Introduction
In the past three years, the world has been experiencing a drastic change in the its operations. The way politics is being conducted is different from what society is used to. More people running for office have been using emotional appeals and attempting to sympathize with people who feel that the current political system is wronging them. This is known as populism “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups: “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”, and argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (Mudde). In the status quo, the “pure people” are those that feel marginalized by the political system and the “corrupt elite” are the political class and the upper class which benefit from the current political system. The adoption of populism by politicians across the globe has been met with unexpected success. There is an astonishing amount of people who feel that the current political establishments have disenfranchised them and this has fueled populism’s fire and resulted in what is now known as the Populist Movement.
This essay aims to create a proper evaluation of “To what extent is the Populist Movement a reaction to increased social diversity?” This essay will be taking two specific countries which have experienced the Populist Movement to evaluate why it has occurred. The countries that will be used in this essay are the United States of America and Germany. Also, to have a more holistic evaluation, two other contributing factors to the Populist Movement will be considered, economic globalization and the effect of technology on jobs. First, the essay will outline the increased social diversity has experienced and look at the impact this has had on the rise of populism. Then it will address economic globalization and the effect of technology on jobs and see what impacts these two factors have had on populism’s rise. Finally, the impact of all three factors will be analyzed to find what their roles were in the development of populism’s popularity.
Increasing Social Diversity
As time has passed, things such as race, religion, ethnicity, and gender, characteristics which once separated humans and were avenues to express hate, have become more of a reason to understand and accept. Since the beginning of human civilization, all the aforementioned characteristics were used to segregate individuals. And while the segregation has significantly decreased it is not as if the has completely gone away. Some examples of hate which has persisted to this day are the oppression of blacks, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and gender inequality just to name a few. While this hate has been seen forever, it has decreased as time went on because “modernization is a process of human development, in which economic development gives rise to cultural changes that make individual autonomy, gender equality, and democracy increasingly likely” (Inglehart). The world is progressive, and it is inevitable that as society moves forward, it’s thought process does as well. Even though more people have become accepting of race, religion, ethnicity, and gender, there has been significant backlash as well. This has occurred for multiple reasons.
One reason is beliefs. Every person grows up with a certain set of beliefs and these beliefs are extremely strong. The reason these beliefs are so strong is because they have continued through generations. An example of this is racism. Racism is something which has become ingrained in humans due to its consistency throughout history. One would be very hard pressed to find points in history where racism was not present, and it has lasted for too long for it to ever disappear quickly and it may never even disappear at all. While it is a minority of people who are racist today, this minority is very resilient in their beliefs due to how ingrained it is.
Another reason for backlash to increased social diversity is xenophobia. Xenophobia is “fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or anything that is strange or foreign.” (Xenophobia). As social diversity has increased, more people have been exposed as xenophobic and this has caused significant backlash. The main example of backlash from xenophobia has been views on immigration globally. Around the world, many countries are experiencing a large amount of their voting population having negative views to immigrants entering their country because they believe immigrants are stealing their jobs.
Specifically, the backlash from both the beliefs of people and xenophobia can be seen in the United States. To focus on racism from the belief aspect, it can clearly be seen that racism is very high in America. According to the Pew Research Center in 2017, “1 in 4 black Americans have faced online harassment because of their race or ethnicity.” This is an astounding statistic because it illustrates how people are currently being discriminated against. The reason that this fuels populism is because the people with this belief are in the minority, there are less racists than there are open-minded people. As a result, the racists feel isolated and feel as if they are being marginalized because less people agree with them and that the “corrupt elite” is the majority and because they don’t agree with them, the racists will never get the things they wish for passed in government. However, when a politician exploits these people who feel so disenfranchised, they can garner great support and this is the case with Donald Trump. By making inflammatory comments and not denying endorsements from groups like the Ku-Klux-Klan, Trump gained the support of the people who are happy with the political establishment in the United States.
Similar occurrences are being seen in Germany with the growth of their right-wing populist party the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in recent years. The party which means ‘Alternative for Germany’ has launched racist attacks against people who work for Merkel like one they launched against a minister of Merkel’s who happened to be of Turkish descent (Independent). The similarity between the two countries on this is striking. In the United States, after the election and even before it, President Trump constantly discussed the impact of immigrants on American jobs, and how the immigrants, specifically from Mexico were taking away all the jobs. He even went as far as to say that America needs to build a wall. However, he did not stop there. In order to spur the people and expand his voter base, he branded immigrants as “rapists” and “criminals” that the United States can’t be allowing into the country (Ross). This is a message which resonated with the xenophobes and only confirmed their fears, and because Trump told them what they wanted to hear there was little questioning from the group. Once again, the ‘us vs them’ dynamic can be seen with the xenophobes being the us and the “corrupt elite” being them, because the majority along with the political and upper classes support immigration, however this makes the xenophobes feel further marginalized, only adding the effect populists have. Similarly, in Germany, AfD is promising more stringent immigration law to limit the influx of refugees and these policies help them appeal to those that feel slighted by modern day establishments in Germany.
