the word “people” is the most used spearhead. Expressions such as “we are the people”, “we act in the name of the people” or “the people are wise” are part of hostile language used to weaken democracy and its public institutions. In addition, he places special interest in destroying the system of political parties, both left and right.
Urbinati highlights that populism reaches government power because the parties and rulers did not fulfill their promise to help the poor, and when they came to government they did not guide public policies to eradicate social problems such as inequality, corruption, poverty and public insecurity. That is, the political parties and the political class forgot to strengthen democracy and build social progress. So, the existence of populism is a clear symptom of the fatigue of the political party system.
In a populist government system, all parties cease to be functional. Political parties become obsolete, and only the party in power exists under the control of the leader. The main problem, Urbinati affirms, is that in this circumstance all parliamentary politics is dismantled, and constitutional democracy is fatally corroded. We are experiencing much of what Urbinati comments on every day in today’s Mexico. Hopefully it is not too late to try to correct the error.
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