Historical Retrospective of the Phenomenon of Populism and Political Demagogy

Abstract

The article gives a general description of the phenomenon of populism and political demagoguery through the prism of their historical development. The author pays special attention to the disclosure of the essence of the concepts of “populism” and “political demagoguery”, while defining their common features and differences. In particular, it is noted that despite their outward resemblance, populism and demagoguery are not identical. Thus, populism provides a much less negative way of gaining popularity among the masses than demagoguery, because demagogues speculate on the real problems of their audience, present events, views of the opponent in a false light, resort to falsification of facts. In modern political practice, populism is a much more complex and ambiguous phenomenon, and demagoguery is only one of its many tools and strategies. In this aspect, the concept of “politicking” is close in meaning, which, along with demagoguery, is one of the negative manifestations of populism.

The article also makes one of the first attempts to identify the main periods of historical development of populism and political demagoguery, while determining the main directions of their evolution. At the same time, examining populism and political demagoguery in historical retrospect, we can also conclude that the objective conditions for the emergence of these socio-political phenomena were related to the social trend, according to which the masses are only the object of politics. Subjective preconditions for the emergence and spread of populism are caused by the imperfection of the relationship “domination – subordination”, the dominance of mass society. In general, the study concludes that the functioning and prevalence of populism and political demagoguery in modern political systems is characterized by its determinism of cultural, historical, political characteristics of countries.