For three years, we have been told that populist upsets such as Brexit and US President Donald Trump's election are the predictable results of giving too much power to the unwashed masses. In fact, populists owe their recent successes to elite complacency and complicity, and they have as much to fear from referenda as anyone else.
SARAJEVO – Ever since the double disasters of 2016 – the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum and US President Donald Trump’s election – there has been widespread anxiety about a “global wave” of populism, and hand-wringing over the follies of so-called direct democracy. In the UK, the electorate was asked to answer an overly simplistic in-or-out question; in the United States, the 2016 Republican Party primaries were handed over to irresponsible voters and radical activists. Since then, there have been calls to re-empower the “gatekeepers,” which is a polite way of saying that the unwashed masses should be kept as far away from political decision-making as possible.
SARAJEVO – Ever since the double disasters of 2016 – the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum and US President Donald Trump’s election – there has been widespread anxiety about a “global wave” of populism, and hand-wringing over the follies of so-called direct democracy. In the UK, the electorate was asked to answer an overly simplistic in-or-out question; in the United States, the 2016 Republican Party primaries were handed over to irresponsible voters and radical activists. Since then, there have been calls to re-empower the “gatekeepers,” which is a polite way of saying that the unwashed masses should be kept as far away from political decision-making as possible.