Anti-Populism and Pluralism: A Comparative Analysis

民粹主义，假设“人民”反对“精英”，经常被贴上当代对自由民主的最大挑战之一的标签。也就是说，由于它被认为与自由-民主多元主义不相容，对政治权力应该广泛分散的理解，反映了政治共同体的多样性，并防止权力积聚在少数人手中。为了应对民粹主义的兴起，一些政治、学术和媒体精英开始采取“反民粹主义”的立场，以捍卫多元主义免受民粹主义挑战者的威胁。然而，这些精英们自己也被指责破坏了多元主义，因为他们将持不同政见者边缘化，并妖魔化那些挑战新自由主义治理的人。本博士通过分析来自不同国家背景的精英反民粹主义话语，对当前民粹主义的对抗性反应进行了评估，因为它们在促进多元主义对抗民粹主义经常所谓的专制倾向方面的功效。从理论上讲，本博士还代表了对自由主义对多元主义的理解是否足以推进他们声称要捍卫的民主多元化的探究。或者其他激进民主的替代方案是否提供了更令人满意和更有力的概念。在全球极右翼势力的崛起已经严重破坏了自由民主的背景下，了解主流行动者对民粹主义挑战者的反应效果，对于确保自由民主得到有力捍卫至关重要。

Populism, which posits 'the people' against 'the elite' is often labelled as one of the greatest contemporary challenges to liberal democracy. Namely, because of its supposed incompatibility with liberal-democratic pluralism, the understanding that political power should be widely diffused, reflecting the diversity of the political community and preventing power from accumulating in too few hands. In response to the rise of populism, a number of political, academic, and media elites have come to occupy an 'anti-populist' position, so as to defend pluralism from populist challengers. Such elites, however, have themselves beenaccused of undermining pluralism through their supposed marginalisation of dissent and demonisation of those who challenge neoliberal governance. This PhD appraises the current adversarial responses to populism through an analysis of elite anti-populist discourses, from different national contexts, for their efficacy in promoting pluralism against populism's oft alleged authoritarian tendencies, Theoretically, this PhD also represents an inquiry into whether liberal understandings of pluralism are sufficient in advancing the democratic plurality that they claim to defend, or whether other radical-democratic alternatives offer amore satisfying and robust conception. Understanding the efficacy of the responses of mainstream actors to populist challengers is central to ensuring that liberal democracy is robustly defended, in a context in which it has already been greatly destabilised by the global rise of the far-right.