Opposing Arguments
Economic Globalization
One other factor which contributes to the Populist Movement is economic globalization. Many people feel that outsiders are taking their jobs and that this is all tied back to globalization and the more interconnected world which people live in. The “corrupt elite” are fans of globalization because it helps them to maximize their profits and grow their wealth, however there are people who feel that economic globalization is harming them. Populists in America and Germany use these feelings to create fear and spread what appears to be truths to gain their votes. In general, people who feel economically insecure should be strong populist voters (Inglehart). The voters who feel marginalized accept what the populists are saying at face value because they desire any solution to their problem. In the United States, some specific examples are people coming from India who are taking jobs in the information technology field or the outsourcing of jobs to countries like China. The outsourcing is equally effective in a populist’s message, because it shows how not only are other completing the work, but the work is not even being done in the United States. To those who feel slighted this is a very easy reason to support politicians running on populist platforms. In Germany, the AfD party is also using economic globalization to improve their position by positing that Germany’s current chancellor Angela Merkel is a reason for the increase of immigrant jobs. This ties into the fears of the minority and results in similar outcomes as the United States.
Technology is taking jobs
There is no stopping the world’s technological advance. Every year there are huge leaps made in the technological realm which completely shake up industries. In fact, technology is changing whole industries quite remarkably. For example, in factories less people need to work on cars or machinery because robots are being built which are effectively doing all the processes that a human would carry out, except with more efficiency. Another example could be with the popular company Uber, which recently bought a company which develops self-driving trucks. The resulting effect is that an entire group of people will be losing their jobs to automated trucks. To put into perspective the impact and why this would anger so many people, there are an estimated 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States currently (Truck). Once the technology is fully developed, there will be 3.5 million people without jobs, obviously that will be a group which is not going to be enjoying the technological advance.
Technology is quickly taking over complete industries and there aren’t enough people well versed in the industries which are rising. The world is shifting to a technologically based environment and workspace, however there are many people currently in the workforce, or there are people in school who are not receiving the skills and training to become successful in the world of the future. As people begin to get laid off because robots or algorithms are doing what humans used to, the now unemployed people have nothing to fall back on. Feeling stranded these people blame the “corrupt elite,” who oblivious to others continue to develop better technology and new ways of doing things, and since this is the view held, the problem
These effects are being seen in the US, as car companies like Ford are increasing the number of robots they use in their assembly lines to mitigate costs. This has infuriated the some of the voting population and Donald Trump has preyed on them because of it. People in the United States have gotten so riled up over job loss due to technology that Donald Trump has promised more jobs for the classic blue collar American in exchange for his votes. This has evidently helped develop populism in America. In Germany, the people are experiencing similar issues. Germany is fast becoming more and more technologically adept as they implement more green ways of getting energy and try to curb emissions. This means less high pollutant factories are in play. However, while this is good for the environment, it only grows the amount of anti-establishment supports in Germany. The only jobs which people know are being taken or erased due to advanced technology and it is very hard for establishment politicians to communicate with these people. On the other hand, however, the AfD party has carefully crafted a message playing off the fears of the people by confirming the increase in technological takeover, however they also promise to bring back the jobs being lost. And even though there is no real policy solution provided, the Populist Movement develops because the populists so strongly use emotional appeals to truly connect with the voters.
Analysis
In this essay, three contributing factors to the Populist Movement have been addressed.
The first is increasing social diversity. Overtime, social diversity has increased and acceptance of other peoples has increased, however there has remained a population of people who feel that social diversity is wrong, and as a result there is some backlash because of strong beliefs and xenophobia. This can be seen in the two countries used as case studies in this essay, the United States of America, and Germany. The other two factors addressed were economic globalization and technology’s impact on jobs.
In terms of economic globalization, many people feel as if it has hurt them because it only really benefits the upper and political classes. The voters believe jobs are either being offered to people who are from outside of the country, or the jobs are being outsourced in a completely different country. Populists use the feelings of the people in order to craft a message which helps garner support from those who feel disenfranchised by establishment politicians. The other factor is technology and how it has taken jobs. Technology has played a large hand in job loss in recent years because there are so many advances occurring in certain industries, that humans are no longer needed to carry out tasks they once did. Again, the people feel as if the “corrupt elite” are only looking after themselves and what is most efficient and what makes the most revenue for them. All of these factors have played their part in the development of the Populist Movement, however some has definitely had a more significant role.
