Interview: Anti-populism, framing, and reactionary politics (Alex Yates)
This interview is based on Alex Yates’ article ‘A Cure for “Populism”? Diagnostic and Prognostic Framing in Anti-Populist Political Punditry’
Yates, A. (2026) ‘A Cure for “Populism”? Diagnostic and Prognostic Framing in Anti-Populist Political Punditry’, Political Studies Review. DOI: 10.1177/14789299261429772
This interview was conducted by Rob Walker.
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Your article argues that anti-populism can (at times) reproduce and legitimise reactionary politics. How does this dynamic operate in practice, and what do you see as its most significant political consequences?
So anti-populism reproduces and legitimises reactionary politics in two main ways. First, anti-populists often argue that to stop the rise of ‘populism’ – by which they normally mean far-right politics – they need to reduce immigration and reclaim patriotism. Their logic is that if the liberal mainstream can look tough on migration, they can make the ‘populist’ far right electorally irrelevant. This is completely wrongheaded. Research has shown that by mimicking the far right, you only make them more popular by normalising their positions. Voters sympathetic to the far right prefer the ‘full fat’ version rather than the diet knockoff. The same applies to the anti-populist reclamation of patriotism, which moves public discourse onto favourable terrain for the far right by making questions of nationhood more salient.
A slightly more nuanced way that anti-populism reproduces reactionary politics is through its defence of a failing status quo. Anti-populists in the media regularly promote apparently ‘responsible’ and ‘measured’ politicians of the liberal centre, such as Keir Starmer or Joe Biden. It sees these political elites as standing as a bulwark against reactionary politics, even when they have pandered to the far right on issues such as migration and law and order. Similarly, anti-populists rarely question – and often seek to defend – the neoliberal status quo and all the inequalities that it produces.
You identify an epistemic frame that positions certain voters as irrational and in need of education. How does this intersect with broader critiques of knowledge production and authority (particularly around who gets to define what counts as legitimate political understanding)?
I think this is an important question. Anti-populists often castigate ‘populism’ as ‘irrational’ or ‘emotional’. Elites have used rationality as a weapon against popular political participation for centuries, arguing, for example, that women, the racially minoritised, young people, and, indeed, the working class as a whole are incapable of engaging in political debate because they aren’t rational enough. As a result, it is political and media elites who get to define what counts as ‘proper’ politics and anti-populism is a useful way for them to police these boundaries. Alternative forms of political participation that emerge from the popular classes can be delegitimised as ‘populist’ and, therefore, not ‘real’ politics. This narrows the space for political experimentation and reproduces the gendered, racialised, and class-based hierarchies which characterise the liberal hegemony.
If anti-populism (as currently articulated) risks reinforcing reactionary politics, then what alternative frameworks or discursive strategies would you see as more effective for resisting fascistic or exclusionary tendencies, without reproducing them?
The problem with anti-populism is that it totally misses the mark in terms of what is dangerous about reactionary politics. The problem with the far right is not their ‘populist’ style or discourse, it is their ideological commitments to authoritarianism and racism. So, we need to start with using terms correctly – the far right aren’t ‘populist’, they are racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and authoritarian. It is only by being clear about the real dangers which the far right pose that we can begin to fight back against them. In a nutshell, don’t be anti-populist, be anti-fascist!
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Alex Yates is a final-year PhD student at the University of Bath whose research focuses on anti-populism, that is, discourses which seek to defend the status quo from contestation by demonising challenges to it as irresponsibly “populist”. As such, he is interested in two reactionary consequences of these discourses: first, the ways in which they close down opportunities to contest neoliberal hegemony and, second, the euphemisation of far-right politics as merely “populist”. Within the Reactionary Politics Research Network, he hopes to explore how reaction operates at the core of the liberal-democratic mainstream.
Rob Walker is a PhD researcher at the University of Stirling, focusing on the interplay between masculinities, misogynies, and their bridging for fascist ideologies. Drawing on post-structural and post-humanist lenses, his research explores how gender norms and misogynies act as gateways to extremist political beliefs, within the context of neoliberal and neoconservative politics in contemporary Western societies, particularly within education. Rob also examines wider educational inequalities, with an emphasis on the Othering of marginalised groups, promoting social justice by addressing disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes.
Alex Yates and Rob Walker are members of the RPRN
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