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What are the advantages and disadvantages of using ‘populism’ as a means of understanding rural collective action?


Populism (from the Latin populous, meaning ‘the people’) has been used to describe both distinctive political movements and particular tradition of political thought. Movements or parties described as populist have been characterised by their claim to support the common people in the face of ‘corrupt’ economic or political elites. As a political tradition, populism reflects the belief that the instincts and the wishes of the people provide the principle legitimate guide to political action. Populist politicians therefore make a direct appeal to the people and claim to give expression to their deepest hopes and fears, all intermediary institutions being distrusted. Although populism may be linked with any cause or ideology, it is often seen to be implicitly authoritarian, ‘populist’ democracy being the enemy of ‘pluralist’ democracy.
Heywood, A. Politics, second edition, pg354. Palgrave Macmillan.

Rural Collective action came about in reaction to, or resistance to the dominance of powerful large scale forces. The purpose of it is to help the ordinary people in the ordinary places. A very remarkable characteristic of this is its notable variety. As a lot of these interest groups come from different backgrounds, and while they are often treated with similar disrespect, we have to question if they have enough in common to rally together in the interest of the powerless.
Another area where variety appears to thrive is in the forms assumed by organised collective action. Community councils, political parties, and co-operatives are just some of the forms that the rural collective action of interest to us has assumed. While some of this collective action has aspired to be nationally organised, the spatial focus in other instances has fallen on the region, the county or even the ‘local community’. And...