Rethinking "cultural populism" for new populist times

This paper is based on work carried out for a special issue of the European Journal of Cultural Studies on 'Cultural Populism', which we co-edited. The paper is centrally concerned with unpacking the concept of ‘cultural populism’, and exploring its value for the critical analysis of new formations and expressions of populism in the current conjuncture. We begin by outlining the concept of 'cultural populism' as it was originally used within cultural studies as a critical term for apolitical/celebratory modes of analysis. Next we examine how the term may be developed to refer to popular and political efforts to construct a ‘people’ in overtly cultural terms. In addition, we make the case for renewing an expressly ‘critical populist’ stance, that is attentive to ordinary tastes and pleasures, while also analysing them in relation to the production of needs and desires, and possibilities for political change, within a capitalist political economy. Finally, and by way of contrast, we explore Inglehart and Norris’ conception of ‘cultural backlash', and argue that the twin concepts of cultural and critical populism offer an advance over the elitist and culturally reductive mode of analysis associated with this dominant political science approach to understanding the cultural elements of and explanations for populism in new populist times.