In their recently-published book entitled Reclaiming Populism, co-authors Paul Summerville and Eric Protzer examine the threats to democracy caused by the increasing enthusiasm for illiberal populist ideas. They examine what is driving the phenomenon and policy policy prescriptions for safeguarding democracy in the face of these pressures. The following is an excerpt - in fact, the entire concluding chapter -- of the book. National Newswatch thanks the authors and Polity Press for allowing our readers access to this excerpt. - James AndersonConclusion: Scripting a Path ForwardAt the beginning of this book we asked, “Is there a script that political leaders who value pluralism can follow to win back disenchanted voters?” We hope that the preceding chapters have demonstrated that there is a way forward. There are a number of clear and crucial policy lessons for any citizen or political leader grappling with the populist challenge.First, the threat of illiberal populism will not go away by itself. Contemporary populism is rooted in structural economic unfairness that has been almost a half-century in the making. It will not evaporate as any particular politician leaves the world stage. In fact, the danger is that, without a clear alternative, many countries are likely to see new anti-pluralist populist ideas and leaders emerge. This is particularly the case in the United States, which is under intense pressure to address a wide range of complaints but, given America's separation of powers, may not be able to deliver enough. A betting person might think that illiberal populism may further derail democracy. Addressing populism is a generational task.Second, populist voters must be taken very seriously. Populist grievances stem from a sense of durable and genuine economic unfairness, and must be earnestly addressed rather than dismissed. Demonizing voters as deplorable, entitled, racist, or privileged is a sure way to push them toward illiberal extremes. This is an especially serious problem given the populist view that unfairness results from elites rigging the system against the “true” people. The challenge requires a mindset of reclaiming rather than expunging the populist vote. Perhaps only in the early 1930s was there a more dangerous moment that required as much empathy and honesty to address what is at stake.Third, policymakers must target the binding constraints to economic fairness. This is vital both to win power in the short term and, in the long term, to solve the problems that ultimately lead citizens to illiberal conclusions. The diagnostic method, as outlined in Chapter 5, can be used to identify which inputs constitute the most severe constraints to economic fairness in any particular country. There is some evidence that targeting these constraints is a powerful political strategy to counter illiberal populism. US Democrats found that running on healthcare issues was effective in the 2018 midterm elections, while Macron was elected to the French presidency in 2017 with the promise of modernizing its labor markets.A necessary corollary to this point is that political leaders should avoid extraneous or, even worse, outright unfair policy proposals. The political left has especially struggled against right-wing illiberal populists in many instances precisely because it speaks to equal outcomes and identitarian “social justice” rather than economic unfairness. Biden won a razor-thin victory in 2020 in no small part, for instance, because the left wing of his party did not differentiate between the popularity of healthcare reform and far more questionable left-of-center policies like defunding the police or a universal job guarantee. In fact, the former is essential for economic fairness because healthcare helps to create substantive equal opportunity; the latter not only fail to contribute to fairness but arguably undermine it. As was noted in The Financial Times in late 2020:
It cannot be overstated how important it is for liberal politicians to get off the bandwagon of equal outcomes and identity politics and talk about fairness instead.Getting past these kinds of ruinous misunderstandings requires comprehending that enforced equal outcomes are simply unfair. All the evidence is that, on the whole, voters prize fairness but are deeply opposed to equalized outcomes. Mixing up these two ideas has historically given a path to power for many leaders who believe in neither. It is particularly worth differentiating between equal opportunity and equality of outcome, which far too often are incorrectly conflated. Opportunity is a function of what a society provides so that citizens can live their lives as much as possible on their own terms. Outcomes are the consequence of the pursuit of those life chances. Millions of people pursuing their own paths will, by any understanding of the human condition, inevitably lead to very unequal outcomes. This is a good thing. Economic fairness is more likely when societies promote both equal opportunity and fair unequal outcomes. Economic unfairness results when societies fail to provide equal opportunity, try to make outcomes equal, or permit unfair outcomes where one citizen prospers by undermining the opportunities of another.Fourth, policy proposals must be directly communicated in terms of fairness and social mobility to connect with the electorate. Illiberal populist politicians frequently rouse voters with talk of a tilted playing field; there is no reason why mainstream political voices cannot do the same, but through watertight logic rather than emotive outrage. Precisely linking constraints like (depending on the country) unaffordable healthcare or the impossibility of getting a good job to a voter's personal life experience of unfulfilled potential could, with the right execution, be considerably more convincing than generic anger at foreigners and elites. Instead of tip-toeing around illiberal populist arguments, the mainstream may find it more effective to beat them at their own game. The message must be that we are all better off when everyone has a fair chance at success, but equally that the fruits of success must accrue to those who earned them in fair measure.Fifth, political leaders must be aware of both the cultural and the economic sensitivities of the would-be populist electorate. Immigration, for instance, is a notoriously salient issue in modern-day culture wars, and one on which populist leaders take decidedly illiberal positions. Mainstream voices must approach such topics with pragmatism to put out rather than to stoke fires. They should aim to succinctly rebut illiberal ideas without pouring vitriol on their opponents, and then move on. Or one might look at how Macron failed in the design and communication of one of his key environmental proposals, the gasoline tax hike that spawned the Gilets Jaunes. He undoubtedly should have been sensitive to how this policy would be perceived as unfair by struggling rural voters. The same green-house gas reduction might have been achieved through taxing more affluent polluters, thereby burnishing his environmentalist credentials without the associated political fallout. By contrast, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's large and widely praised carbon tax increase was positioned as fair for the wellbeing of future generations, and as revenue-neutral because the taxes raised would be returned to lower- and middle-income households.Finally, policymakers can never let their guard down against unfairness. Any number of shocks from technological, environmental, economic, political, social, and cultural change can force a society to reassess the rules and policy inputs that shape its sense of fairness. The most successful societies nimbly navigate new challenges, adjust course, and ultimately pass on their cultural genes many generations into the future. The least are extinguished in violent collapse or slowly crumble into dust, leaving the lonely archeologist to rediscover them, and wonder what happened.Eric Protzer is a Research Fellow at Harvard University's Growth Lab. He has a master's degree from MIT in Technology Policy. Eric's work has been cited and featured by the EU, UN, IMF, IADB, and Brookings, and he has advised governments such as those of Western Australia and Jordan.Paul Summerville (b 1957) is an Adjunct Professor at the Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria. He graduated with a PhD in International Relations from the University of Tokyo (1988) and had a twenty year career (1988-2009) in finance. Paul ran for Parliament twice in Canada, co-founded the e-commerce firm LimeSpot (2013), and served on the Board of the Canada Revenue Agency (2018-2021).It is instructive that in California, where no ethnic group has a majority, voters went heavily for Mr Biden but emphatically rejected a measure to allow the state's public bodies to engage in affirmative action. Yet in Florida, which Mr Trump won, voters strongly endorsed a measure to raise the minimum wage to $15. Together these results should tell the Democrats to focus on the economic woes that Americans have in common, rather than moral grandstanding. There should be no trade-off between promoting diversity and confronting economic fairness. (Luce 2020)