Populism as democratic corrective

Populism can be framed not primarily as an anti‑liberal menace but as a movement that reasserts majoritarian democracy against elite technocracy and conditional commitments to democratic outcomes. That defense accepts electoral risk (losing majoritarian contests) as preferable to undemocratic procedures and treats populist insurgency as a response to perceived representational failure. — Recasting populism this way shifts the policy debate: critics must justify why majoritarian decisions should sometimes be overridden, and parties must reckon with representation gaps that fuel populist insurgency.