1 1 An Outline of Three Populisms: The United States, Argentina and Hungary 1 1 The first English version of the present paper was read under the title "An Outline of Three Populisms: the United States, Argentina and Hungary" at the conference on "Populism in the Politics and in the Economy" organized by the Department of Political Science of the Central European University on April 2-3, 1993. I express my thanks to the associates of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study Berlin) for the technical assistance rendered to the completion of my work. András Bozóki Central European University In this paper I attempt to outline the history of a certain type of socio-political movement of three countries. However different these countries may be, their common characteristic is that they are usually described with the help of the concept of 'populism'. I would also dwell upon the theoretical approaches which are normally used at the comprehensive definition of the different kinds of populism and when these heterogeneous movements and political initiatives are attempted to be understood on the basis of their common features. 1) Populism in the United States The cultural background of 19th-century American populism was the 'yeoman tradition' which went back to the struggles of life and work of the pioneer settlers of the West. Followers of this tradition glorified rural life and proclaimed that the wealth of the nation was primarily due to the farmers' cultivation. Populist movement, appearing in the last two decades of the century, was a desperate answer to the sudden breakdown of the post- Civil War economic boom. Right after the Civil War, the Homestead Act opened new areas of the West to settlement for those wishing to go there. The expansion of railroads threw still more land upon the market. Agriculture was prospering and the prices were on the rise, products like Southern cotton and Western wheat and other agricultural crops enjoyed a boom.