Panel Report: Populism Revisited

Chair: Samuel Brečka, Pan-European University, Slovakia

Speakers

Erik Leško, Constantine University, Slovakia
Maria Marczewska-Rytko, Marie Curie Sklodowska University, Poland

With „ladies first“ notion, the chair had given the opening word to Maria Marczewska-Rytko who aimed on the presentation of the results of her studies on information provided by mass media on the issue of populism. According to the speaker, the quality of information is decreasing in general. In her research, she was focusing on two leading Polish newspapers – Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita. Her motivation was driven by the uprise of populism in the Polish society since the beginning of the transformation process. „When I started, there were voices asking: ‚What is populism?‘. Since then, much has changed.“ In her work, Ms. Marczewska-Rytko came to the conclusion that the role of the two newspapers – and Gazeta in particular – in sharing knowledge about populism is considerable compared to other media. An inherent part of their agenda are interviews with prominent scholars on the topic. Secondly, she came to the finding that ever more published texts refer to the phenomenon of populism both directly and indirectly. „It is very important, though, to observe the context in which these references are used,“ stated the speaker, addressing the issue straightforward. „Here, I note that despite the number of texts, very few treat it as an important phenomenon.“ Further, the scholar had dug directly into the specific use of the term ‚populism‘ in the case of the two newspapers. In many of the texts, the authors address Latin American issues, reflecting the continent’s „deep experience with populism since the 30’s“. On the other hand, there is a striking lack of articles on populism in the US.

As two other speakers excused themselves, the second and last speaker was Erik Leško who focused on national populism and political representation from a philosophical and political science standpoints. „Some people label me as cosmopolitan – I tell them, yes, I am a cosmopolitan, so what?,“ Leško fired up at the very beginning of his speech. According to the speaker, traditional political representation paradigm is analogical to defense of populism as it states that politicians merely articulate thoughts which have already been present in the society. Mapping the various alternative representative approaches, the energetic and self-assured Leško bridged himself to the relationship between populism and democracy: „Some say that populism is a certain side-effect of transformation of representation.“ Reflecting a question from the audience, Mr. Leško reiterated that media always reflect only a certain fragment of a message, which is an opportunity for populists.