When comparing social diversity’s impact with economic globalization’s, it is hard to get a quantitative answer. However, certain observations are to be made. While economic globalization has had its impact, it is very difficult to find how disagreement with job allocation and qualms with economic policies have more of an impact on people than does increased social diversity. In fact, according to Project Syndicate, immigration and the threat of people such as refugees has been used as a larger rallying point by politicians rather than economic globalization. As mentioned earlier, the beliefs which the people who feel marginalized have are very strong due to how ingrained they are. These beliefs are something which are tied to the very core of these people, they are part of their foundation. It is extremely difficult to make people feel more strongly about something than their beliefs. Moreover, the increased social diversity also plays into the xenophobia of some people. Fear is arguably the most powerful emotion and as a result, the fear of anything is very powerful. By creating this sense of fear people have due to their beliefs, politicians in Germany and the United States have been able to create mass followings and very strong voter bases. The “pure people” who believe that the “corrupt elite” is wronging them, are more likely to angered and feel marginalized when the advancements of the world make them feel less dominant because no longer is their way of thought the norm.
The analysis between the effects of the increased social diversity and technology taking jobs is not so clear cut. Rather, it is more difficult to analyze because while beliefs are so powerful and fear is such a strong emotion, the impact technology has is much different than economic globalization’s. Economic globalization makes the people feel as if their jobs are being taken from them however when technological advancement occurs, there is a different effect occurring. The people are not only getting their jobs taken, but moreover the knowledge and skillset they have becomes outdated. This creates a much different feeling for the population which populists appeal to. Workforce reentry is much harder and it causes people to fear about long-term unemployment. This is an aspect which populists can use in order to sway more voters because long-term unemployment is a significant issue, because it is very difficult to escape the trap is puts a person in. Also, there is a very different feeling felt from having a job stolen by technology, because not only are the skills outdated, but rather than a human taking the job it is something completely foreign. People feel much more devastated because there is something which can be created on demand which will outperform them.
However, as impactful technology taking jobs is on people and how they view establishment politicians, the strength of beliefs and the power of fear are difficult to overcome. As stated previously, these beliefs are not new, they have been passed down for hundreds of years, the only way for reversal would be slow progression. In the status quo however, that reversal has not happened yet, there are still many people who have these strong beliefs as illustrated by the recent American presidential election. Specifically, in the United States and Germany we can see the populist campaigns using immigration as a focal point more so than technological takeover and this is for good reason. In order to maximize votes, politicians utilize the tactics which are the most effective on the people. The successful populist campaign models provide the best evidence to be looked at because it is empirical data, it has been proven to work.
Conclusion
The Populist Movement is something which has taken the world by storm. A radical change has been seen in the way politics is operated and the way politicians run campaigns and interact. Cas Mudde defines populism as “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups: “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”, and argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people.” There is a prevailing idea of us vs. them when discussing populism. The, us, group is the group which feels marginalized by the current political system and feels that it has done nothing to help them. The marginalized people feel that the “corrupt elite”, which is the ‘them’ have been looking out the upper and political classes and have ignored what is to be the will of the people. This is crucial to understand because it is only when people feel unrecognized and ignored that a populist movement can truly occur. There must be a certain amount of unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
The focus of this essay was, “To what extent is the Populist Movement a reaction to increased social diversity?” In order to answer this, obviously, the effect of social diversity was evaluated, but also two counterarguments were posed. Economic globalization and technological takeover of industries are both very strong reasons as to why the Populist Movement is occurring and by stacking the two points against social diversity a holistic analysis is conducted. Social diversity and the backlash it has caused and created was the first factor to be examined. Second, was economic globalization, and how people felt as if the “corrupt elite” used globalization as a way to maximize their profits and while ignoring what the other people of the nation may need. Third, was technology taking jobs from the people. This was very important because it not only meant that people no longer had occupations, but their skillset was no longer needed because machines could do what the people used to. The essay looked at each of these in depth to figure out what part they played in the development of the Populist Movement and then analyzed the impacts of each. The lens it looked at these factors through was the two countries of Germany and the United States of America. Both countries currently have strong populist campaigns and politicians in their countries and provide great benchmarks for analysis.
In these countries, it has been found that increased social diversity had the largest impact on the development of the Populist Movement because it affected the beliefs of people and triggered their fears. The second largest factor was found to be technological takeover of jobs because it created long-term unemployment of the citizens and finally the least influential factor was economic globalization. While economic globalization was an important factor, it simply did not carry the same weight as an impact to beliefs or fears, nor did it carry the same ramifications of long term unemployment and the complete lack of need for people in a certain industry anymore. So, overall, it seems to be that the Populist Movement was a reaction to increased social diversity to quite a decently large extent.
However, it is important to remember that even though social diversity may be the largest contributor, all three factors are significant in the emergence of the Populist Movement. More importantly, it is necessary that society begins to rectify these issues because a populist movement is not good for the people, because it dilutes the truth and creates false narratives. There needs to be a consensus amongst the legislators to improve the policies and focus on the problems which this essay exposes.