When I was recently teaching an undergraduate course on political ideology, I was looking for a short book that captures all of the complexities and variations of populism for students. Donald Critchlow’s In Defense of Populism is a candidate for such classes. Its detailed histories of individual populist movements are well suited as springboards for discussion. To decide whether populism is a net positive, however, readers will need to consider theoretical questions explored only briefly in the book. After describing the book’s claims, I focus here on whether essential reforms attributed to populist movements could be accomplished without the pathologies that sometimes accompany them.

In Defense of Populism is organized into roughly 30-page chapters, each with a detailed summary of a populist movement: the original People’s Party, New Deal critics, the civil rights movement, second-wave feminists, and the postwar populist Right. Critchlow, a historian, mostly lets the stories of the populist movements speak for themselves, bookending his defense of populism in the introduction and the final chapter. Within each chapter, he catalogs case studies in populism, ranging from the Georgists to the John Birch Society, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, to the Stop ERA movement. Each case contains cogent biographies of the leaders of the movements and, where applicable, discussions of schisms based on major disagreements on strategy, as well as on petty personality conflicts. Even social movement scholars are likely to learn something new. For example, the chapter on postwar conservative populism reviews some surprising results from surveys of John Birch Society members that demonstrate incongruity with the organization’s founder Robert Welch.

Critchlow defines populism as a “social movement against established elites and a call for citizens to be given a larger voice in politics” (p. 2). By this definition, populism is not necessarily illiberal or undemocratic, nor progressive or reactionary. It is even consistent with elite support, provided that it simultaneously activates authentic desires at the grassroots level. Critchlow argues that large donations to movements like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter facilitate protesting and campaigning, rather than cause it (p. 171). Movements that fit Critchlow’s broad definition are “essential to democratic reform in the American political tradition” because they bring attention to issues neglected by the major parties and momentarily restore confidence in the party system (pp. 2–3). If “elected representatives and party establishments fail to respond to an angry electorate…the politics of the street can be expected.” Thus, populist social reform movements need to coalesce to avoid mob violence and the resulting polarization (p. 185). It is clear that “without pressure brought by mass mobilization,” voters experience “alienation, partisan polarization, and social conflict” (p. 10).

But to avoid conflating populism with all grassroots social movements, Critchlow needs to claim that specifically anti-elitist mass mobilization is essential. Not all examples of mass mobilization can be treated as populist. Could there be a mass movement that did not rally people around antipathy to elites or that successfully marginalized conspiracy theorists and cranks? Many readers will ask whether the benefits of populism are circumstantial, depending on which elites are the targets of mass movements. Should we treat those motivated by resentment of major parties, captains of industry, technocrats, epidemiologists, and racial elites as cut from the same cloth? Do we need to condone the modal populist movement to retain the benefits of the best populist movements? It might be that a country can establish political norms against poorly considered anti-elitism or avoid the “dark side” of populism without stifling the necessary reforms accomplished by other populists.

Critchlow starts the book by specifying it is a defense of populism, not demagoguery. Yet the framers of the Constitution might have asked whether opposition to elites for being elites is inherently a kind of demagoguery. As Jeffrey Tulis argues in The Rhetorical Presidency (2017), the framers thought politicians were practicing “soft demagoguery” by telling voters that they were right and the elites were wrong. The Constitution provided voters with a say in government, but one mediated by senators elected in staggered terms and scrutinized by a president who stayed above the fray of politics. Populists often respond that the politics of protest injects much-needed energy into a system designed for slow deliberation, but good ideas often fail to translate into good results without the technocratic considerations emerging from careful consideration.

Each chapter ends with a discussion of what the movements accomplished, but less clear is whether their accomplishments served the real interests of the participants or the voters more generally. Critchlow claims that the expectations of populist movements lead to disappointment when bureaucracies are created to implement policy, regardless of their effectiveness. Some of the policies desired by populists could not be implemented without additional government personnel, such that antibureaucratic populism plants the seeds of its own discontent. Though grassroots movements seldom intend to give such power to nonpartisan educated elites, that power might be what best achieves the movements’ goals.

Defending populism requires a consideration not only of the consequences of individual reforms, but also of the general effects on political processes that might be avoided by nonpopulist reform efforts. Even in cases where elites are responsible for bad policies, the anger characteristic of populism tends to personalize politics rather than direct attention to the costs and benefits of different policies. This leads to a distrust of some policies simply because of who supports them rather than their effectiveness. During the coronavirus epidemic, for example, some people have rejected the advice or policy recommendations of experts simply because they are elites or elites associated with political values with which they disagree. Can populism inject energy into some reform efforts without legitimating irrational opposition to elites in others?

Although a complete answer would require a substantially longer book, a few examples can suggest alternative paths to reform. My own research shows that many policy demanders, including some described in the book, have contributed to the passage of legislation by becoming active in party nominations, rather than campaigning against party elites (Christopher Baylor, First to the Party: The Group Origins of Political Transformation, 2017). Third parties have also succeeded in forcing political parties to incorporate some of their ideas by threatening to take votes away from major parties, without evoking the generalized populist contempt for elites. Leaders of the Progressive Party disdained the major parties but championed policy implementation from experts. Critchlow discusses progressives and agrarian populists in the same chapter, but their constituencies and discourse on elites were quite different (pp. 37–42). Many antislavery groups also disdained plantation owners without opposing all business or politics elites. In summary, nonpopulist reformers have passed legislation and even constitutional amendments similar in ambition to those favored by populist reformers, without the personalized politics and resentment of elites that are endemic to populism.

Absent a deeper exploration of these issues, political scientists will need to ask these questions on their own. But In Defense of Populism provides impressive case studies from which readers can come to an informed answer.