Who is a populist? Comparing Blair and Macron to Corbyn and Mélenchon

Abstract This paper critically examines the concept of populism, challenging the predominant ideological definition by highlighting the importance of political relations between populist actors and elites. It argues that populism should be conceptualized as a political phenomenon characterized by conflict with dominant elites, rather than solely as a set of ideas centered on ‘the people’ and ‘elites’. Through a comparative analysis of four politicians – Tony Blair, Emmanuel Macron, Jeremy Corbyn, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon – the study demonstrates that although some actors utilize populist rhetoric, their tendency to generate conflict with elites distinguishes populist actors from other uses of populist ideas. The cases empirically demonstrate that ‘softer’ cases of populism indeed do not contain conflict and, thus, according to my approach, are not really populist. Thus, I demonstrate the inclination of ideational definitions to overstretch the concept of populism.