In this paper, populism is regarded as a kind of ideological map that facilitates to the citizens their coping in the political space, as well as a "thin-centered ideology" which has at his center the idea that politics should be a reflection of the will of the people, the idea that a clean and moral nation confronts a corrupt elite and "out groups", "out groups" which actions endanger or impair the rights and values of the nation. The paper focuses on some fundamental theoretical considerations on populism and empirical determination of the elements of populism in the public opinion in Serbia. Based on opinion polls in Serbia it has been shown what is the relationship of citizens to the people, political elites, democracy and its institutions, as well as the attitude towards "out groups". Empirical research conducted in Serbia in 2017 confirms the hypothesis that the gap between citizens and their elected representatives is deep, and it marks also that conventional politics increasingly faces the difficulties to reach citizens, and that lack of trust in political parties is generated in all spheres of representative democracy. In the political life, "out groups" are instrumentally ranked by political actors according to the necessities of the moment, and the empirical research of attitudes shows that they are in the same way as "out groups experienced by the citizens.
The article presents a critical overview of underlying ideas, social context, and original teachings of two "mediating ideologies" (social democracy and conservatism) and two mass "political phenomena" (nationalism and populism). Each of them constitutes a form of more or less effective political compromise, which ought to neutralize constant tensions and clashes between the leading modern ideologies of freedom and equality, i.e. liberalism and communism. However, the clash of ideologies which were prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries has lost much of its intensity today, although the social causes that gave rise to them have remained unchanged: social inequalities, abuse of freedom, and uneven distribution of social power. At the same time, the main social forces and political organizations that had been the symbols and striking forces of freedom and equality in the preceding decades - the political parties of the "left " and "right", including the never clearly defined "political center" - also lost their identity and power. Th e then political mortal enemies look and behave today almost exactly as they did then: in the ideological sense, "everyone wants everything" (allegedly representing/ defending the interests of "all citizens"); in the organizational sense, there is almost no difference between them; whereas the difference in the manner they behave when in power is almost negligible.
The migrant crisis that Europe has been facing for many years has triggered an avalanche of xenophobia and the dispersion of anti-migrant sentiments that have become the reference matrix for populist discourse. Anti-migrant discourse emerges in parallel as a form of language use and a form of social and political interaction. The antagonistic stereotypical narrative of migrants begins with the thesis that they constitute a retrograde social group that poses an economic and security threat to the natives and which is not capable of culturally assimilating in the countries of transit and destination (dichotomy Us vs. Them). Spreading anti-migrant discourse becomes a strategy for winning the electorate and an important tool for mobilizing political support. The political engineering of European political parties shows that anti-migrant discourse is not the exclusivity of right-wing parties of the political spectrum (although they are the most closely related), but is becoming an increasingly important topic on the political agenda of left-wing populism. Anti-migrant discourse is reflected through a nationalist and hostile approach to immigration, the glorification of national and sovereign narratives, and hostility to neoliberalism. Anti-migrant narratives have found their footing in the political activities of many European parties that are largely sovereignly profiled. Such a political vault of reasoning transforms migrant into a foreigner and attest on the triumph of communitarianism in regards to cosmopolitanism, which makes the EU's slogan "in varietate concordia" (united in diversity) questionable and subject to deconstruction.
Demokratski optimizam devedestih godina prošlog veka zamenjuje osobita forma javnog razočarenja u demokratiju. Kriza demokratije praćena institucionalnim deficitima, konfuzijom, niskim stepenom upravljačke sposobnosti da se rešavaju pitanja siromaštva, nezaposlenosti, imigracije, korupcije, simptomi su ovoga stanja. Globalni val populizma najizoštreniji je izraz ove političke patologije. Početak novoga veka rađa uzlet otvorenog neprijateljstva prema demokratiji. Deskriptivni pristupi oslonjeni na proceduralnu dimenziju režima moći ("hibridni režimi", "ograničena demokratija" "iliberalna demokratija", "kompetitivni autoritarizam" ) pokazuju se nedostatnim. U ovome radu autor se vraća klasičnom konceptu "despotizma" i pokazuje normative i teorisjke prednosti ovoga koncepta ("novi despotizam") u analizi novoga režima moći koji izrasta na pretpostvkama sve šireg nepoverenja u demokratske instituciije. ; The democratic optimism of the 1990s has been replaced by a particular form of public disillusionment with democracy. The crisis of democracy, accompanied by institutional deficits, confusion, low levels of management capacity to tackle poverty, unemployment, immigration, corruption, are symptoms of this condition. The global wave of populism is the sharpest expression of this political pathology. The beginning of the new century has given birth to an open hostility to democracy. Descriptive approaches based on the procedural dimension of the regime of power ("hybrid regimes", "limited democracy", "liberal democracy", "competitive authoritarianism") are proving insufficient to capture the new political system. In this paper, the author returns to the classical concept of "despotism" and shows the normative and theoretical advantages of this concept ("new despotism") in the analysis of a new regime of power that grows on the premise of growing distrust of democratic institutions.
