The Politics of Anger.

King is professor of government at the University of Essex.

Whatever happens now, the past few weeks in California have drawn attention to an ever-present tension in modern democratic politics, one that seldom dares speak its name. That is the tension--dare one say conflict?--between populist democracy and good government.

For much of modern history, democracy has been the politics of the ghetto. Peoples and electorates have been divided by class, religion and even collective memory. Politically, most voters died where they were born, among their own people. The result was ghetto like isolation but also stability. People knew who and what they were. Voting patterns changed little.

Often the ghettos' walls took ideological form: communism versus conservatism, liberalism versus socialism, left versus right. People knew instinctively which side they were on. These walls have gradually crumbled in most modern democracies, replaced by a politics of blandness: a politics not of "us and them," or "left and right," but of "more or less." Which politicians or party can best deliver the goods most of us want--more jobs, pensions, health care, good schools, law and order? Safe, nonideological, pretty dull, except when spiced by Helmut Kohl's secret slush funds or Bill Clinton's sexual incontinence.

But what happens when this post-ghetto system goes wrong? What happens when all the existing politicians and political parties fail to deliver, or fail to address deeply felt voter concerns? The answer is easy. It even has a name: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or rather, it has several names: Pierre Poujade (the French populist who died a few weeks ago), Silvio Berlusconi, Jorg Haider, Jean-Marie Le Pen and Pim Fortuyn--among others. California is not at all unique. These events conform to a pattern already well established elsewhere. The Golden State, so often a trendsetter, is actually behind the times.

In the 19th century, the legion of the disgruntled--the politically homeless--typically turned to "a man on horseback," a big or little ...