Populism, Legitimacy, and State-Sponsored Schooling

Abstract

In this article, I explore a selection of current scholarship on educational populist movements in Brazil, the U.S., and Israel. After a brief examination of these populist forms, which reveal political trends of ethno-nationalism, religious orthodoxy, anti-secularism, and authoritarianism, I examine democratic theory to understand populism from a dual democratic theoretical positions: pragmatism, and radical or critical democratic theory. I use pragmatist insights into the public sphere (Dewey, 1927; Frega, 2010, 2019), to explain how and why publics emerge in the dynamic of democratic state institutions of schooling. I then turn to radical democratic theory to explain the idea of populist expression and its role in democratic politics (Laclau, 2005; Mouffe, 2018). In pragmatist terms, populist movements are potential publics, relying on an experimentalist idea of political life which includes group associations in civil society which generate feedback, action, and dissent in attempts to shape decisions in state institutions. Yet too many populist movements fail to become democratic publics insofar as they are characterized by narrowed, private interests, unreflective habits, and practices which are antagonistic to inquiry, responsiveness, and deliberation. As such, populist movements threaten the normative legitimacy and stability of liberal democratic state institutions of schooling. While minimalist, or thin versions of populism are compatible with, and important vehicles for educational politics, the presently dominating maximalist versions profiled in this article threaten the liberal-democratic state project (Sant, 2021). Pragmatist theories of democratic politics and publics (Frega, 2019) offer ways to meet the populist moment, but contain significant implications of institutional re-design and reform for their realization.