 Gwelch i'n meddwl i'r cyngor. Mae'n amddai Catherine Meenan ac yn ymddangos i'ch gweithio y sefyllfa yma. Mae'n cyfeirio i'r profi mlynedd yma i'r gyflawn. Mae'n meddwl i'r Prifysgol Llyfrgell yn y Prifysgol Llyfrgell yn 2005. Mae'n gweithio i'r gyflawn i'r Gwelch i'r Gwelch i'r Std. Antonis. Mae'n meddwl i'r cyfrifysgol i'r Oxford. Mae'n meddwl i'r cyfrifysgol i'r gwaith ar y llwyddon yma. Mae hefyd yn ymddangas o fynd i yw'r ysgol. Rwyf ynddo i gael ar y ddechrau gynllunio gyda postog wedi bod Cymru atdarnol, i'r Penffordd Llywodraeth i Gweithgen Cymru i'r Prifysgol F sleidwydiaeth, a oedd cyhoeddo ar y Cyfrannwyr. Erbyn dweud, mae'n bwysig ddetechrau i'r Cymru ar y ddechrau. Gwydwch gweith基llin gyda'r llyffyr hwnnw i'r llineid. Pes passengers, maen nhw'n gweithio hynny, If I could just remind you to turn your mobile phones off or to silent keys. First of all I will speak for the normal 20-25 minutes and then I'll open the floor which will be on the record and then I'll open the floor for questions and answers and I'll ask you to identify yourselves before you pose your question. So either you come to listen to us or I'm going to ask for a similar to speak. Thank you. No I don't think you need that if that will pick you up. OK, but I'll get up if I may. OK, of course. Thank you very much. Of course my kind and generous hosts could not have known this. But you might say that as of last week we have an answer to the question how to fight populists that is much more straightforward, though not necessarily less expensive than me giving you a half hour lecture. As we all know by now all you have to do is get hold of a video shot on a beautiful Spanish island and that's how you really fight populists. But in case you don't happen to have such a video, here are some alternative suggestions. If I may I'll start with a few words of conceptual ground clearing. What are we talking about when we are talking about populism? As you all know our era has seen an absolutely inflationary use of the word populism. All kinds of political actors on the right but of course also on the left have been labeled as populists. Even poor Emmanuel Macron during the presidential elections in France in 2017 some of you may remember was at one point called a populist. It was said that he was a populist of the extreme center. Whatever the hell that exactly was supposed to have meant. Moreover, as you also all know commentary these days is dominated by one particular image which allegedly holds the key to understanding our era. I'm of course talking about the metaphor of the allegedly unstoppable wave of populism or is Nigel Farage for whom apparently the image of the wave was of insufficient world historical significance given his own role put it the tsunami of populism that to stick with the image with a metaphor is now going to wash away the elites and the establishments everywhere. I actually find this a deeply misleading image and I'm happy to tell you more about why I think that in the question and answer if you like. But for now just a few words on the question what exactly is populism? Well the conventional wisdom is of course that populists are those who as the cliched formulation has it criticize elites are angry at the establishment etc. Seems very obvious but when you think about it it's actually a very curious thought. I think up until recently any old civics textbook would have told you that keeping an eye on the powerful. Be it in politics, be it in the economy, be it God forbid at universities and in culture is actually a sign of good democratic engagement. And come the second decade of the 21st century we're told day and night that anybody who actually does that is a populist who may somehow pose a danger for democracy. Clearly it cannot be as simple as that. It is true, it is true that when populists are in opposition they criticize governments and other parties but above all they do something else. In one way or another they always claim that they and only they represent what populists frequently call the real people in quotation marks or also the silent majority. You might say that's not obviously so bad or dangerous, that's not the same as let's say racism or a fanatical hatred of European integration. And yet and yet this claiming of a monopoly of representing the people always does have in my view two pernicious consequences for democracy. First and rather obviously populists are going to claim that all other contenders for power are fundamentally illegitimate. This is never just a matter of disagreeing about policies or even values which after all is completely normal ideally even productive in a democracy. No in a sense populists always immediately make it entirely personal and entirely moral. The problem is always immediately that the others are simply corrupt or to coin a phrase crooked characters. Secondly and less obviously I think populists are also going to claim that all those citizens, all those among the people themselves if you like who do not share their ultimately symbolic understanding of the allegedly real people and who therefore logically also don't support the populist politically there with all those citizens you can put into doubt whether they truly belong to the people to begin with. Let me maybe illustrate this I think less obvious point with two brief examples from contemporary history. Of course you all remember the night of Brexit at the end of which Nigel Farage famously said that this had been as he put it a victory for real people implying of course that the 48% who wanted to stay inside the European Union well on one level aren't quite real. Do not properly belong to the British or maybe in the case of Farage even specifically the English people. If you permit one example from