The Politics of Personalisation and Populism

Personalisation and populism are two rising and interlinked phenomena with similar causes and consequences. However, a systematic conceptual comparison of the analytical relationship between populism and personalization has not been attempted so far. This paper aims to contribute to a relatively unexplored arena of party democracy which is the analytical comparison between populism and personalization. In the attempt to bridge the literature on populism and personalization of politics, the paper first identifies the commonalities between the two phenomena. Both (1) are examples of “unmediated politics” (2) pose a threat to mainstream parties and (3) challenge representative democracy, at least as we know it. Second, the article aims to identify the fundamental conceptual differences between the two. For example, while most populist parties tend to have a dominant charismatic leader (Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2008; Hartleb, 2014; Kriesi, 2013), not all charismatic leaders are populist. Specifically, we will show that populism and personalization can be seen each as a stand-alone phenomenon, though more often than not they tend to appear together. The analysis of populism and personalization is addressed theoretically allowing for wide-ranging temporal and geographical illustrations.