Climate populism: the limits of the ideational and discursive approaches

In this article I critique the ideational approach to climate populism, arguing that it fails to recognise the plurality of positions on the climate crisis amongst different populist movements. It inadequately distinguishes left from right populism and overlooks the populist right’s ongoing shift, particularly in Europe, away from climate change denialism and scepticism. This shortcoming arises from the core assumptions of the ideational approach: that populism involves a unified and homogenous people, and an inherent anti-science and anti-expert outlook. I argue that a discursive, pluralist account of populism can address these theoretical inadequacies and make sense of the variation in exclusionary climate populism where the ideational approach fails to. Finally, I assess the potential limits of this approach. In particular, an inability to extend its pluralism to the needs or demands of non-human beings and integrate them into the people of populism.