the other side of the Atlantic in May 2016 then candidate Trump in a speech which went virtually unreported given all the other interesting things that candidate Trump was saying at the time went on record with the following statement I'm quoting from memory. Trump said the most important thing is the unification of the people and all the other people don't mean anything. I hope you can see where this is going the important thing about populism is not anti elitism any of us can criticize the powerful doesn't mean we're right but it certainly doesn't mean that we somehow are dangerous for democracy. The important and dangerous thing for democracy about populism is for short anti pluralism the tendency of populists always to exclude others obviously at the level of party politics less obviously at the level of the people themselves where essentially the populist decides who truly belongs and who doesn't. Whether you happen to have an American a Hungarian an Irish passport that doesn't really enter the issue. If I may let me draw out one implication of this account that maybe is worth stressing in the connection of upcoming and more generally elections. If you find anything plausible about what I've been trying to make plausible to you so far you may say but wait a minute what about what about populist parties that lose elections. Don't they have a massive problem explaining to their followers how on the one hand they are the only authentic representatives of the people and on the other hand they're not in power that doesn't go together. True but this I believe is also the reason why quite often I'm not saying always but quite often populist who lose will actually put elections themselves into doubt all to put it more bluntly allege that things have been rigged that there has been fraud. Why because according to their logic if the silent majority could express itself if it weren't silent they would always already be in power. So if they don't win in one way or another they always suggest that we should take another look and perhaps all you find is that we're not really talking about the silent majority but about a silenced majority. Somebody behind the scenes must have been manipulating things such that the real people couldn't express themselves. You all remember November 2016 when Trump when he was asked whether he would accept Hillary Clinton's victory said well I'll tell you at the time. Everybody understood of course what that really meant. According to some surveys 70% of Trump supporters said if she wins it must have been rigged. And in terms of somebody who actually lost an election recently we've seen the same dynamic in Turkey just a couple of weeks ago where President Erdogan of course said there must have been voting fraud because we couldn't possibly we couldn't possibly lose. Now I think that's worth underlining because what it shows is that even when populists don't gain power they might end up damaging a democratic political culture. Of course I'm not suggesting that we're not allowed to criticize our election systems especially in the United States. There's plenty to criticize but there's a difference between somebody who says there's a problem with campaign finance, there's a problem with gerrymandering etc etc. And somebody by contrast who ends up saying our system is rotten and rigged because I didn't win. The latter is not a democratic argument but it basically shows distrust of the institutions amongst citizens in a way that probably is going to end up being damaging for democracy. So what to do? I fear that especially if you bring people over from the US the expectation might be ok give us something positive, uplifting, constructive right away. Sorry, no. I'm going to first talk about three things that one I think shouldn't do. And I feel that it's appropriate to do that because these are approaches to populism strategies if you like or fighting populism which have been very prevalent in Europe in the last couple of years. And I think it might be worth spending a few minutes on what we've learned from actors who went for these strategies and who for the most part failed. And then I promise I'll give you something more positive and constructive at the very end. First strategy that I think is worth revisiting is a tendency to react especially to the rise of populist actors by basically trying to exclude them completely. Many of you will remember that this for instance was a typical approach in Germany when the alternative for Germany was first coming up. Other politicians said I'm not even going to talk to them, if they're invited on television I'm not going to appear alongside them etc etc. Completely, completely misguided. Both on a if you like strategic level but maybe less obviously also on a if you like normative level by which I mean looked at from the point of view of democratic theory. On the strategic level wrong and misguided because through this total exclusion you were actually doing populist an enormous favour. You are confirming the very narrative which populists are always serving up to their followers. The elites never listen, they don't take you seriously, they're so worried that we are the only ones to talk about certain taboo issues and that's why they won't even confront us and so on. So you couldn't you couldn't do better in terms of actually validating what they have been telling their own supporters all along. But on a if you like more normative level there's a perhaps less obvious problem because especially when these parties have representation in parliament when they actually get in. If you completely exclude them, if you refuse to even debate with them of course on one level you are denying representation to all citizens who voted. For these populist actors. And