Populism of the Privileged: On the Use of Underdog Identities by Comparatively Privileged Groups

Abstract

This article explores the use of populism by comparatively privileged groups, a specific type of populism we call the ‘populism of the privileged’. Our argument is not merely that ‘populisms of the privileged’ are also forms of populism, but that they warrant a specific label. We first identify intersections between populism and privilege on the levels of populist actors, support for populism and beneficiaries of populism, which we call populism by, with and for the privileged. We then present a discursive conceptualization of ‘populism of the privileged’. Building on this we develop analytical strategies for the study the ‘populism of the privileged’, zooming in on how ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ are constructed in such populisms, their sociological directionality, the layeredness of privilege and un(der)privilege, the discursive construction of ‘crisis’ and ‘unmet demands’ and the role of discourses about populism in reproducing the claims of populisms of the privileged.