THE PROMIOSE OF PROTECTION (UN ESCAP. 2011.)

The de facto author of the report,

Donovan, the UN ESCAP team leader,

handed the book to the man who had served as overall head of UN ESCAP’s

Asia and Pacific region-wide

social safety net project —

Yoon Seok-myung, a researcher at KIHASA —

in Bangkok in 2011. The passage below, from that book

(The Promise of Protection),

is its remark on populism.

THE PROMISE OF PROTECTION

Popular but not populist

Parties and Governments will themselves generally conclude that offering greatersocial protection is likely to be politically popular – particularly in developing countries, where the beneficiaries represent a significant proportion of the electorate.

If formulated in anticipation of elections, however, such policies may be criticized as ‘‘populist’’.

In principle, there is nothing wrong with being elected for proposing popular policies – that, after all, is the basis of an electoral democracy.

Populism, however, often implies, among other things, that policies are being chosen on the basis of immediate mass appeal even if in the longer term they prove impractical or unaffordable.

(Google Translation)

Policies That Win Popular Support Are Not the Same as Populism

Parties and governments generally judge for themselves that offering greater social protection is likely to be politically popular — all the more so in developing countries, where beneficiaries account for a substantial share of the electorate.

If such policies are formulated with an eye to elections, however,

they may draw criticism as “populist.”

In principle, there is nothing wrong with being elected on the strength of proposing popular policies. That, after all, is the very foundation of an electoral democracy.

Populism, however, often denotes the practice of choosing policies on the basis of their immediate mass appeal, even where those policies prove impracticable or unaffordable over the longer term.