The People, the Masses, and the Mobilization of Power: The Paradox of Hannah Arendt's "Populism"

Maintains that the "paradox of populism" in Hannah Arendt's work stems from her simultaneous praise of direct action by the people & her dislike of almost all real cases of grassroots mobilization. Although Arendt praises democratic mobilizations like Poland's Solidarity Movement as indications of political freedom, she deplores ideology-driven mobilizations in totalitarian societies, claiming that most grassroots outbreaks are not the work of the people but of a different collectivity. Arendt's description of mobilizations by "non-Peoples" identifies such groups as the Mob, the anti-Semitics, & the Masses, but she offers little help in distinguishing the "People" from the others. A possible explanation for why Arendt felt it necessary to distinguish between the People & non-Peoples is her recognition that various entities emerge when individuals are mobilized in different ways & such entities are rarely capable of generating lasting institutions "legitimized by the memory & myth of the People in action." Her thinking demands that more attention is given to the People as both a phenomenon & a concept when examining contemporary cases of popular mobilization. 18 References. J. Lindroth