The white flag of populism
Populism is the political belief that decisions are best made when everyone has a say. It enjoyed success in the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and in Scandinavia after the 1980s, and Peronism in Argentina has its roots in populism. Democracy, socialism, fascism, and communism all have their roots in populism, with the people being the focus of politics. Populism was associated with socialism and communism for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, but the rise of fascism during the 1920s-1930s and right-wing populism in the 1990s led to populism becoming a pejorative term. During the 21st century, there were two types of populism: "positive" populism, in which politicians listened to the people's views and represented them; and "negative" populism, in which politicians made inflammatory (often xenophobic) statements to win the support of "the little guy" against the establishment, other ethnicities, other parties, or any other opponents.
Raul L. Madrid identified three types of populism: ethnopopulism, traditional populism, and neoliberal populism. All three kinds of movements employed personalistic appeals, focused their appeals on the lower classes, and made anti-establishment appeals. However, traditional populism included nationalist, state interventionist, and redistributive policies and appeals, while neoliberal populism instead supported market-oriented measures. Ethnopopulism, which has played a key role in the formation of Latin America's indigenismo movement and Europe and the Americas' right-wing populism, combines ethnic and populist appeals or policies. In Latin America, ethnopopulist parties aimed to include Native American populations in national politics, but, in Europe, ethnopopulist movements were exclusionary, right-wing, and anti-immigration parties. In Latin America, ethnopopulists typically employed nationalist and state interventionist appeals, but some populists such as Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo championed market-oriented measures.
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