So the People Will

Jan-Werner Müller: What is Populism?

A short and concise book on populism. Müller defines populism, discusses how populists govern, and lays out ways to confront populism. Relevant and enjoyable.

In a first chapter, Müller discusses how to best define populism, settling on a definition based on the political discourse employed by populists. He rejects to describe populism based on the quality of policies- it is often impossible to define what a good policy is- the socio-economic profile of voters- it is not only the economically disadvantaged who vote for populist parties- psychological characteristics of supporters- it is too easy to simply disqualify the supporters of populist parties as angry or authoritarian- or the self-description of parties as populist- the use of the label has varied widely over the years. Instead, Müllers employs features of populist discourse to define the phenomenon. Populists resort to a moralistic imagination of politics which puts a morally pure and unified people against corrupt elites. Populism is thus both anti-elitist and anti-pluralist. According to populist discourse, a singular popular will exists and can be discerned (1). It is only due to the corrupt elites who are in power that the popular will is not implemented. Populist leaders, on the contrary, have a superior ability to identify what the people want and implement their popular will.

In the second chapter, Müller investigates how populists govern once they are in power. He positions himself against the hypothesis that populist governance is necessarily bound to fail. Populist statecraft usually has three hallmarks: the colonialization of the state; mass clientelism, and the repression of civil society. Victor Orban's Fidesz Party in Hungary or Jaroslw Kaczynsky's Law and Order Party in Poland have, once in power, undertaken large scale efforts to install their followers in the media, the civil service and the judiciary. Mass clientelism means that populist leaders distribute material and immaterial favors to their followers. Finally, populists in power move against civil society, and often try to label NGOs as "foreign agents" opposed to the people. When in power, many populist leaders have also aimed for changes in their countries' constitutions. Müller uses the example of the Hungarian fundamental law- entered into force in 2012- to illustrate populist constitution-making. The constitution enshrines very specific policy preferences and the political opposition was largely excluded from the process of passing and drafting it. Other hallmarks of populist constitution are the strengthening of the executive, which usually goes hand in hand with the weakening of the other powers, particularly the judiciary. As seen in Venezuela, populist constitutions often set the ground for permanent political conflict, as the political opposition may, in spite of an uneven playing field, still win elections or gain representation. Müller also argues against the use of the term "illiberal democracy" for populist regimes, arguing that populism moves against some of the very fundamentals of democracy, such as freedom of speech. 

In the final chapter, Müller lays out his ideas on how to engage populists. He argues against refusing to engage them and in favor of taking the claim that parts of the population are not politically represented seriously. Müller joins others in constating a crisis of political representation. First, a new political cleavage has emerged, putting citizens favoring economic and cultural openness against those opposing it. Second, constitutions in Western Europe still mostly stem from the post-war period. In response to the experiences made with fascism earlier on, polities were crafted with the goal to "lock in" a commitment to liberal democracy. Parliamentary sovereignty was restricted and un-elected bodies such as constitutional courts, central banks, or the bodies of the newly created European Community were empowered. 

Overall an important, timely and very readable book on populism. Müller provides a clear definition of a concept which is as slippery as it is far-spread and important in current political discourse. His arguments come in handy for confronting the partisans of the populist parties which have found themselves strengthened throughout much of the Western world and beyond. Müller also lays the groundwork for a more in-depth empirical analysis of populism. As short and concise as this book is, its mere 100 pages, mostly located in the realm of political theory, unfortunately do not allow for the analysis of important issues, particularly the variety of real-world "populisms". Future empirical work could for instance investigate how populist rule differs between polities on different continents and at different stages of economic development.

(1) Müller contrasts the positions of early 20th century legal philosophers Carl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen on whether a popular will exists. Kelsen prominently argued that there is no such thing as a popular will, labelling it a "metapolitical illusion", as only electoral results are empirically verifiable. Carl Schmitt, on the contrary, gave an almost mythical notion of the popular will an important place in his work.

"Since I grew tired of the chase and search, I learned to find"

Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg: How Google Works- The Rules for Success in the Internet Century

Schmidt and Rosenberg describe how product excellence, the key to corporate success in the internet age, can be furthered through a company's culture, strategy, recruitment, decision-making, communication, and approach to innovation.

