Transcript 0:00 [intro music] Welcome to Trendlines, a podcast on global affairs brought to you by World Politics Review. My name is Pieter Durrie. 0:13 Princeton's Jan-Werner Müller will share his insights into the dynamics of populism in Europe for this week's report. 0:20 But first, I'm joined as always by Judah Grunstein of World Politics Review for a briefing on this week's developments in world affairs. Uh, what kept you busy this week, Judah? 0:30 This week was actually a short week because of the Memorial Day holiday, but we did have a lot of interesting stuff that we covered. 0:37 Uh, one in particular, Michael Kugelman wrote a briefing for us that offered a survey of US-Pakistan ties under the Obama administration from 2008 till today. 0:51 And Michael explains how Obama came into office seeking to transform the relationship, which is often questioned due to Pakistan's harboring of Al-Qaeda leadership and its refusal to cut ties with other extremist groups and militant groups targeting Afghanistan and India, uh, terrorist groups, in fact. 1:13 And in part because of the demands of the Afghanistan War, which Obama escalated in 2009, he sought to really improve the relationship, but he also wanted to expand it beyond security ties to include, uh, development aid and support to the democratically elected government to the tune of $7.5 billion in, uh, promised assistance. 1:39 The problem being, as Michael puts it, security issues will always find a way to dominate the agenda. 1:45 And so despite these, uh, good intentions, uh, he describes how after 2010, the US ramped up covert operations within Pakistan, culminating in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. 2:00 And, uh, he describes the way in which, uh, those operations, uh, put strain on the bilateral relationship. 2:09 And now with the US engagement in Afghanistan winding down and with India becoming a, a more prominent and promising potential partner, uh, in the context of the administration's pivot to A- to the Asia-Pacific region, uh, Pakistan is less and less relevant to the US's broader goals in Asia, especially amid concerns over China's rise. 2:35 Uh, at the same time, despite, uh, often heard calls for severing the relationship, uh, it still has its own internal logic, as Michael explains. 2:46 For Pakistan, US security assistance is essential, especially in its counterterrorism and counterinsurgency fight against groups in, uh, in the border areas with Afghanis- Afghanistan. 3:00 And for the US, uh, there's a need to engage Pakistan because it's an unstable nuclear-armed country, and so ignoring it or abandoning it, abandoning it is simply not really an option. 3:14 So despite the fact that, uh, Obama in a recent interview described the relationship as dysfunctional, it's, uh, it's a relationship that is in, 3:25 more than likely, uh, fated to endure or doomed to endure, depending on your perspective. 3:31 Yeah, and, uh, there's a really interesting aspect to this str- strategic partner- partnership between the Pakistan and the US and, uh, which has become increasingly more strained. 3:40 And, uh, of course, the US has historically tended to invest in strategic partnerships even after the obvious value of these partnerships has perfect-- uh, has, has probably run its course, and that has been the subject of another piece you had, uh, on the site by Steve Metz. 3:55 Yes. Uh, in his column this week, Steve looked at the conditions in the United States that could create the possibility of dramatic changes in America's strategic part- strategic partnerships. 4:08 Uh, he, he looks at, to begin with, the variety of reasons why US partnerships and rivalries remain relatively stable over time. 4:19 Uh, in part, this is due to the range of actors involved in determining US policy, but also it has to do with the advantages that the US enjoys from the current world order and its role in it. 4:32 At the same time, Steve looks at several policy shifts initiated by the Obama administration, which call this sort of long-term stability into question, uh, in particular the nuclear deal with Iran, the normalization of ties with Cuba, and the solidification of ties with Vietnam, uh, all of which are examples of, of sort of tying up loose ends with regard to old en- enmities and, and rivalries. 4:59 Um, he, he then examines the ways in which Donald Trump's criticisms of existing partnerships and alliances, particularly NATO and America's Asian alliance network, uh, represents a complementary approach which would 5:17 S- similarly radically alter America's strategic relationships in an unprecedented way. 5:23 Uh, Steve argues that while much of the foreign policy and national security community is opposed to these ideas, the American public is actually pretty open to them. 5:33 Uh, so things that were once unthinkable in American strategy and foreign policy, such as, uh, an American president visiting Havana or the US pulling away from NATO, are now either taking place or being actively debated in the political arena. 5:50 So definitely a moment of, uh, of potential change and dramatic change in a way that, uh, is rarely seen in US foreign policy. 5:59 Yes, and, uh, I think, uh, w- with, uh, with a look at the, uh, at the topic of our report later, um, the question of a rising populism in Europe, I think this is... 6:10 will also be interesting to see how the rest of the world reacts to this new US, uh, flexibility when it comes to international politics. 6:18 Yes, and in, in some ways, this topic ties into the briefing that I know you wanted to talk about, uh, about Kenya, in the sense that oftentimes America's calculus or the, the criteria that go into choosing its partners have to do with security relationships and the s- the search for stability in various regional orders. 