Pluralism, Populism and the University

My remarks as part of the UAlberta President's Speaker Series

Speech delivered October 15, 2025

Watch the video, here.

Good evening, everyone.

Tonight, I want to talk about pluralism, populism, and the university — and how post- secondary institutions can help preserve democracy in a time of strain.

Universities are often positioned on the frontlines of the struggle to preserve democracy.

They are among the first institutions to face attacks from those who would seek to shift our politics away from democratic norms.

These days, there is no shortage of autocrats bent on consolidating their power. Many do so on the pretense of speaking on behalf of “the people” against “corrupt elites.”

Among others, this nefarious “establishment” includes scholars — many of whom face intimidation and censure for asking questions and publicizing results that are inconvenient to governments of the day.

We often label these politicians “populists” — a term that captures their own presumption to speak on behalf of the “real people”.

Their victims are deemed “pluralists” — people committed to the free flow of ideas among various groups in society.

We often talk as though pluralism and populism are opposites. Indeed, the dichotomy is driving much of the polarization we see in places like Alberta and Canada.

But tonight I’d like to suggest an alternative perspective: that both populism and pluralism are vital parts of a healthy democracy. The trick is balance.

Pluralism gives democracy its discipline: rules, norms, and institutions that help diverse people share a common life.

Populism gives democracy its impulse: the energy and drive to keep power accountable to ordinary people.

Our universities, I’ll argue, have a special role in keeping those forces in productive tension — not simply by amplifying pluralism’s pursuit of ideas and diversity. But by ensuring that the truth we seek remains grounded in the public interest.

Let’s start with the context. Around the world, including here in Canada, we’re seeing worrying signs of democratic backsliding.

Polarization is dividing communities into “us” versus “them.”

As the divisions deepen, Michael Ignatieff warned us, the different sides start to view their adversaries not as opponents to be defeated at the ballot box but as enemies to be vanquished from the field altogether.

In some cases, the sides turn to violence to achieve their ends. This sort of physical intimidation is the very antithesis of democracy. Yet worrying numbers of Albertans and Canadians now view it as a necessary means of taking back their communities.

Trust in institutions and democratic actors erodes as each side feels it’s better to win by ignoring the rules and norms of democracy than to lose while playing by them.

Citizens become frustrated and disengaged, feeling their voices no longer matter.

These sentiments are not confined to one side of the political spectrum. Folks on the left, right, and centre are turned off of, and tuning out of democratic politics.

So where do universities fit in? Are we making things worse—or can we help fix them?

I believe the answer depends on whether we see ourselves as participants in democracy or merely observers of it.

If we act only as observers — producing knowledge for others to use — we not only risk drifting into irrelevance. We may well bear witness to the further erosion of our democratic norms and institutions.

If we see ourselves as participants — shaping civic habits and democratic norms —then we can be part of the solution.

A lot of people assume that the polarization we’re experiencing is simply between left and right.

To an extent, that is true. Progressives and conservatives do tend to disagree.

Most progressives favour a more expansive role for the state in the economy and society, and many conservatives do not.

But they always have disagreed.

What’s different now: there has been a sorting of people into ideological camps who also disagree on the fundamentals of democracy.

Folks on the left side of the spectrum tend to be pluralist, meaning they see value in including many voices in decision-making. They see value in different groups competing and collaborating, and favour protections for minority interests from the majority’s influence.

Meanwhile populists today tend to be on the right. They view politics as a moral struggle between “the people” and a “corrupt elite”. For populists, the government should serve the interests of the greater number, adhering to majoritarian principles of policymaking.

This left-pluralist, right-populist divide is exacerbated even more by partisan and geographic sorting. Folks in rural areas tend to be right-wing, big-C Conservative populists.

Folks in urban areas tend to be pluralist and support left-wing parties.

These are general tendencies, of course. Not all rural folks and urban folks fit the stereotype.

And these divisions are not inherently bad. In fact, liberal democracies thrive when these viewpoints are in balance.

But when the pluralist-populist struggle becomes a dog-eat-dog, zero-sum fight for the future of our democracy, bad things happen.

Pluralism without populism is unmoored from the public good.

