"Attacks on linking"-On the social psychology of populism

Populism is examined and under the aspects of a regressive attack on linking. It is shown that populism is the source of such attacks on linking, but at the same time is also generated by those attacks or is a misguided response to the tearing apart of linkages. The central concept guiding the argumentation is the concept of regression, which is familiar and important in psychoanalysis but is also conspicuously currently used in contemporary sociological discussion. Populism is itself regressive but also a response to social regressions. This hypothesis will be substantiated. The text begins with a sociological profile of populism. It then turns to the social causes of populism, referring to democratic deficits in general and to social regressions. In the third part, the psychoanalytical concept of regression is contrasted with the sociological one, and it is shown that psychoanalysis is needed in sociological analysis in order to understand what is attractive in the regression, which populism represents. The last part quotes a fable taken from the Nobel Prize speech of the author Toni Morrison.