I think fateful mistake has often been that observers and politicians start to assume that everybody who votes for a populist party is themselves somehow a populist which from my point of view means they must somehow be anti pluralist. But for the most part we don't know that. I mean forgive the cliched example but it's not inconceivable to have somebody in France say look I really care about Marine Le Pen says about all the other parties. Seems all very exaggerated but her industrial policies for the north of France that's you know the thing that I absolutely love and that's why I voted for her. Of course everybody forever now has been beating up on Hillary Clinton because of one word deplorables. But from my point of view that wasn't the worst because with all due respect a lot of what President Trump and a fair amount of his followers have been saying is deplorable. I think for me the scandalous word that Clinton used in that infamous speech was another one. It was the word irredeemable. It basically said there are citizens that we can simply forget about no matter what we say no matter how we try to engage them they are simply lost forever. That ladies and gentlemen I think is a profoundly undemocratic thought. Yes empirically we know how how seldomly citizens actually really fundamentally change their views but to from the get go say we're not even going to try makes no sense. These are lost for democracy these are anti pluralist these are populist voters profoundly wrong. What we've of course also seen is the second strategy is a typical move from one extreme to the other. So after years of telling us that populist demagogues that they're always lying they're always making promises to the people which cannot be kept etc. All of a sudden many politicians turn around and start saying things like well you know of course we don't really like what they're saying but maybe they know something about what's going on deep down in society that the rest of us haven't quite figured out. Which then practically often comes down to something like well if we can't run from them we'll run after them or put even more pointedly so called mainstream politicians start to bet on a somewhat paradoxical sounding strategy of destruction through imitation. Again this for the most part seems bound to fail both on a strategic level but is also misguided on the normative level. Strategically I'm not telling you anything very new all those politicians who started to run after let's say far right populists strangely found that they could never catch them. No matter for instance how fast Nicola Sarkozy ran in 2016 you know he has another anti immigration measure he has another piece of pork that Muslims are going to have to eat in school. He could somehow never catch Marine Le Pen. But what happened of course and this goes to the more normative level is that eventually if mainstream parties engage in this let's call it what it is opportunism a whole political spectrum can in this as in this case shift to the right. In a way that arguably was never really democratically authorized by many people because they thought they were just voting for their usual mainstream parties. They didn't necessarily want the kinds of outcomes on let's say refugees in immigration which by now we see in countries like Denmark and the Netherlands which as you know have shifted massively to the right. So much so there in fact even the social democrats in Denmark are now trying to run after far right populists. It's unlikely to work. We've seen so many times that citizens end up saying look you know mainstream parties told us for years that this was totally unacceptable to have these views. Now they're basically telling us the same thing. You know what the original is still on offer. Why should I vote for the pale copy. So again a problem on a strategic and the normative level. Last thing that is a last rather negative I will bother you with is another. I think very typical reaction we've seen in Europe but also in other parts of the world and in certain ways it's probably the most tempting one. Especially liberals liberals let's say in the widest sense have often said something like look the populist really are those who have these horrendously simplistic ideas about policy. They're always lying so what does that mean. That means that our side has rationality has the truth. And as you know it's not just politicians who say these things. You just need to click on certain American website certain newspapers and what pops up at you every single time is if you care about the truth subscribe now. Strangely the truth is always 40% cheaper on any given on any given any given day. Especially of course in in in in being out being face to face with a president who I've lost count you probably to 2000 times that he's light by now whatever. It's very tempting to say they're always lying and we have the truth. But what's the likely outcome of the strategy. Well it's a position that for shorthand you might call a certain kind of technocracy the kind of person who ends up saying. There's a singularly irrational response to certain policy challenges to our political environment with the implication that if you happen to disagree with that. Let's say again in the widest sense liberal politician. Well you've revealed yourself to be probably unreasonable or irrational in a certain way. Problem here is that politicians who drive this line again actually do populist a massive favor. Because the more they insist on this technocratic stance the more they pave the way for populists to then say what you mean democracy without choices. What you mean democracy without the people coming into it and playing a role. And what then has often enough happened is that populists