In the last entry I considered some of the political implications accompanying the use of definitions of “populism”. In this contribution, I expand the topic to explore theoretical contributions to the study of “populism”. The proposition grounding this second project is that it is possible to approach theories as problematisations and hence to apply WPR thinking to them.
In What’s the Problem Represented to be? A new thinking paradigm (Bacchi 2026, Chapter 2) I consider some new departures in WPR studies. Specifically, I expand the kinds of material that can usefully be analysed through the application of the WPR approach. Alongside new “entities”, such as buildings and maps, media texts and interviews, I explain how to apply WPR to theoretical propositions.
The argument, put briefly, is that researchers’ theoretical stances act as proposals and hence as problematisations. You will recognise here the starting premise in WPR that what we propose to do about something indicates what we think needs to change and hence what the “problem” is represented to be (Bacchi 2026, p. 5). If theoretical stances are proposals, they can provide the starting point for a WPR analysis.
Elsewhere I explain that I use the word “proposal” to refer to what Foucault calls “practical” or “prescriptive” texts (Bacchi 2026, pp. 18-20). Such texts are guides to the governing of conduct (“the conduct of conduct” (Bacchi 2026, p. 64). Theories, I argue, provide guides to conduct in the sense that they suggest how things ought to be. Consider as examples theories of “class struggle” or theories based on a realist perspective in international relations. In each case the theory has normative implications about desired futures. With this thinking, as Backman and Löfstrand (2022, p. 273) clarify, every piece of published research is in a sense a “prescriptive text” and can be subjected to a WPR-style analysis. The same thinking could be applied to unpublished research, e.g. PhD theses (this point was drawn to my attention in a query I received).
Numerous researchers have used WPR in this form of application (i.e. to interrogate theoretical propositions) (see, for example, Johanson & Larsson 2022; Puukko 2024, and Zimmerman 2025). Specifically, these and other authors have produced literature reviews and other forms of meta-analysis based on how the selected topic is problematised. In each instance the material (i.e. the selected articles) is organized in relation to how the designated “problem” (e.g. “digital rights” in Puukko and “whistleblowing” in Zimmerman) is represented. Not only does this approach produce insightful analysis, it also serves as a political intervention through application of the WPR questions. For example, you can look at the various ways the topic is problematised and ask what is left out or silenced (Question 4 in Bacchi 2026, p. 24). You can also ask about the effects of the different problematisations (Question 5).
In this entry, I outline what could be accomplished by bringing this analytic strategy to theories concerning populism. As a starting point, I adopt the common classification of approaches to theorizing “populism” as objectivist, ideational and post-foundational. These categories are not absolute and blending of approaches is common (sub-categories will be added below). For other helpful classification schemes see Kim 2022 and Müller 2023. The purpose of this heuristic exercise is to identify how these contrasting approaches display paradigmatic assumptions illustrated through how “problems” are conceptualised.
Objectivist approaches
At a basic level it is fair to describe objectivist approaches to “populism” as working within a positivist paradigm. They adopt the assumption that (objective) scholars can access information, or evidence about “the real”. Facts and values are held to be separate and distinct. Head and Banerjee (2020) produce an objectivist approach to “populism”. “Populism” is treated as some form of political “force”.
Head and Banerjee (2020: Abstract; emphasis added) describe “populism and media-enhanced polarisation” as “forces” that “undermine the perceived legitimacy of using expertise and evidence in highly contested policy areas”.
It is important to pay attention to nuances in “objectivist” accounts. Contemporary discussions of policy-making attempt to strike a balance between claims to “objectivity” and values. Head and Banerjee (2020, p. 114) stress the need for improved decision-making and governance arrangements and explicitly state that “knowledge is always situated”. However, their emphasis remains on “independent experts”, “professional advice” and assumed problems. In objectivist accounts (Head and Banerjee 2020, p. 113), despite a passing reference to how “technical expertise” is “framed”, “problems” are “real”, and “solutions” rely on “evidence-based inquiry”.
“Technical expertise remains fundamentally important in framing complex problems, and in seeking solutions” (Head and Banerjee 2020, p. 113).
There is slippage between objectivist and ideational accounts of “populism” (the latter to follow in the next section). Objectivist accounts accept the “core elements” of “the people” versus “the elite” that constitutes the basis of Mudde and Kaltwasser’s (2017) ideational definition of “populism” (see previous entry 29 August 2026). In objectivist accounts, the “force” that is called “populism” is castigated for its “anti-expertise” stance: “Populism trades on fanning anxieties, blaming minorities for social problems, and promising quick fixes built on ‘us versus them’ politics” (Head and Banerjee 2020, p. 111).
