Practices of Transformative Populism: An Illustrative Study of the Bernie Sanders Presidential Runs

Abstract

This article builds on ideas of democratic populism and transformative politics. Researchers of populism who do not dismiss the phenomenon as dangerously anti-democratic discuss the “democratic nucleus” in popular demands, the “democratic aspirations” of the people, or the redemptive and pragmatic sides of politics to suggest a certain democratic capacity that is inherent to populism. While there is sufficient theoretical scholarship on democratic populism, research on its potential concrete practices remains relatively less explored. To address this gap, this article points to certain transformative political practices and concretizes abstract ideas of popular democracy and left-wing populism. Illustrative findings about the Bernie Sanders movement and presidential campaigns help identify four levels of democratic transformation—of discourse, participation, rules of the game, and policy—with which to assess the populist and democratic nature of different political phenomena. The term “transformative populism” is proposed to encapsulate these populist-democratic practices, and empirical and theoretical implications are discussed.