Populism Defined: Resolving a Long-Standing Impasse in Political Theory
BY: OMOLAJA MAKINEE
Few concepts in modern political discourse have been more persistently mischaracterised than populism. In contemporary academic and policy literature, populism is routinely framed as a corrosive political pathology—associated with institutional erosion, polarisation, authoritarian drift, misinformation, suppression of dissent, and the degradation of public discourse. It is frequently portrayed as an anomaly within otherwise “stable” systems of governance, an irrational deviation from liberal democratic norms, or a regressive force to be contained rather than understood.
Yet this framing conceals a fundamental contradiction. Populist behavioural culture is not an aberration within political development; it is the seedbed from which every known form of governance in human history has emerged.
To demonise populism is therefore to misdiagnose the origins of political order itself—and, in doing so, to obscure the real causes of institutional decay, elite capture, and social breakdown. It is like crossing a bridge your predecessors used, then burning it down so no one can follow, just to be the last survivor. Here, this Manifesto have rebuilt that bridge, empowering a new generation to create their own reality. The theory of Populism is the restoration of that path. It provide the modern generation the foundation we need to forge our own populocratic revolution.
Here I addresses this long-standing impasse by restoring conceptual clarity: distinguishing populism as a civilisational condition from populism as a weaponised political label, and situating it properly within the evolution of governance.
1. Populism as the Origin, Not the Anomaly
Populism, as defined in this manifesto, is not a regime type, ideology, or policy orientation. It is the idea of a people—the collective expression of how a population understands itself, its moral boundaries, its material needs, and its vision of social order.
From the earliest stages of human social organisation, governance emerged not from abstract institutions, but from shared customs, traditions, and negotiated relations among groups. Through these processes, populist behavioural culture gave rise to increasingly formalised systems of rule. Out of this seedbed eventually emerged:
- Tribalism.
- Kleptocracy.
- Theocracy.
- Anarchy.
- Plutocracy.
- Autocracy.
- Aristocracy.
- Oligarchy.
- Monarchy.
- Democracy.
Some of these forms overlapped; others evolved independently across geography and time. Yet all were manifestations of populist ideas—economic, religious, moral, or administrative—rooted in collective identity and communal imagination.
Governance did not precede the people. The people preceded governance.
2. The Great Reversal: How Governance Turned Against Its Origin
The paradox of modern political theory lies in this reversal: systems that originated from populist behavioural culture have grown to demonise populism as their primary threat.
Class-based and class-derived forms of governance—particularly aristocratic, oligarchic, plutocratic, and technocratic systems—depend upon the containment of popular agency to sustain themselves. Over time, institutional self-preservation replaced communal responsiveness. Governance structures became insulated, professionalised, and ideologically fortified against the very populations that gave them legitimacy. Within this context, populism was reframed as:
- Irrational mass behaviour.
- Anti-institutional hostility.
- Emotional excess.
- Moral unreliability.
- A danger to “stability”.
This reframing served a strategic function. By pathologising populism, elite systems could portray themselves as guardians of order, rationality, and ethical governance—while delegitimising popular dissent as inherently destructive.
In effect, populism was criminalised for reminding governance of its origin. The partisan system burns the ladder they climbed to claim the summit alone. We lay the stones anew, for a generation ready to build their own horizon.
3. Populism Is Not Good or Bad—It Is Descriptive
A critical philosophical correction must be made: populism itself cannot be categorised as morally good or bad.
Populism is the idea of a people. An idea, in itself, is not a moral agent. It is a reflection of collective neurotypical patterns, inherited genetic dispositions, historical experiences, and environmental pressures. It expresses how a population perceives reality at a given moment—not how it ought to be judged from above.
To label populism as inherently corrosive is therefore a category error. One may ethically evaluate outcomes, policies, or practices that emerge from populist ideas—but not the existence of those ideas themselves.
Demonising populism is not intellectual critique; it is epistemic suppression. True legacy is not being the last to survive, but the first to rebuild. They shattered the crossing to stay the hands of time. We restore the bridge to fuel the fires of tomorrow.
4. The Crime of Populism-Phobia
When populism is condemned in abstract terms—without reference to specific actions or evidence—it becomes a mechanism of exclusion. Entire populations are treated as morally suspect for holding collective views that deviate from elite consensus.
In this sense, the demonisation of populism constitutes a crime against humanity in conceptual form. It denies peoples the right to express, examine, and evolve their collective self-understanding. Wherever populism is reflexively denounced rather than interrogated, it should be treated with suspicion—not as a danger, but as a sign of elite insecurity.
History shows that every advance in human governance has passed through populist contestation. Rights were not gifted from above; they were demanded from below. Moral progress did not emerge from institutional neutrality; it emerged from collective pressure shaped by lived experience.
Whereas:
The bridge-burners ruled by exclusion; we lead by restoration.
5. Populism as a Process of Adjudication
The proper response to populism is not suppression, but engagement. Because populism is an idea of a people, it must be:
- Debated.
- Analysed.
- Tested.
- Debunked where false.
- Affirmed where valid.
- Adjudicated through collective processes.
This is not a weakness of populism—it is its defining strength. Populist ideas are not fixed doctrines; they are mutable expressions that evolve through experience, evidence, and dialogue. Minority positions become majority positions over time. Majority views dissolve when confronted with new realities. This dynamic is not instability; it is civilisational learning.
6. Reframing the Impasse
The impasse in political theory arises from a failure to distinguish between:
- Populism as behavioural origin, and
- Populism as institutional failure.
When governance structures collapse, elites often blame populism. Yet it is not populism that corrodes institutions—it is the refusal of institutions to remain responsive to the people whose ideas they were meant to formalise.
Populism, when demonised rather than managed, tends to reduce political complexity into binary moral narratives that divide society into “us” and “them,” casting elites or foreigners as existential threats. Such framings, historically, have proven capable of inciting social instability, violence, and conflict. Populocracy as a form of governance exists precisely to prevent this descent—by transforming raw populist energy into regulated, lawful, and accountable civic agency.
Populism does not destroy governance. Governance decays when it ceases to reflect the evolving idea of the people.
Conclusion: Populism as Civilisational Bedrock
Populism is not a threat to political order. It is the precondition of political order.
Every form of governance humanity has ever constructed emerged from populist behavioural culture—through shared norms, collective memory, and negotiated survival. To reject populism is to reject the people themselves. He who burns the bridge he once crossed seeks to be the last to arrive; we rebuild the span so the new world may find its own way.
The task of modern governance is not to fear populism, but to structure it, channel it, and civilise it through transparent, participatory, and adaptive systems. Only by reconciling governance with its populist origin can societies escape the cycles of alienation, revolt, and repression that have defined so much of political history.
Populism is the idea of a people. Ideas are not to be feared. They are to be understood.
“Where they left a chasm, we leave a crossing. Let the revolution walk.”
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