Populism has become a favourite catchword for mass media and politicians faced with the challenge of protest parties or movements. It has often been equated with radical right leaders or parties. This volume offers a different perspective and underlines that populism is an ambiguous but constitutive component of democratic systems torn between their ideology (government of the people, by the people, for the people) and their actual functioning, characterised by the role of the elites and the limits put on the popular will by liberal constitutionalism.

HANS-GOERG BETZ Associate Professor of Political Science, York University, Toronto MARGARET CANOVAN Professor of Political Thought, University of Keele HERBERT P. KITSCHELT Professor of Political Science, Duke University PETER MAIR Professor of Comparative Politics, Leiden University CAS MUDDE Lecturer, Department of Politics, University of Edinburgh WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER Professor of Political Science, University of Vienna YANNIS PAPADOPOULOS PAUL TAGGART Lecturer in Politics and Jean Monnet Lecturer in Contemporary European Studies, University of Sussex MARCO TARCHI Associate Professor of Political Science and Political Communication, University of Florence ALAN WARE Professor of Politics, University of Oxford

List of Tables List of Figures Notes on the Contributors The Constitutive Ambiguity of Populism: M.Mény & Y.Surel PART I: MAKING SENSE OF POPULISM Taking Politics to the People: Populism as the Ideology of Democracy; M.Canovan Populism, the Democratic Question, and Contemporary Governance; Y.Papadopoulos Populism and the Pathology of Representative Politics; P.Taggart Populist Democracy vs. Party Democracy; P.Mair PART II: IDENTIFYING COUNTRY VARIATIONS The United States: Populism as Political Strategy; A.Ware Populism Italian Style; M.Tarchi Populism in the French Party System; Y.Surel Evil or the 'Engine of Democracy'? Populism and Party Competition in Austria; W.C.Müller PART III: COMPARING NATIONAL CASES Popular Dissatisfaction with Democracy: Populism and Party Systems; H.Kitschelt Conditions Favouring the Success (and Failure) of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Contemporary Democracies; H.G.Betz In the Name of Peasantry, the Proletariat, and the People: Populisms in East Europe; C.Mudde References Index