“We argue that applying relevant expertise to public policy problems remains essential. (Head and Banerjee 2020: Abstract, emphasis added)”
The question of the place of “expertise” in populist accounts is pursued in a forthcoming Research Hub entry.
Ideational approaches
In ideational accounts “populism” is identified as consisting of ideas and constituting an ideology. The previous entry (29 August 2026) quoted Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017; emphasis added) who offer an ideational definition of “populism”:
“A thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic camps, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté generale (general will) of the people.”
Mudde and Kaltwasser distinguish between “populism” as a “thin-centered ideology” – “a less-than-fully-fledged ideology with a limited conceptual core” (Kim 2022, p. 495) – and “host” ideologies, e.g. socialism, communism, fascism, etc., “to which populism cleaves”. The main content is provided by the “host ideology”. This means that the “pure people” and the “corrupt elite” in populism are constructed categories that can vary over time and space (Zanotti 2024, p. 167).
Kim (2022) identifies a paradoxical “double movement” in Mudde’s ideational approach “insofar as populism is ascribed a high degree of indeterminacy”, given its linkage to various “hosts”, and, at the same time, a specifically moralisticcharacter, with moralism being “the essence of the populist division” of “purepeople” versus “corrupt elite.
Essential to the discourse of the populist is the normative distinction between “the elite” and “the people” … Opponents are not just people with different priorities and values, they are evil! (Mudde 2004, p. 544; emphasis in original)”
Meanwhile, as noted in the previous entry (29 August 2026), drawing attention to “elites” and “corruption” cannot, on its own, constitute “populism” since many political parties use this rhetoric:
It is argued that ideational scholars’ attribution of a moralistic particularity to populism runs the risk of pathologizing the latter for characteristics that are arguably constitutive of all politics. (Kim 2022: Abstract; emphasis added)
Ideational definitions hence run the risk of “disqualifying all forms of adversarial us-versus-them politics as pathological aberrations from neatly structured politics-as-usual” (Kim 2022, p. 497). This concern echoes the caution expressed in the previous entry (29 August 2026) on the political effects that accompany the tendency to talk about “right-wing” and “left-wing” “populism”.
In Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017) “ideology” operates in a descriptive sense to refer to clusters of ideas or political positions/views. “Ideas” feature prominently in the social sciences. They have become the moving “forces” that shape social and political developments. In these accounts, “ideas” function as abstract, cognitive systems of beliefs and values (Howarth and Griggs 2012, pp. 305-6).
By contrast, as discussed in the next section, in poststructuralist accounts, the goal is to keep a focus on the contingency of “things”, including “ideas”, and to draw attention to the multiple relations involved in their emergence and formation. “Ideas” and “ideologies” are considered to be increasingly unhelpful concepts in “visualising the detailed workings of the forms of thought and practice that shaped our contemporary existence and experience” (Rabinow and Rose 2003). Hence, “ideologies” lose their explanatory power.
Those who espouse an ideational approach to “populism” (e.g Mudde, Kaltwasser) treat problems as reflecting taken-for-granted states of being. For example, Mudde (2017; emphasis added) notes that: “By arguing to propose ‘common sense solutions’ to complex problems, populists often implicitly also argue that the elite creates problems and is out of touch with the people.” Given the theoretical stance on “ideas” as “things”, this conceptualisation of “problems” as real states of being is unsurprising.
Post-foundational approaches
The term “post-foundational” applies to a cluster of theoretical positions united by a questioning of Enlightenment assumptions concerning reason, emancipation, science and progress – our “foundations”, if you will. A broad philosophical perspective, it questions the possibility of any ultimate, fixed ground (or foundation) for truth, knowledge and identity. Post-structuralism offers an intersecting project that challenges established, stable, and universalizing structures. Post-structuralist approaches thus emphasise heterogeneity and contingency in the production of “populism” (Bacchi and Goodwin 2025, p. 4). As already noted, attention is directed to the plurality of practices involved in the emergence and formation of “things” (such as “populism” and “ideas”).
In this section I comment briefly on the positions associated with the poststructuralists, Laclau, Mouffe and Foucault.
Laclau and Mouffe
The well-known poststructuralist scholars, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, theorise a “left populism” approach. In 2005 Laclau elaborated his formalconceptualisation of populism. As opposed to a “thin-ideology” (see Mudde above), Laclau analysed populism as a political logic – a way of thinking about politics – that could be used by the left, right or centre. In his account, “the people” and “the elite” (or enemy) are discursive constructions, the product of “a series of politico-discursive practices” (Laclau 2005a, p. 15). Mouffe stressed the need to construct a new political identity – “the people” – rather than simply representing a pre-existing historical formation (Judis 2016).