might do relatively well at the polls. If they do so technocrats are going to become even more wary of the people and conclude that look you know. The people going to bring crazy demagogues to power ideally even less decision making power for the people which in turn as I hope for you can see is going to reinforce the populist. So a kind of vicious circle gets going and the seeming extremes that oppose each other technocracy rationality truth and populism alleged irrationality. They actually keep reinforcing each other in a certain way. Moreover more over even though it looks like here are two extremes opposed to each other populism and technocracy actually share one characteristic. Because ultimately they're both forms of anti pluralism the technocrat says only one rational solution. If you don't agree with me you're irrational no need for debate no need for parliaments to you know come into the picture here etc. Populist says there's only one authentic will of the people and by the way only I know it debates exchange of arguments parliaments don't have to come into the picture. This is obviously an exaggeration of sorts but I would claim that many Europeans might recognize this specific picture especially but not only from the height of the euro crisis. A sort of fateful vicious circle where populism and technocracy end up reinforcing each other. And I partly want to make an underline this point because the person who's of course usually presented as the great saviour from populism in our era Emmanuel Macron with all your respect might sometimes be in danger of precisely going down this road. He precisely might go for what you might call a second coming of the third way. A sort of attitude that says there is a singularly reasonable center which by the way of course was also the reason why he could say people from the right and the left can join the movement. I don't care where you're coming from you just have to be reasonable. And for a while the image that in a sense French party politics presented was close enough to what he was claiming. There was that center and there were the crazy seemingly crazy extremes of Mélenchon and Le Pen. But I think this is the wrong strategy. I think you're more likely in the long run to encourage populism if you go for this in a sense shortcut of saying we are uniquely reasonable. You just have to agree with us as opposed to for instance justifying your policies in different ways mobilizing for your policies in different ways and so on. All right. Finally, finally, finally something more constructive. What should politicians? Let's stick with them for a second. We can also talk about if you like what citizens at large can do later on. But let's stick with politicians for the moment. What should they do? Well, as hopefully has become clear, there is no alternative to engaging with populist politicians. But talking with them doesn't have to mean talking like them. It doesn't have to mean that you accept the way they frame problems. It doesn't have to mean that you basically always talk about the issues that they own and that they want to talk about. So far so obvious. Maybe less obvious is the point that when you then find yourself, let's say in a debate, it's important on the one hand to admit that there are plenty of policy issues which we can reasonably disagree about in a democracy. Let's take a typical example in this context. There are many reasonable though from my point of view not always attractive positions one can hold on refugee policy and immigration. I think it's not plausible to say that somebody who wants to radically reduce immigration is in of itself undemocratic or beyond the pale of democratic discourse. But if within a debate a populist specifically reveals themselves as a populist, it's absolutely crucial that other politicians mark a red line. Let me give you one example. If a populist for instance says well or suggests well there is a secret plan hatched by Angela Merkel that wants to replace the German folk with Syrians, it's pretty important that other politicians and journalists and citizens don't treat this as just another contribution to the refugee immigration debate. Of course drawing that red line is not going to practically make the populist recoil and say oh sorry I didn't realize I was uttering a conspiracy theory imported from France, the great replacement theory. But it's not about him and by the way as I'm sure many of you know this is a real world example, it's not about him. It's about citizens seeing these sorts of scenes and the hope and maybe you might say it's a pious hope of a democratic theorist is that there's still enough citizens who will say yeah we kind of agree on some of the policy issues. But you know what we don't really want to be in the same boat with people who spin conspiracy theories or in the German context who tell us that the democracy we live in now is pretty much the equivalent of the late German Democratic Republic, i.e. a pretty obvious dictatorship. That I think is the constructive lesson and I think one thing we found is that even though it seems very straightforward it's incredibly difficult to do. I think it really takes a sense of judgment, of timing, of finding the right tone, the things that ideally one would expect from a professional politician to do this well and to have the desired effects. There's much more to be said about obviously many other issues in this context, I haven't even talked about policy which probably is a mortal sin in the context of a think tank. I haven't said anything about what citizens themselves can do which is probably also a moral sin if you say that you're a democratic theorist, god forbid. But I hope we can do some of these things in our discussion now. Thank you.