For the goals of populists, the authority and restrictions of the law are natural opponents. From the ideological perspective of populists, an independent legal system is an obstacle that prevents the realisation of the true will of “ordinary” people. However, when populists are in power, democracy itself provides them with ways and means to undermine the rule of law – by instrumentalising democratic processes and formal legality for their own ends. They can do this because the institutions of democracy and the rule of law may not be as deeply rooted in people’s minds as one might have assumed. The populists’ propaganda could then mobilise an existing potential of opponents of democracy, and their slogans would fall on the fertile ground of an already existing scepticism towards democracy.
Archive for Legal and Social Philosophy. Supplement 173 (2024): The authority of law and the challenges posed by contemporary authoritarianism.
https://doi.org/10.25162/9783515136327