Cas Mudde at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. photo supplied by author.Antonis Galanopoulos: What is populism? What exactly is your approach to populism?
Cas Mudde: My approach is that I see populism as an ideology. By saying that populism is an ideology rather than a discourse, I assume that they mean what they say. Strictly speaking, populism is an ideology that sees society as divided into two groups; the pure people on the one hand and the corrupt elite on the other. These two groups are both homogenous and they are in an antagonistic relationship with each other.
Populists want politics to be in line with what they consider as the general will of the people. It goes back to the homogenous interpretation of the people. In my interpretation, populist actors almost always combine populism with what I call a “host” ideology. On the right this is often an interpretation of nationalism. The host ideology, to a large extent, determines who is part of the elite and who is a part of the people. Populism, as an aspect, adds that the distinction is moral.