6:40 And Kenya, which has, uh, been more and more of a security partner in East Africa, s- specifically in Somalia, i- is one such example, and that often comes at the expense of domestic, um, domestic freedoms and, uh, democracy. 6:58 Yes. So Kenya is, uh, going to hold elections in about a year, in August twenty sev- twenty seventeen. 7:05 And, uh, you had a very good, uh, v- very good briefing, um, by Andrew Green on worldpoliticsreview.com, um, where he looks at the conflict that is already brewing around this upcoming election. 7:17 So, uh, it's important to note that Kenya as a country has a very mixed track record in recent history when it comes to elections. 7:25 It is a democracy, uh, and they, and, uh, there are regular democratic elections since, uh, since about two decades now. 7:32 Um, but in 2007, uh, these elections descended into massive ethnically, uh, motivated violence with 1,500 people dead and six, 600,000 more displaced. 7:45 Um, that led to kind of a national shock, uh, and a few reforms, and the elections, the last elections in 2013, uh, went all right, albeit with, uh, with quite a few technical, um, problems. 7:58 And now, uh, in the run-up to 2017, um, there is a lot of conflict between, uh, the main opposition coalition, q- which, uh, ha- with the acronym CORD, um, uh, led by the former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and, uh, the ruling, uh, party coalition, Jubilee, uh, led by President Kenyatta. 8:19 And, uh, there have been a row of, uh, demonstrations, uh, led by CORD, um, against the role of the Electoral Commission, uh, with accusations that this Electoral Commission isn't, uh, impartial, that it's, that it is taking side, the side of the government and that the president is basically preparing electoral fraud. 8:39 And in the Kenyan political environment, where, where this s- this very quickly takes on ethnic and racial overtones, um, this is a very, very, uh, dangerous situation, and the government hasn't responded, uh, very openly to this criticism. 8:56 There, there have, there has been a lot of police violence against these demonstrations. 9:00 Um, so Andrew looks at a bit, uh, looks at the, the background to the, to, to the details that, uh, CORD is lamenting and, uh, the track record of, uh, President Kenyatta and also to some of the scenarios that could play out in the coming year. 9:14 Yes, and, and Kenyatta, as well as his deputy president, uh, William Ruto, were both indicted by the International Criminal Court, uh, f- for allegedly, uh, instigating or organizing some of the ethnic violence that followed the 2007 election, uh, results, which led to a power-sharing government in which Odinga was the prime minister. 9:39 Those charges were dropped after s- some charges that, uh, that the Kenyan authorities were tampering with witnesses or pressuring witnesses not to testify. 9:51 Uh, but definitely in the context of, uh, of this kind of background where the, any, any sort of electoral outcome could be the spark that sets off widespread violence, uh, these kind of protests and this kind of, this tension, this kind of tension is obviously alarming, especially since there have already been, uh, some, some protesters who were killed by, by the, uh, security forces. 10:17 Uh, for now, there seems to be a dialogue that's opening up, but it, it's not yet, uh, clear whether it will resolve their differences. 10:24 Uh, in some ways, it's a, it's a situation where these kind of differences will never really be resolved, and it's almost a case-by-case basis to avoid the worst-case scenario. 10:33 Yeah, and, and, and my money is definitely that, uh, there won't be a lar- very large scale descent into violence, that the, the elites don't have a real interest at ruining the state because many of them profit quite handsomely from the current state of affairs. 10:49 But, uh, there's also, uh, little cha-- uh, very little chance that the, uh, government and opposition will sort out these long-standing grievances and problems, uh, for good. 11:00 So, uh, there, there will be a lot of tension, um, there will be a lot of clashes, uh, but, uh, my guess is that they will stay, um, relatively minor and not spoil the whole process. 11:11 There's a lot of, uh, attentiveness on the part of Western governments and representatives in Kenya to try to do everything that they can to avoid the kind of violence that took place in 2007 to, to encourage both sides to, to come together and, and try to resolve things, uh, through n- through talks and negotiations. 11:30 That definitely as well. So yeah, thanks again for, for coming on the show this week. Thanks as always. It's been a pleasure. 11:37 [Instrumental music] Populist movements and parties have experienced a renaissance in Europe, a dynamic familiar to those watching this year's US presidential elections. 11:49 Jan-Werner Müller, professor for politics at Princeton University, took some time to sit down with me and explore the phenomenon of poli- populism and how it affects European politics in particular. 12:00 [Instrumental music] My name is Jan-Werner Müller. I teach politics at Princeton University, and I'm about to publish a book called What Is Populism?, question mark, which will appear in September of this year. 12:18 Many people talk about populism these days. It's arguably one of the key words that is used to describe our times politically, but the term is often used in a very, very loose way. 12:32 One tends to talk about irresponsible policies as a matter of populism. 12:39 Other people mention basically the psychological states of voters who go for populist parties, and then they talk about resentment and anger and frustration and so on. 12:50 So very often one feels that we're all over the map as far as understanding populism is concerned. 12:57 My suggestion is to say that there's actually a fairly clear way in which we can delineate populism from other political phenomena. Populists are not just anti-elitist. 