In the past, populism has been associated with deeply undemocratic movements such as fascism or national-socialism.
Modern populism, however, has managed to accommodate itself to the functioning of democratic institutions and no longer proposes to abolish the system but to accommodate it so it can deliver what “the people” want. This implies assuming that the people are one and that they speak with one voice, the one the leader hears.
Clearly, this conception goes against the basic functioning of a modern democracy and the role that politics play in it, based on consensus building and compromises between different positions, the need to understand the position of the adversary and the difficulties inherent in the implementation of complex solutions to address social problems.
That is why it is critical to work actively to close a critical gap for representative democracy; the one that exists between the political representatives and the people they represent. It is necessary to reformulate the channels and mechanisms of political participation to guarantee greater citizen interaction in a modern way, using all the power of new technologies.
The channels of political participation of the 21st century must be populated with new instruments, including the internet and social networks, which hide a potential and scope that we cannot even foresee in these first years of social and political experimentation.
This reengineering of the channels of political participation should be based on a more open, inclusive and participatory exercise of power, which will require the strengthening of the civil and political rights and the decentralization of authority and responsibilities, with the corresponding transfer of resources to the levels of political administration closest to the citizen.
This should be the concept that describes the “new policy”. We cannot think of it as a set of “celebrities” with more or less experience but we have to anchor it in the development of new institutions that ensure greater and better citizen participation.