The Background: The costs of IT-related factors of production have declined significantly over the past decades. The internet has drastically lowered the costs of information; mobile devices have made connectivity affordable to many more people; and cloud computing allows for  cheaply available computing power. As a result, consumers are nowadays better informed than ever before and the costs of experimenting to develop new products have drastically decreased for companies. This, in turn, means that business success is more dependent on product excellence than in the past.

Culture:  The founders of Google invested significant time and effort to formulate their company's culture. Slogans like "don't be evil" have become widely known. Schmidt and Rosenberg introduce less known aspects of Google's corporate culture, too. Those include messy and crowded office spaces, decision-making based on data, treating being overworked as part of a life-style, and giving employees the chance to manage their time independently. Schmidt and Rosenberg also discuss organizational solutions appropriate for a company in the internet age. While there is no perfect organizational form, Google has found it useful to have a minimum of 7 employees reporting to a manager to keep hierarchies flat. Also, Google maintained a functional organization rather than organizing along product lines to prevent the emergence of organizational silos.

Strategy: Talking about strategy, Schmidt and Rosenberg emphasize three points: betting on technical insights; optimizing for scale, and defaulting to openly accessible solutions. Instead of being driven by market research, Google attempts to come up with new technical insights which significantly reduce the costs of  a product and enhance functionality. Google also aimed for quick and global growth. The way to achieving this kind of growth in the internet age is to create and grow platforms (such as youtube or amazon), i.e. "a set of products and services that bring together groups of users and providers to form multi-sided markets." Drawing upon the work of economist Ronald Coase, the authors argue that in the internet age, with transaction costs having declined significantly, there is less  need for large hierarchical companies. Companies instead work with a whole network of partners and customers via platforms which allow them to interact to their mutual benefit. Finally, Google has also been founded on the idea of defaulting to open when it comes to the platforms it offers, using open software and allowing users to easily enter and exit its platforms. Ultimately, being open makes a platform more competitive and offer customers more value.

Talent: Schmidt and Rosenberg also detail how google has managed to attract its immensely talented staff. They argue, based on work by psychologist Carol Dweck, that google aims to hire staff with a "growth mindset". People with a growth mindset do not accept the notion that their qualities are carved in stone, but rather believe that they can permanently adapt and change. Google's hiring decisions are also strongly data-driven: data on previous hiring decisions have for instance been used to determine the optimum number interviews (four) to identify suited candidates.

Decisions: In this chapter, Schmidt and Rosenberg  argue in favor of a consensus-based decision-making model which is solution-oriented and promotes inclusion, cooperation and equality. Based on their conviction that virtually all business processes are quantifiable, especially in the internet age, the authors also make the case for data-based decision-making. Finally, Schmidt and Rosenberg promote the idea that CEOs should only have to make only few decisions and that daily meetings should be held in the run up to important decisions.

Communications: Drawing upon Google's experience, Schmidt and Rosenberg point to the need to have the flow of information maximized throughout a company. Google's philosophy to "default to open" also holds in the company's internal and external communications. Managers also need to access information about what is going on at the working level. To further open and honest communication throughout the hierarchy, google has introduced various fora, such as company-wide meetings,  .

Innovation: Contrasting Apple and Google, Schmidt and Rosenberg note how different approaches to innovation can be: Apple's operating system for its i-phones (iOS) is closed, with Apple maintaining complete control over for instance the permissible applications. Google's android system, on the contrary, is an open platform, with anyone able to create and sell applications for it.
Google's approach to innovation asks for three criteria to be met for the company to pursue an innovative idea: it must address a big challenge or opportunity which affects a large share of the world's population; the proposed solution must be radically different from anything done in the past; and the breakthrough technology enabling the envisaged solution must be available soon. Schmidt and Rosenberg also recommend for innovation to be user-centric; to focus on big ideas, which means it is better to develop one innovative product rather than a series of mediocre ones, and, to not spend too much time on perfecting a product, but instead ship it and improve at a later stage. Google also found it useful to have about 70% of the company's efforts and ressources focused on its core business, 20% on emerging products which have already shown some success, and the remaining 10% on completely new products. In an attempt to enhance "innovativeness", google employees 20% of their time to any project of their own choosing.

Overall, an informative and readable book. Of course, it sometimes comes of as a bit of a google marketing ploy. At the same time, Google has been one, if not the company defining the internet age. Also, while some of the recommendations, such as the call for data-based decision-making, might seem trivial at first, many organizations, both in the private and public sectors, are quite far from implementing them.

Random pop cultural reference:
Product placement at its worst, but it is a kind of cool movie...