13:12 Yes, they criticize elites, but so do many other people, so do many of us, and that doesn't automatically make us populists. What also has to be there is a distinct form of what you might call anti-pluralism. 13:27 The populist will always say that he and only he properly represents the real authentic people. 13:37 So just one quick example, when before he became president in 2014, the Turkish then still Prime Minister Erdogan, um, at a party congress said, "We are the people." And then turning to his critics saying, "Who are you?" 13:54 That for me is the arch populist, if you like, move or statement. 14:02 Now, one thing that has happened in the context of the Euro crisis is that many populists have appropriated the language of democracy and popular sovereignty, and they've been able to do that very effectively because they can deploy that language against European elites who keep saying that there is only one proper, if you like, technical or technocratic solution. 14:28 [Instrumental music] And all we have to do is recognize that whilst the politicians and the big banks and the big businesses will in this referendum defend their own vested self-interests, it's people power that will win this referendum, and after we've won this referendum, I hope in many other countries in Europe too. 14:49 Yeah. Yeah. [Clapping] [Instrumental music] Against that, of course, for many people it seems plausible to say, "No, we have to reassert popular will. After all, we live in democracies. 15:03 It cannot be that everything is, so to speak, decreed to us by Brussels or let's say ultimately by Angela Merkel." So that I think has in a sense favored populists. 15:17 But saying that there should be more room for democracy can be said by many other actors too. Populists don't have a privileged position to invoking, invoking this language. 15:28 What they have done though then is to basically go one step further and say that nobody else can really properly represent the people. 15:36 It is only they and they alone who really do it, which is in my view, the dangerous and anti-democratic element in populism. Now allow me to add, add one thing, 15:49 which is that even though at first sight what you might in a shorthand way call technocracy on the one hand and then populism on the other, both of them seem to be totally opposed to each other. 16:01 There seems to be a clear conflict or antagonism. When you think about it more care- carefully though, in a sense these two political formations share one important trait. 16:15 For the technocrat, there is only one proper technical policy solution, 16:23 and for the populist, there is only one authentic popular will, which is then exclusively construed and supposedly represented by the populists. 16:35 So what drops out of the picture in both cases is anything like normal democratic debate, debates in parliament, debates in civil society, pluralism in the sense of a plurality of different judgments of a situation, different prescriptions for the future, the stuff that we normally tend to associate with democratic politics. 17:01 So they share a certain anti-pluralism and therefore I think it's plausible to say that even though they seem so opposed to each other, in a certain way, indirectly perhaps, they also help each other and they both tend to squeeze out regular democratic politics between them. 17:19 [Instrumental music]I'm strongly against Grexit, but I can't prevent it if, uh, the Greek government is not doing what we are expecting the Greek government to do, respecting the dignity of the Greek, uh, people. 17:38 We only have a few examples of populists actually coming to power. But what these examples have shown 17:47 is that a certain conventional wisdom according to which populist parties can never govern, because after all they are protest parties, and by definition one cannot protest against oneself once one is in government, that this conventional wisdom is not very plausible. 18:07 So if you look in particular at Hungary and since 2015 Poland, we have seen populist regime, regimes in power. 18:19 They govern according to what I've tried to describe as the core populist logic, namely anti-pluralism. 18:27 So they constantly, in one way or another, assert that there isn't really a proper legitimate opposition to them, that they represent exhaustively and exclusively the proper nation in the way that, for instance, Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary, at one point asserted that only his Fidesz party effectively represents, uh, the nation. 18:55 Or think of Kaczyński in Poland basically talking about anybody who is against his party and his government now as somehow having treason in their, in their genes. 19:08 It's these kinds of statements which I think leaders like this use to legitimate themselves, but they also really transform the state. They try to capture the public media. 19:21 They try to disable checks and balances, such as constitutional courts, as we've seen very dramatically in Poland recently. 19:29 That, in a sense, demonstrate that there is a particular, if you like, governing style of populists, and that again, it has a very clear anti-democratic impetus. But from what we can tell now, 19:44 it also is proving relatively stable in a certain way, relatively, um, capable of entrenching a populist regime. 19:56 [dramatic music] Last October's parliamentary elections in Poland were won by PiS, the Law and Justice Party, which garnered 37% of the vote, giving the party leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, a narrow majority in both the upper and lower houses. 