Slovakian political development following the collapse of communism is analysed in the text. The instigator of the democratic change in Slovakia was the organization "Public against violence" /VPN/ (the equivalent to the Czech "Citizens' Forum"), in which Vladimir Meciar came to prominence very early. Following his clash with the leadership of VPN in spring of 1991, he emerged as a charismatic political leader. Relying on his populist party called "Movement for Democratic Slovakia" /HZDS/, Meciar in 1992 won the Slovakian parliamentary elections and became Prime Minister. HZDS' radicalization of the nationalist discourse and its striving for a total institutional transformation of the Czechoslovakian federation led to the so called "velvet divorce" and Slovakian independence early in 1993. Meciar and HZDS briefly lost power in 1994 due to the party rift, but made a triumphant comeback after the elections in autumn of the same year. The authors' thesis is that this is responsible for the fact that in Slovakia national populism and client-patrimonial type of government have prevailed over democratic constitutionalism. The authors claim that the causes for such a development can be found in the social repercussions of the forced postwar industrialization and in the powerful tradition of cultural and political nationalism. (SOI : PM: S. 151)
This article analyses the weaknesses of contemporary democratic orders which stem from the use of modern manipulation techniques employed by those who manage to win the trust for making the government in democratic elections. Contemporary democracies are under the threat of populist promises which are most often unrealistic. The combination of populism and democracy is usually a product of the powerlessness of political elites, i.e. political parties, in states to solve citizenry's most important problems – to increase the growth and development of the economic system, to introduce the rule of law, and to rehabilitate political institutions so they could rationally and efficiently function within the political system. Contemporary democracies are not equally developed, nor do they have equal chances for developing. The facts demonstrate how in many societies and states – formally oriented towards establishing a democratic governance and towards starting the democratisation of societal and political life – democracy gets misused and diminished to democratic phraseology with the help of populism, while in the institutional aspect being diminished to creating a façade of democratic institutions. It has been demonstrated that the patterns of dominance follow and are characteristic for democratic governances to a larger or smaller degree. The essence of democratic governance are politically responsible decisions, rather than mass participation in making political decisions which are not realistic, while being dangerous in terms of their consequences. Democracy means making good decisions for the benefit and good of all citizens, while hierarchy must not be challenged when it is necessary that institutions function in a rational and efficient way. Introducing equality where professionalism, competence and accountability are needed is devastating for the functioning of institutions, therefore for the functioning of democracy as well. Democracy can be tricked with the help of authorities'populism, as was the case with Nazi Germany. After Nazis took power, not all institutions of the Weimar Republic were dismantled nor challenged, nor was the Weimar Constitution changed. However – parallel to state authorities, Constitution and laws – dozens of new orders and laws were enacted, creating an illusion that nothing is changed in German state. What Nazis did was developing a new mechanism, party mechanism, parallel to the state mechanism. The two functioned next to each other. Such patterns lead to the parallelism of power and democracy, which usually led to the totalitarianisation of democracy. In contemporary states – especially those in the process of democratic transition – such parallelism shows how party leaders do not forfeit party leadership once they get elected to state offices. In that way democracies become submissive and captured by political parties, especially their leaderships and leaders. The relation of freedom and democracy has also been analysed. Experiences show that democracy is founded more successfully in places where people managed to gain their liberties, rather than in those places where democracy is yet to provide liberties to citizens. Dangers for democracy tied with the abuse of democratic conditions are being discusses in the last part of the article. Each condition necessary for the functioning of a democratic order can be simulated through manipulative ways. A special danger for contemporary democracies comes from circumstances in which those who come to power do everything so that society and state are riled by anti-political principles: indifference, fear and trepidation, and powerlessness. Anti-political principles jeopardise democratic order, and those who use them demolish democracy. Democracy is facing constant challenges and temptations for scraping democracy in the name of democracy.