Populists keep pluralists from running roughshod over the popular will. They remind us when policies and politicians are out of touch with the common person. They push us to ensure that the knowledge we help create is not walled off in the ivory tower.

On the other hand, populism without pluralism is unchecked from majoritarian impulses.

Pluralists keep populists from running roughshod over minority rights. They remind us when solutions verge on the tyranny of the majority. By emphasizing multiple perspectives and the pursuit of scientific truths, pluralists help protect us from the mis- and disinformation that often accompanies so-called “common sense” solutions to complex problems.

Pluralists keep populists from removing the checks and balances necessary to prevent us from drifting into illiberal forms of democracy, as we are seeing in the United States.

Just as populists keep Canada from drifting toward a liberal form of autocracy, where minority interests are protected only by the will of unelected officials. Some label Singapore and Hong Kong in this way.

I’m by no means the first person to point out these tensions between liberalism and democracy. Philosophers like Benjamin Constant and Carl Schmitt have long noted the internal inconsistency within the term liberal democracy.

When confronted with a problem, liberals (or pluralists) want to engage and debate.

Democrats (or populists) want to make a decision.

The answer is not to settle this disagreement, but rather to cultivate it. Populists and pluralists ought to be in tension with one another, and neither should seek to vanquish the other.

Don’t get me wrong: there are real and deep differences between pluralist and populist views of democracy.

Let me sketch the contrast.

• Pluralism starts with society as many: the key agents are diverse groups who share space and power.

• Populism starts with society as one: the key agent is “the people,” imagined as a single voice embodied by a leader.

From there, their goals diverge.

• Pluralism pursues the common good — something we build together, argue over, and keep refining.

• Populism pursues the public interest — treated as inherent and often personified in the leader who claims to channel it.

Each sees a different threat.

• For pluralists, it’s concentrated power that smothers diversity.

• For populists, it’s corrupt elites who hijack institutions and ignore ordinary people.

That leads to two styles of democracy.

• Pluralism prefers decentralized power with checks and balances.

• Populism prefers consolidated, majoritarian rule — clear winners with a mandate to act.

In politics…

• Pluralism prizes negotiation and consensus, accepting slower progress to keep the tent big.

• Populism frames politics as conflict—often zero-sum—where clarity comes from drawing lines and picking sides.

So their focus diverges:

• Pluralism centres debate and dialogue — even if it risks paralysis.

• Populism centres loss and crisis — fueling vengeance against those deemed responsible.

And the outcomes reflect that logic.

• Pluralism aims for the greatest good for the greatest number — imperfect but broadly shared.

• Populism aims for the minimum winning coalition — enough to claim the mandate and move fast.

The takeaway: democracy needs both the pluralist discipline that keeps power shared and the populist impulse that keeps power accountable. Our job is to hold them in balance.

In this sense, pluralism and populism are not opposites, but rather divergent forces in any healthy liberal democracy.

Both are necessary in moderation.

They keep each other in check.

Universities are often placed on one side of this divide. By promoting the value of intellectual debate and pushing back against the principles of “might makes right,” universities are firmly in the pluralist camp.

But I want to hang a question mark on their relationship to populism.

Too often, universities find themselves in a pitched, winner-take-all battle with populists. The latter are all too eager to join in that fight.

The result sees academics locked in an existential struggle with populists bent on defunding them, chipping away at their academic freedom to pursue unpopular truths.

Should universities push back against these attacks on pluralism? Absolutely. With everything we have as individual scholars and institutions of higher learning.

As centres of fact-based inquiry, we must reject simplistic solutions to complex problems.

We must stand at the forefront of efforts to counter misinformation and disinformation with evidence-based knowledge.

We must carefully analyze the conflicts that divide us and resist one-sided perspectives that keep us locked in us-versus-them politics.

But this does not mean universities ought to seek to eliminate populism entirely. Such attempts will be futile. But they are also counterproductive.

A healthy liberal democracy requires both pluralism and populism. And universities should help find that balance.

We can do this by teaching how to argue without animosity, to question without contempt, and to disagree without losing our common desire to find the public good.

We can also do this by recognizing that scholars and scholarship owe a duty to the public good.

The biggest tension between populism and pluralism comes when we consider the nature of truth and the public good.