Laclau’s formal approach targets the conditions necessary for the emergence of populism rather than focussing on style and content. The defining features consist of: (1) the prevalence of the logic of equivalence; (2) the production of empty signifiers; and (3) “the construction of political frontiers through the interpellation of the underdog” (Laclau 2005a, p. 16). The “logic of equivalence” refers to “an equivalential chain between unfulfilled demands” (for example Sander’s national $15-an-hour minimum wage or Trump’s Mexican wall). When there is a situation in which “a plurality of unsatisfied demands and increasing inability of the institutional system to absorb them differentially coexist”, you have the conditions for a “populist rupture” (Judis 2016).
Together with Mouffe, Laclau presents left-wing populism as a new strategy for “radical democracy”, replacing the Marxist focus on class and incorporating the new social movements (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). They wished to challenge the European focus on right-wing populism. Mouffe (2011 interview quoted in Judis 2016) admits that she and Laclau may have misread the political situation. While they believed that Western Europe was ready to move beyond social democracy to embrace a more radical alternative, they failed to anticipate the triumph of a neoliberal approach that “stressed the virtues of unfettered market capitalism and the search for a consensus between centre left and centre right” (Judis 2016)”:
“In 1985 we said ‘we need to radicalize democracy’; now we first need to restore democracy, so we can then radicalize it; the task is far more difficult (Mouffe in interview)
With all its formalism, Kim (2022, p. 499) shows there is a “crypto-normativity” in Laclau and Mouffe’s emphasis on the emancipatory effects of populism: “there is a tendency in Laclau’s work to (over-)emphasize the emancipatory effects of populism as a politics of the underdog”. In the previous entry I suggest that we are prisoners of the current political climate that makes “populism” a dangerous word. Meyenburg (2025, p. 1085) describes how “right-wing populism” arises as a strategic companion to neoliberalism, living off the crises caused by neoliberalist policies to manufacture an “emotionally charged antagonism of ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite’, which then produces crises itself that allow for the promotion of neoliberal policies in return”.
Both Mouffe and Laclau use the term “problem” as a concept with taken-for-granted meaning. According to Mouffe (2007; emphasis added) “traditional democratic parties have become unable to face societal problems in a political way”. For Laclau (2005b, p. 73) the “demands” that form an “equivalential chain” include “problems with water, health, schooling”. The inadequate analytic scrutiny accorded “problem/s” appears elsewhere in poststructuralist texts (see Colebrook 2017; Bacchi 2026 p. 185). For an alternative theoretical stance, we turn to Foucault and “problematisation”.
Theorising contestation with Foucault
Foucault challenges the place of “ideas” as mental perceptions shaping “reality” and turns instead to how specific phenomena are “conceptualised” or “problematised”. He sidesteps “ideas” and offers problematizations as a way to get inside “thinking”. In this way he looks to carve out a space between “idealism” and “realism” (Bacchi 2026, p. 74). Poststructuralist approaches, influenced by Foucault, eschew grand theory based on “ideology”, turning instead to the routine and mundane practices involved in the “shaping of governable domains and governable persons” (Rose et al. 2006, p. 101).
This theoretical strategy broadens our perspective on far-right (populist) contestation, illuminating struggles that “extend beyond formal institutions and electoral competitions and into the epistemic realm” (Simon 2025b, p. 1). It examines “how particular epistemic repertoires are drawn on and thus become productive in the formation of alternative or resisting instead of governable subjects”. Simon (2025b: Abstract) borrows the concept of “counter-conduct” from the Foucauldian toolbox to explore the positions adopted by Mothers for Liberty (M4L) in contemporary US politics. She shows their strong critique of expertise and their “tactics of scientific distrust” (Simon 2025b, p.5), indicating an unexpected alignment with left-wing criticisms of expert knowledges – the topic pursued in the next entry.
Conclusion
This entry introduces three principal frameworks adopted to theorize “populism”: objectivism, the ideational approach, post-foundationalism. The WPR questions operate in the background of the analysis to draw attention to underlying presuppositions, e.g. presumptions regarding the fixity of “things” and “ideas”, or convictions about the democratising effects of “populism” (Bacchi 2026, p. 24). How the different perspectives conceptualise “problems” serves as a litmus-test for underlying epistemological and ontological presuppositions. The turn to problematisation in Foucault-influenced approaches is highlighted as an innovative theoretical approach that challenges “problems” as entities.
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