Joint effect of 2008 economic crises and continous world-wide present deficite of political legitimacy have in 2011 given birth to global resistance, but also facilitated development of its new strategies and tactics. Aldough we are still by large able to understand these contemporary models of collective action with help of New Social Movement Theory, today they objectivelly grasp a wider field of meaning, mainly for reason of their demands for radical transformation of both economic and political system. Contemporary social movements are still struggling for re-interpretation of meaning, and identity issues, but not any more for any particular goal. Instead, they seek systemic change. This extremelly important shift of strategic orientation, which makes new movements a bit old – that is classical, remains in our oppinion, undervalued both in academic, and general public for the reasons that we will try to comprehend, in this writing. ; Sadejstvo udara ekonomske krize iz 2008. i kontinuiranog deficita političkog legitimiteta dovode 2011. do pojave globalnog otpora, ali i do razvoja njegovih kvalitativno novih strategija i taktika. Iako je savremene modele kolektivne akcije dobrim delom i dalje moguće razumeti uz pomoć teorije novih društvenih pokreta, oni danas objektivno zahvataju jedno šire polje, najpre zbog zahteva za radikalnom promenom u ukupnom ekonomskom i političkom sistemu. Savremeni društveni pokreti i dalje se bore za reinterpretaciju značenja i priznanje sopstvenog identiteta, ali ne više za bilo koje pojedinačno pitanje, već za sveobuhvatnu promenu sistema. Ta izuzetno važna promena strateške orijentacije, koja nove pokrete čini pomalo starim – upravo klasičnim, ostaje, čini nam se, nedovoljno primećena iz razloga koje ćemo pokušati da rasvetlimo.
The subject matter of research in this paper is theoretical controversy related to the definition of right-wing extremism. Given the fact that extremism is a variable, amorphous and insufficiently researched phenomenon, largely conditioned by time, space, political and cultural differences, there is a great confusion in the field of political science when defining right-wing extremism. The problem of researching right-wing extremism is additionally complicated by various terms that are being used in the contemporary literature as its synonyms, such as right-wing radicalism, neo-Fascism, ultra-radicalism, etc. In order to provide the most valid theoretical determination of right-wing extremism, the author provides a detailed analysis of all the components constituting this phenomenon and examines their causality. In the political praxis, the term extremism is extensively abused, which additionally complicates its determination. Videlicet, politicians often use term 'extremist' in order to discredit their political opponents. While during the French revolution aristocracy saw the bourgeoisie as extremists, the members of the working class later stated that the bourgeoisie were extremists. The problem lies in the fact that, in politics, extremists are not only the ones who use violence as modus operandi; indeed, it is also used by political opponents who do not belong to the extreme political option. Another aggravating factor in defining right-wing extremism is that many administrative and academic definitions do not make a clear distinction between extremism and related phenomena, such as terrorism, radicalism and populism. Extremism is most often equaled with terrorism, which gives rise to another problem in defining this phenomenon. The relation between extremism and terrorism is the relation of general and specific. Namely, every act of terrorism is concurrently considered to be an act of extremism, but not vice versa, given the fact that every act of extremism does not lead towards a higher level of political violence (i.e. towards terrorism). Even in the terms of legal sanctioning, it is much easier to incriminate terrorism in comparison to extremism. The Serbian criminal legislation envisages relevant punishment for committing an act of terrorism, without even mentioning extremism, which implies that there is no penalty prescribed for committing an act of extremism. Despite numerous academic and administrative definitions on the concept of extremism, there is still a lack of a balanced approach to defining right-wing extremism, which is also largely conditioned by political definitions. The most prominent problem in addressing the social phenomena such as right-wing extremism lies in the fact that these social phenomena are dynamic and, in order to be analysed in a scientifically objective manner, they must be examined in the specific temporal, spatial and socio-political context.