Populism's Power: Radical Grassroots Democracy in America

Uprisings such as the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street signal a resurgence of populist politics in America, pitting the people against the establishment in a struggle over control of democracy. In the wake of its conservative capture during the Nixon and Reagan eras, and given its increasing ubiquity as a mainstream buzzword of politicians and pundits, democratic theorists and activists have been eager to abandon populism to right-wing demagogues and mega-media spin-doctors. Decades of liberal scholarship have reinforced this shift, turning the term "populism" into a pejorative in academic and public discourse. At best, they conclude that populism encourages an "empty" wish to express a unified popular will beyond the mediating institutions of government; at worst, it has been described as an antidemocratic temperament prone to fomenting backlash against elites and marginalized groups.Populism's Power argues that such routine dismissals of populism reinforce liberalism as the end of democracy. Yet, as long as democracy remains true to its meaning, that is, "rule by the people," democratic theorists and activists must be able to give an account of the people as collective actors. Without such an account of the people's power, democracy's future seems fixed by the institutions of today's neoliberal, managerial states, and not by the always changing demographics of those who live within and across their borders. Laura Grattan looks at how populism cultivates the aspirations of ordinary people to exercise power over their everyday lives and their collective fate. In evaluating competing theories of populism she looks at a range of populist moments, from cultural phenomena such as the Chevrolet ad campaign for "Our Country, Our Truck," to the music of Leonard Cohen, and historical and contemporary populist movements, including nineteenth-century Populism, the Tea Party, broad-based community organizing, and Occupy Wall Street. While she ultimately expresses ambivalence about both populism and democracy, she reopens the idea that grassroots movements--like the insurgent farmers and laborers, New Deal agitators, and Civil Rights and New Left actors of US history--can play a key role in democratizing power and politics in America.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: Aspirational Democratic Populism: Enacting Popular Power at the Horizons of Democracy Chapter Two: 'Fanning the Spark of Hope': Populism's Rebellious Commonwealth Chapter Three: America's Populist Imaginary: Brought to You by Chevrolet and Leonard Cohen Chapter Four: Populist Resonances in the Twenty-first Century: The Tea Party and Occupy Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Laura Grattan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College.

Review :
"Laura Grattan's new book is a generative re-imagining of the history and promise of populism in the United States. Creatively relating historical cases, contemporary examples, commodity culture, popular music, and canonical political theory, it dramatizes the enduring promise of populism to democratize power in the United States while affirming the need to democratize how populists define 'the people' and practice their democratic faith." - George M. Shulman, author of American Prophecy: Race and Redemption in American Political Culture "In Populism's Power Laura Grattan recovers a compelling vision of aspirational democratic populism long buried by both liberal fears and reactionary appropriations. Tracing populism's richly ambivalent history across multiple sites and articulations-from Ella Baker's activism to Ernesto Laclau's political theory, from the Omaha Platform to the songs of Leonard Cohen-Grattan vividly illuminates its still-untapped potential for reviving contemporary radical democratic theory and practice." - Jason Frank, author of Constituent Moments: Enacting the People in Postrevolutionary America "Laura Grattan is our new best guide to populism as the tradition of democratic experimentation and exuberant pluralism that produces alternative spaces and practices for all kinds of people. As she interprets texts from the Populist platform of 1892 to UndocuQueer social media, she sends up sparks of hope." - Peter Levine, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, Tufts University "Populism's Power offers a timely treatment of fundamental questions of political theory, activism, and historical interpretation. Grattan shows why radical and democratic politics cannot do without populist sensibilities and movements. In illuminating the connections between the populist imaginary and practices of organizing and struggle, and in revealing populist movements' pluralist possibilities, her original and boundary-stretching book rescues populism from mainstream critics and prominent defenders. For all that's been written on the topic, I know of no book like Populism's Power." - Mark Reinhardt, Professor of Political Science and Class of 1956 Professor of American Civilization, Williams College "A provocative... approach to a topic that is central to modern politics" -- Choice