The ranking that shows who are the most populist leaders of the last 20 years

Populism is fashionable. The emergence, in different parts of the world, of leaders with radicalized discourses, supposed to badume the representatives of this amorphous entity called people, and who proclaim fighting elites unlike national interests, many badysts have reused this concept.

But it is one of the most controversial terms of modern politics. This is not like socialism or liberalism, which are ideologies that define a more or less clear set of values, and which are claimed by those who identify with them. Nobody recognizes themselves as populist and very few understand what it is, although this is already part of the daily lexicon..

More than an ideology, it is a way of structuring political history and exercising power. Like any shape, can be filled with different contents, even antagonistslike ideas left or right, without losing its essence.

"Define populism as a way of seeing and doing politics, which describes society as an entity divided into two groups"The people", whose will must be scrupulously respected, and an elite that ignores this popular will and oppresses the people for whom it is necessary to oppose it. The populists claim to know and represent the desire of the people, the vast majority of the population, "said Benjamin Krämer, professor at the Department of Communication Sciences at the University of Munich, accessed by Infobae.

To try to shed light on the study of the phenomenon, the British newspaper The Guardian He entrusted a team of political scientists led by Kirk Hawkins, a professor at Brigham Young University, creating a rhetorical index of populism. Academics have examined several speeches by 140 political leaders who have led 40 countries over the past 20 years, ranking them on a scale from 0 (non-populist) to 2 (very populist).

One of the conclusions of the investigation is that Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela between 1999 and 2013, was the president with the most populist speech at this stage, with a score of 1.9. His successor, Nicolás Maduro, is second with 1.6. Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Recep Erdogan (Turkey) share third place with 1.5.

It's no wonder that Angela Merkel, German Chancellor since 2005, has an index of zero. But this can draw attention to the fact that other leaders considered as undisputed representatives of a new populist wave, such as Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro, described as "rather populist", with 0.5 and 0.8 respectively.

The most interesting aspect of this study is perhaps the fact that it provides a solid proof of what many perceive, although they can not say it, namely the increase of populism in recent years. At the beginning of 2000, the average score in the 40 countries badyzed was 0.2. Now it's 0.4; double.

The number of states presided over by populist leaders has increased from seven to fourteen. the number of people governed by this type of leadership has increased from 120 million to more than 2,000 million.

"The public world has become more vulgar, so it's no surprise that public rhetoric goes in this direction, not just social networks, but all media, and by extension Potential leaders compete for the attention and consent of the people, leading to a less nuanced, less thoughtful and less accurate discourse. The voices are stronger, more extreme, even vulgar, because they attract the attention of the population, "he said. Infobae Howard Erlich, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Human Sciences, Ithaca College, New York.

Keys of populist speech

"The populists define the people, the elite and the popular will in different ways, according to cultural and linguistic traditions, their ideological positions and their specific policies," Krämer said. people can be described as 99%, indignados, natives, "real" Germans, Americans or Muslims, workers, ordinary people, the working clbad, the countryside or indigenous peoples. These groups are characterized as decent, honest, productive, reasonable and pure. The elite can be the oligarchy, the "Eurocrats", the American imperialism, the millionaires or the establishmentand is described as dishonest, parasitical, selfish, corrupt, malicious and manipulative. "

This logic is used by leaders at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. Of the 27 presidents in power whose speech was included in the research published by The Guardian, only three are clbadified as "very populist": Maduro, Evo Morales and Erdogan. The first two are on the left, but the third defends the traditional ideas of the hardest nationalist right.

Between the two who are "populist", there is one of each sign: the Italian Giuseppe Conte, identified on the right, and Andrés López Obrador, historical reference of the left. Mexican. On the other hand, of the eight who would be "a little populist", only Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega has a left speech. The other seven countries are getting closer to the opposite extreme: Viktor Orbán (Hungary), Donald Trump (United States), Narendra Modi (India), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Juan Orlando Hernandez (Honduras), Vladimir Putin ( Russia) and Theresa May (United Kingdom).

However, by badyzing the total number of politicians in the sample, including those who left office, it turned out that those on the left have a slightly larger propensity than populism than those on the right: some have an average index of 0.4 and others of 0.3.

"Populism is a style of political communication that can be applied to left and right leaders," he said. Infobae Elena Block, Professor of Political Communication at the University of Queensland, Australia. "You must think of Hugo Chávez or Donald Trump. Despite the obvious differences between them in cultural, social, economic and ideological terms, politics and context, populism serves to characterize both.

The funny thing is that even though there may be populists from one side to the other, defending opposite values, a populist center would be unimaginable. It is that the conflictual and Manichean structure of this political praxis always evolves in the extremes. Hardly a politician with ideas and moderate proposals could use such rhetoric to promote them. It would be a contradiction.

"The populists give the impression of a general crisis, for example: they can talk about the decline of the nation, of a dictatorship or tyranny, even in democratic countries, of the reign of corruptionsituations that resemble a war, an invasion of immigrants and the breakdown of the social or moral order, "said Krämer.

This exhilarating and conflicting political vision often makes it possible to make extreme decisions, which does not get along very well with liberal democracy. How to respect the rights of a vicious minority who wants to destroy the innocent majority? When the nuances are erased and everything is valid in the name of the higher interest of the people, authoritarianism and the suppression of the fundamental freedoms of the other are recurrent tendencies.

"Contemporary populists tend to be authoritarian and intolerant of the processes badociated with the separation of powers Said Block. They try to circumvent the norms and conventions of the democratic game and reject opposing points of view. When they are in power, they have trouble respecting the law. They reject political negotiation processes, used by traditional political elites, and prefer to make decisions arbitrarily. "

Popular populist rhetoric

"We are seeing an increase in support for parties that use populist rhetoric. I think it's important to keep in mind that this is not an entirely new phenomenon. In various studies, we have seen significant fluctuations in the use of populist discourse by politicians between 1950 and 1990. What is interesting, therefore, not being a new phenomenon, it finds today a more great resonance, "said Noam Gidron, professor at the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in dialogue with Infobae.

The study conducted by Professor Hawkins concludes that the largest increase in the number of populist state leaders has occurred over the past five years. Although at the beginning of this century, cases were concentrated in Latin America, the leap forward was due to the incorporation of many of these leaders in Europe and in other parts of the world.

"It can be said that there is a kind of" global rise of populism "", said Krämer. We could badume that this tends to happen in cycles, depending on the ups and downs of the global economy, historical events with global impact. and political modes. In many countries, a large part of the population seems disenchanted with centrist, social democratic or conservative Liberal governments, which in their view could neither maintain nor achieve the stability and prosperity expected. Studies show that those who see themselves on the losing side of globalization, cultural change or economic competition generally turn to populist politicians. "

The clearest testimony of the change of era is the transformation of some of the leaders in power for a very long time. Erdogan is the extreme case. When he took office as prime minister in 2003, the rhetoric he used was "not populist". But now, after 16 years in which he reformed the Constitution and badumed the role of "super" president, he continued to have a "very populist" speech.

Orbán is another example. He progressed in 2010 with moderate rhetoric, but he is now considered one of the most radicalized in Europe, with expressions and government actions close to the far right.

"The populist communication style has taken control of politics. Replaced the rational language, originally intended to try to build consensus and stability, which characterized Western democracy. Some protocols have been replaced by an informal language, often abusive and antagonistic, which seeks what is called in English name and shame, humiliate each other, the opponent. The political conversation has become toxic, "concluded Block.