Despite recognizing the threat of right-wing populism, liberals have yet to develop a comprehensive strategy to address it. Philosophical liberalism replicates that failure. Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti tackle this theoretical vulnerability in Politicizing Political Liberalism (hereafter PPL), offering a blueprint for addressing populist threats. Liberals, especially political liberals, need not surrender to doctrines that oppose liberal values. Badano and Nuti’s rigorous nonideal theorizing also offers conceptual tools applicable to other challenges, such as left-wing populist movements.
According to Badano and Nuti, liberalism faces a fundamental paradox when confronting right-wing populism and other “unreasonable” doctrines: “the freedoms that (at least liberal) democracies guarantee might enable illiberal and antidemocratic political forces to end democracy through procedurally democratic means” (1). In response, Badano and Nuti propose a “politicized” version of political liberalism that actively employs “containment” strategies to limit the influence of unreasonable groups and ideas. They ground their argument in the nonideal context of “minimally liberal societies.” Within this framework, they defend specific civic duties, including a “duty of pressure,” that reasonable citizens should fulfill.
PPL recognizes certain risks in its proposed “containment” duties, especially for non-state actors. Yet the theory ultimately undermines the central commitments of the political liberal tradition it seeks to defend. These proposed duties risk three significant harms if implemented: they could destabilize social cohesion, violate the moral integrity of citizens with conservative viewpoints, and place asymmetric burdens on those labeled as “unreasonable.” Additionally, by prioritizing containment over addressing populism’s root causes through institutional reform, the authors’ approach risks exacerbating political and institutional distrust—as dramatically illustrated by the counterproductive effects of many COVID-19 policy responses.
Badano and Nuti’s most significant theoretical innovation is their shift from political liberalism’s traditional “well-ordered society” ideal to the more pragmatic concept of a “minimally liberal society” (30). These societies by and large protect civil and political liberties over time, but they are “non-ideal societies where we can consistently expect the reasonable disagreement that results from their inhabitants being free to form and exchange views about difficult matters” (31).
For Badano and Nuti, containment may be unnecessary in a well-ordered society. By contrast, their “minimally liberal society” presents a more realistic scenario: while institutions remain publicly justified among reasonable citizens, they nevertheless allow unreasonable doctrines to form and exert influence. Badano and Nuti categorize right-wing populism as unreasonable because, in their analysis, it undermines fundamental human equality and rejects the legitimacy of pluralism itself. The recent global resurgence of right-wing populism, therefore, represents precisely the type of threat that the authors’ theoretical framework is designed to confront.
Containment duties then arise from the ideal of public reason, which stresses the requirement that political power be justified in terms of reasons we can share. The authors take a three-tiered approach to developing containment duties; they include soft state action, soft non-state action, and militant state action (6–7). I will concentrate on their defense of soft non-state measures during what they term the “deconsolidation” of liberal order (125).
The authors postulate three non-state duties. The first is the Duty of Pressure (DP), where reasonable citizens “press the unreasonable [people] they know … on their political views to change their mind” (117). According to Badano and Nuti, this duty mainly targets the “unaware unreasonable”—individuals who require tailored rhetorical approaches (109, 123) but also deserve attentive listening (129). The second is the Partisan Duty to Transform (DT): reasonable parties must “transform society’s public reason” through strategic political action to win back support from unreasonable groups without becoming unreasonable in response (137). When widely practiced, these duties will produce positive aggregate effects, or so Badano and Nuti hope (149). Their third category, Municipal Duties, authorizes local governments to “refuse to cooperate” with rights-violating central authorities (18, 168). Municipalities must also model liberal political relationships—what they term “prefiguring”—at the local level (171). Together, these three duties may suffice to “contain” right-wing populism.
But the authors’ recommendations raise the several concerns. For example, they focus on active, potentially confrontational duties of containment, ones that threaten to impinge on the proper treatment of citizens in a liberal order. These confrontational approaches risk seriously eroding trust between those deemed reasonable and unreasonable—particularly since those labeled “unreasonable” rarely accept this characterization of their views. As a result, liberal citizens may come off as bossy, condescending, and even authoritarian. Beyond compromising the integrity of those labeled unreasonable, this approach creates a significant danger for liberalism—dismissing genuinely reasonable objections that have been misclassified as unreasonable. The duties risk being excessive and illiberal.
The COVID-19 pandemic response illustrates these concerns, as political and public health officials silenced public discussions about the pandemic’s origins and the efficacy of lockdowns. These suppression efforts during COVID bear a striking resemblance to the various duties Badano and Nuti defend. People acted as though there was a duty of pressure, and pressure many did. Some took it upon themselves to transform public reason by sanctioning speech deemed harmful or unreasonable. Municipal governments implemented their own containment strategies against the “unreasonable,” including restrictions on religious gatherings.
These measures ultimately strengthened rather than weakened populist movements. Public health institutions now face a credibility crisis that may persist for generations. The restrictions on religious services violated the integrity of many believers, while policy skeptics faced systematic social exclusion. The COVID example shows how liberal containment efforts can inadvertently become tools of social marginalization rather than defenders of liberal values.
PPL also neglects the institutional roots of populist sentiment. Right-wing populism typically gains traction when citizens perceive institutional failures in addressing migration, economic security, and responsive governance. For containment to succeed, it must integrate institutional reforms that speak to the concerns motivating those labeled “unreasonable.” Empirical studies of populist movements suggest that institutional reforms targeting root causes yield more sustainable results than the confrontational strategies the authors advocate. However, the justification of the various duties (117) operates detached from institutional reforms. PPL treats unreasonable views as symptoms to manage rather than as signs that we should address the institutional failures that produce them.
The strategic viability of Badano and Nuti’s proposed duties presents another significant problem. The authors fail to address how these duties could remain effective when practiced by only a subset of reasonable citizens. Duties of pressure become ineffective and potentially counterproductive when practiced inconsistently across society. Those who impose social pressure will not often be seen as worthy of imitation but closer to the opposite. These duties, therefore, are a bit like the duty to vote, where the effects of abiding by the duty are so small that they arguably lack clear aggregate effects. The lack of aggregate effects gives us reason to doubt the duty, as it rests on limiting unreasonable views and citizens. A robust containment theory requires careful consideration of strategic interactions.
At a time when liberalism struggles to formulate effective responses to populist movements, PPL represents a critical theoretical intervention. This work firmly positions Badano and Nuti among the most important liberal theorists addressing populism. However, their containment strategies could easily exacerbate the problems they hope to solve. A better approach could focus on rebuilding institutional trust in ways that respect the moral integrity of all citizens.