20:20 Since then, the party has sought to consolidate its victory by tinkering with the Constitution. It's plunged the country into a crisis that no one predicted. So this has been 20:37 one of the effects that we've actually, that we've actually seen. In no other country, uh, can I think, can, can I think, uh, it be said that we've seen the real construction of populist regimes, um, regimes like this. 20:52 What we have seen, though, is many instances where it's not entirely clear yet whether parties and movements ultimately clearly become identified with the kind of anti-pluralism that I talked about earlier, or whether they are more willing to say, "Yes, we play the democratic game. 21:13 Of course, we want to represent as many people as possible, but we drop the claim to exclusive representation." So an interesting in-between case, for instance, is Grillo's, uh, Five Star Movement in Italy. 21:28 Clearly, a lot of what Grillo has said in terms of criticizing the Italian state, many people with good reasons find valid. 21:37 When on other occasions he says, "We basically want and deserve nothing less than 100% of the seats in parliament," he's making a populist, anti-pluralist, and therefore dangerous move. 21:51 So I think with a lot of movements and parties, it's a moment where we still have to see which way they will ultimately go. Talking with populists is not the same as talking like populists, so 22:07 one should not shy away from engaging in debates and in, if you like, proper political democratic conflict. Very often, these parties do 22:23 put issues and problems on the table that one has to, in some way or other, engage with. 22:31 That doesn't mean that one has to accept the framing of these problems that these populist parties and leaders suggest to the rest of us. 22:41 So if you think back to an infamous slogan by the Front National in, uh, France, for instance, they at one point always talked about one million unemployed people and one million immigrants. 22:53 Now, one can say that, yes, there is a serious issue about unemployment without accepting the framing that, yes, this is of course all due to immigration and people who aren't really part of the proper French nation. 23:08 More particularly, I think there's a burden these days on social democratic parties, or given that some of these social democratic parties in effect, 23:21 um, have arguably abandoned some of their core social democratic principles, the newcomers on the European scene, such as Syriza in Greece- Podemos in Spain, 23:34 for these parties to really, in a sense, recapture, to put it very bluntly, parts of the working class. It's now clear that in countries like Austria, to some degree in France, 23:50 populist right-wing parties have a lot of support, in some cases most support, among workers. 23:58 So this is a huge challenge, um, for parties that consider themselves to be on the left, that consider themselves to be in the business of social justice, fair terms of sharing the fruits of the economy, et cetera, et cetera. 24:16 So I think this is something very concrete that these parties in particular have to think about. Not everything that a party that we can identify as right-wing populist says is therefore automatically illegitimate. 24:32 As I was trying to say earlier, the populist part really comes down to anti-pluralism, to saying that we and we alone properly represent the authentic people. 24:45 There aren't really any legitimate other contenders for power. 24:49 Therefore also, these parties constantly, when they don't win, tend to put into question a political system which doesn't give them the outcome they would like to see. 25:00 Hence, as we've seen, some of these populist actors flirt with ideas like resistance, revolution, overthrowing the system altogether. That's dangerous. 25:12 That's dangerous stuff, and that I think one has to call them out on. That has to be made clear that this is, you know, no longer part of a regular democratic, modern, representative political game. 25:27 But there's nothing wrong in principle with, let's say, parties that represent certain conservative points of view, conservative points of view in morality, certain points about the economy. 25:41 One doesn't have to like any of this personally, but if, for instance, the alternative for Germany in the German context were to become simply a party that in certain respects is to the right of the Christian Democrats, who have moved very much to the center in recent years, and they represent certain traditional understandings of morality, let's say, 26:06 that, you know, again, one doesn't have to like that, but that's not in and of itself populist, and that's not in and of itself dangerous for a democracy. 26:15 Arguably, it can be a good thing to have a more differentiated, more complex party system where more people have the feeling that, yes, my points of view, my particular concerns are properly represented by a clearly visible party formation. 26:34 But again, this is the, I think, large question for our time, whether some of these parties will persist in their very dangerous populism or whether they can somehow become, if you like, normalized. 26:49 [Instrumental music] My thanks to Jan-Werner for sharing these insights. He is also the author of an in-depth article on worldpoliticsreview.com titled Populists and Technocrats in Europe’s Fragmented Democracies. 27:04 Be sure to check it out. If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to the World Politics Review newsletter on worldpoliticsreview.com and to this podcast in iTunes or a podcast app of your choice. 27:17 Please also leave a rating or a comment for Trendlines in iTunes. That really helps other people to discover the show. Trendlines is produced and edited by me, Peter Dury. 27:26 You can follow me and World Politics Review on Twitter, and you can find links to pieces covering the issues we talked about in the show notes on worldpoliticsreview.com. 27:35 Have a fantastic weekend and see you next week for a new episode of Trendlines. [Instrumental music]
