Populism in Search of its Model

Abstract

This article makes the case that populism needs to be understood in the context of a model. The key argument formulated in this article is that the phenomenon of populism does not lend itself to taut theoretical formulations. Consequently, the explanatory and the inferential reaches of populism are largely descriptive. However, “mere description” within the context of a model is more than enough to produce rich understandings of populism and, under the right modeling conditions, even predictions of populist discourse eruptions and movements.