Exercise 3: Creating a Populist Party

The main aim of the exercise: analyse the mechanisms of populism and learn to detect them

Duration: 90-135 minutes

Form: online/offline

Methods: group work

Age group: basic school, upper secondary school

Teaching materials: Materials for writing and drawing

The aim of the exercise is to let students learn about populism by creating their own populist party.

Instruction for the teacher

First, discuss about the meaning of populism and the role of populists in history and in the contemporary world. In the following exercise, consider and use the following defining criteria of populism:

1. anti-establishment, anti-elite (Stavrakakis 2015:273-274). Populists oppose the elite, including democratic elite (elected representatives in the national parliament). Every ‘newcomer’ in democratic politics is often critical of the politicians and parties in government, but populists tend to distrust parliamentary democracy and to trust ‘direct representation of popular will’ without the mediation of the parliament;
2. construction of ‘people’ in a way that its will, expectations, perceptions, fears are represented in a single manner (Moffitt, Tormey 2014:389). In one way or another, all politicians and parties represent people as a whole or groups within the population. Populists try to monopolize the representation of the ‘people’s will’;
3. perception of crisis (Taggart 2002:69). Crisis perception can focus on covid-19, migration, security, economy etc., the important aspect here is that for populists crisis is ever-present. When one crises has passed, populists focus on a new one.
4. Populists may also favour ‘direct democracy’ (use of national referendums, but most likely not ‘local referendums’, which are mostly favoured by Green parties), their messages tend to be simple and easy to follow for the most common people, their emotional style is passionate and emotional.

Second, ask students to create their own party. Provide them with necessary materials, e.g. paper, pencils, cloth. Let them create their: principles, statement, visual language, rules, and aim.

Third, ask them to present their work and explain why they made such choices.

Fourth, let the students compare their parties with the ones that are out there. Ask them to analyse the signs of populism from history and contemporary world.