Second-Order Political Thinking: Compromise versus Populism
| Date | 01 August 2021 |
| Published date | 01 August 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321720910171 |
| Author | Christian F Rostbøll |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720910171
Political Studies
2021, Vol. 69(3) 559 –576
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0032321720910171
journals.sagepub.com/home/psx
Second-Order Political
Thinking: Compromise
versus Populism
Christian F Rostbøll
Abstract
The literature often mentions that populism is in conflict with the politics of compromise.
However, the opposition remains vague and undertheorized. This article confronts populism and
compromise in a novel way by analyzing them as types of second-order political thinking and
ideologies of democracy. Second-order political thinking provides a set of ideas and concepts that
frames and regulates how we relate to others in politics, and how we make political decisions for,
with, or against them. By contrasting populism and compromise as types of second-order political
thinking, we will better be able to understand each and normatively compare them. Thus, we
see that (1) compromise is inherently most attractive as second-order political thinking, and (2)
populism fails as an ideology of democracy, because it cannot explain the meaning and value of the
democratic system as a set of authoritative institutions and procedures.
Keywords
populism, compromise, democracy, ideology
Accepted: 10 February 2020
Introduction
“[P]opulism needs to be, and can be, kept in check by political leaders earning respect for
the political processes of compromise by being willing and able to explain and justify
them publicly,” wrote Bernhard Crick (2005: 631) 15 years ago. Since then the hold of
populism has only grown stronger in many countries around the world (Moffitt, 2016;
Rovira Kaltwasser et al., 2017). Indeed, it has made many fear for the future of democ-
racy (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018; Mounk, 2018). Crick’s suggestion of confronting pop-
ulism with the political process of compromise requires a better understanding of the
meaning and justification of populism and compromise. This article provides the latter by
constructing two ideal types, Populism and Compromise, which I propose that we regard
as rival forms of second-order political thinking and democratic ideologies. While
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen K, Denmark
Corresponding author:
Christian F Rostbøll, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Oester Farimagsgade 5,
1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
Email: cr@ifs.ku.dk
910171PSX0010.1177/0032321720910171Political StudiesRostbøll
research-article2020
Article
560 Political Studies 69(3)
first-order political thinking concerns what are the best policies to pursue independently
of other people’s views, second-order political thinking is a type of thinking that provides
a set of ideas and concepts that frames and regulates how we relate to others in politics
and how we make political decisions for, with, or against them.
By contrasting Populism and Compromise as types of second-order political thinking
and rival interpretations of the ideology of democracy, we will be able to evaluate them on
normative terms. I argue that Compromise has some inherent features that are normatively
more attractive than Populism, in particular its commitment to respect every citizen’s right
to form her own opinions and be an equal participant in collective self-legislation.
Moreover, Compromise has the advantage over Populism that it, without closing the gap
between ideology and practice, can connect the two, whereas the ideology of Populism is
so remote from actual democratic practice that it necessarily returns to the latter as a
destructive force. While Populism cannot avoid creating disappointment with and distrust
of ordinary democratic politics, Compromise can show its value. However, there is a dan-
ger that the politics of compromise becomes uncritical and discourages expressions of
dissent. To avoid this, we must promote Compromise as a second-order disposition of
respect for disagreement, rather than a first-order position of centrism.
By contrasting Populism and Compromise, I do not mean to suggest that these are the
only possible forms of second-order political thinking. Rather, studying theories of pop-
ulism, I was struck, on one hand, by the frequent contraposition of populism and compro-
mise (e.g. Canovan, 2002: 34; Mudde, 2017: 34–35; Urbinati, 2014: 151), and, on the
other hand, by how vague and undertheorized the contrast remains. Hence, this article aims
to provide this missing theorization. Moreover, another obvious candidate for comparison,
deliberative democracy, does not provide the same clear idea of second-order political
thinking, as we shall see Compromise does. This is the case because deliberation, as com-
monly understood by deliberative democrats, is mainly about finding the best policies on
the first level and less about how to make decisions with or against disagreeing others at
the second level. In terms suggested by Simon May (2005), deliberative democracy oper-
ates with “reasons for correction,” which concerns the first level of policy, and which are
different from “reasons for compromise,” which operate at the second level.
Note that while the notions of Populism and Compromise draw on recent literature on
populism and compromise, they are my constructions and not everyone writing on the two
topics will agree on my interpretation and emphases. Constructing ideal types of Compromise
and Populism poses methodological challenges because neither has canonical texts in the
way major political ideologies do. It also poses the challenge that much of the literature on
populism is critical. To avoid uncharitable interpretation in the construction of Populism, I
include conceptualizations not only from analysts and critical commentators (e.g. Mudde,
Müller, and Urbinati) but also from proponents (Laclau, Mouffe, McCormick) and less
critical commentators (Canovan), and I concentrate on the aspects where they overlap.
Regarding Compromise, the main challenge is the paucity of sources and the lack of any
clear tradition. However, within the last couple of decades, some important work has been
done on compromise (Rostbøll and Scavenius, 2018), and this article aims to contribute to
establishing compromise as an essential topic in political theory.
Second-Order Political Thinking
In the literature on compromise, it is common to distinguish between first- and second-
order commitments or two levels of moral evaluation (May, 2005: 318–319, 2011: 584;
To continue reading
Request your trial