The European Humanist Federation Defines Populism

The European Humanist Federation has a useful definition of populism on its website. It lists some recurrent features of European populism:

• it promotes direct democracy, claims a direct link between the government and the people and rejects the established political system;
• it offers immediate and demagogical solutions to people’s day to day problems;
• it spreads simplistic and antagonistic images such as the sovereign nation, the “sane” people vs. the “corrupted” and “technocratic” elites;
• it idealises the nation and its perceived traditions, fuelling the criticism of any supranational political system;
• it holds an anti-globalisation discourse aimed at protecting vulnerable people from the consequences of the competitive capitalist market.