On campus, academic freedom doesn’t mean entrusting truth to a small group of people who already agree.

It means entrusting the pursuit of truth to a community that disagrees — constantly, vehemently, but respectfully — with itself and with others.

When disagreement is structured and protected, knowledge grows.

That’s the pluralist heart of the university: not consensus, but contestation.
We advance truth by refining arguments, testing claims, and staying open to correction.

When universities model that kind of disciplined disagreement, they strengthen democracy itself.

At the same time, the complex and inconvenient answers often conflict with the simple, common-sense solutions prized by populist policymakers. Again, the two are often in tension.

So what role should universities play in a polarized age?

The answer is not to withdraw into neutrality — and not to take sides in every political battle either.

Our task is to balance our pursuit of pluralism with a healthy respect for populism.

That means championing pluralism when populism goes too far — reminding people that minorities count, that complex problems need complex thinking.

And it means respecting populism when pluralism drifts — reminding ourselves that expertise must remain accountable, accessible, and useful to the public.

This does not mean ceding ground to populism. Pluralists must stand up for the importance of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

This does not mean “making peace” with populists, either.

But it does mean reconsidering the notion that we are really “at war” with them in the first place.

If we can embody this balance on campus, we can seed it in society.

Let’s bring this down to earth.

On campus, pluralism looks like:

• Creating classrooms where disagreement is expected, anticipated and guided, not avoided or pushed aside.

• Teaching students to steel-man opposing views — to understand through others the best version of an argument before refuting it. This means listening -- genuinely hearing -- before responding.

• Protecting academic freedom while fostering mutual obligation to listen and engage.
  

On campus, populism looks like:

• Practising real collegial governance — students, staff, and faculty sharing decision-making.

• Translating our research for the public, co-producing knowledge with communities, and inviting critique from outside.
  

In society, this means pairing the pursuit of truth with the cultivation of civic license, working with communities to generate and mobilize knowledge to improve the lives of their members.

It means showing that universities serve everyone, not just the privileged few that walk our halls.

When we make our work relevant and accessible, we help rebuild trust in democratic institutions.

Lest there be any confusion, I want to be clear on what I am not saying:

I am not saying that all scholarship needs to be relevant. The pursuit of knowledge is a windy path, and some of the greatest discoveries come unexpectedly from the process of inquiry itself. The principles of academic freedom dictate that scholars —not universities, and not governments — should have the liberty (indeed, obligation) to pursue truths without pressure from establishment forces.

This said, when discoveries are made, it is up to scholars and the University to moblize those to the outside world.

I am also not saying that pluralists are the only ones who need to act to resolve the polarization we see in democracy today. Populists have much to do, too, to learn about the value of pluralism. Those teachings are unlikely to resonate when spoken from a university lectern or sharply-written letter or scathing op-ed. This means pluralists must find new ways of speaking across the chasm, and populists must be willing to listen.

That’s the spirit behind the Peter Lougheed School of Politics and Democracy.

It’s a new initiative in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Alberta that aims to reconnect learning, leadership, and public service.

The School isn’t just about studying politics — it’s about doing democracy:

• Developing leaders for the public good, not just training people for careers.

• Blending pluralist practices — rigorous dialogue, evidence-building — with populist responsiveness — accessibility and community engagement.

• Building bridges between campus and community so knowledge moves both ways.
  

This is our way of putting democratic principles into practice:

• Igniting understanding across political divides.

• Finding new ways of confronting complex challenges, together.

• Uniting communities of practice and change.

• And helping restore a healthy respect for pluralism and its role in democracy.

As the School’s namesake, Peter Lougheed believed that universities should develop leaders for the public good, not just credential graduates.

That’s the heart of this project. It’s about means and ends.

The end is a healthy democracy — one capable of disagreement without destruction.

The means are excellence, inquiry, and institutional pluralism — governance that protects dissent and insists on listening.

We don’t need universities and scholars to pick sides in the fight with populists any more than we want citizens to do so.

We need them to stand their ground and find common ground to promote the public good.

If our graduates leave here able to argue hard, listen well, and work across difference, then we’ve done our part to improve our democratic future.

Thank you. I look forward to the conversation that follows.