Elite Trust and the Populist Threat to Stable Democracy

Abstract

One aspect of elite theory holds that democratic stability depends heavily on elites trusting each other to keep distributive issues from reaching acute degrees impelling power seizures. This presumes that agreement about the distribution of valued things is seldom deep or wide in large publics. When distributive issues rise to clear public consciousness, the tendency is toward civil strife. Populists assail and undermine elite trust and the management of politics by elites. They thereby weaken an important basis of democratic stability. I argue that the rise of populist leaders to power leads to an erosion of elite trust, which makes distributive issues more acute and threatens the stability of democratic institutions.