Populism Archives - Page 3 of 6

Feature

How to Beat a Populist

Populists’ biggest strength is a weak opposition

April 12, 2019 • by Sławomir Sierakowski

The progressive reformer Zuzana Čaputová’s victory in Slovakia's presidential election suggests that populists' biggest strength is a weak opposition. If her winning formula is adopted elsewhere, populist forces' recent gains in Western democracies could be reversed. There have never been more populist governments in place than today. Until now, populists have ...

Democracy

Could Populism Actually Be Good for Democracy?

A wave of populist revolts has led many to lose faith in the wisdom of people power. But such eruptions are essential to the vitality of modern politics.

February 25, 2019 • by James Miller

This article was originally published in The Guardian on October 11 2018. Observers have understandable qualms about political programs that are alarmingly illiberal, yet obviously democratic, in that most citizens support them. In Poland and Hungary, democratically elected ruling parties attack Muslim migrants for undermining Christian identity. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte ...

Could Populism Actually Be Good for Democracy?

Feature

Vladimir Putin’s Mirror Image

Alexei Navalny and his populist political representation

February 8, 2019 • by Konstantin Koryagin

In March 2017 the largest anti-corruption rallies in the last five years were held in Russia. What was most surprising about these rallies was the age of the participants: many of those protesting were students and pupils, who took to the streets with a sense of excitement in their eyes. ...

Feature

European Union Strikes Back at Populism

By renouncing the Law and Justice party, Poland could return to the EU fold

November 28, 2018 • by Sławomir Sierakowski

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has finally taken steps to comply with a European Court of Justice (ECJ) decree ordering it to reverse some of the judicial “reforms” that took effect in July. Under the offending legislation, the PiS had tried to force out disfavored Supreme Court justices ...

Democracy

The Soviet Roots of Democratic Crisis in Latvia

As the country falls under populist rule is it a change — or an old story?

November 20, 2018 • by Maija Spurina

A New York Times article by Andrew Higgins paints a troubling picture of Latvia falling under populist rule. Higgins' concern is based on the results of the recent elections that makes possible a coalition between what he calls a "pro-Russian" and anti-establishment parties. Although his summary of the election results is accurate, ...

The Soviet Roots of Democratic Crisis in Latvia

Democracy

Politics, Pessimism, and Populism

We have lost the sense of the possible that social democracy injected into postwar liberal democracy

November 15, 2018 • by Sheri Berman

The rise of right-wing populism is probably the most pressing problem facing Europe today. Many analysts, including myself, have linked the rise of populism to the decline of the social democratic or center-left. Many traditional social democratic voters now vote populist; social democracy’s embrace of a “kinder, gentler” neoliberalism opened a policy “space” ...

Feature

Hannah Arendt’s Crises, and Ours

The “worldlessness” of our time manifests itself in right-wing populism

October 30, 2018 • by Christian Volk

Reading Hannah Arendt’s Crises of the Republic in the Age of Trump: A Symposium Hannah Arendt’s Crises of the Republic is not so much a book as a collection, published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1972, of three essays and an interview that first appeared, individually, in the years between 1969 and 1971. Three of ...

Feature

Populism in the Twenty-First Century

An Illiberal Democratic Response to Undemocratic Liberalism

October 2, 2018 • by Cas Mudde

Populism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Russia and the United States but remained almost irrelevant to European politics until the 1990s. Since then, populism has become a major political phenomenon throughout Europe. Today, we live in a “populist Zeitgeist” (Mudde 2004), in which populist parties and rhetoric dominate the ...

Feature

Ágnes Heller: Orbán is a Tyrant

From the time he became the prime minister of Hungary, Orban was always interested in concentrating all the power in his hands.

August 26, 2018 • by Jan Smoleński

Jan Smoleński: Is Viktor Orban a populist? Agnes Heller*: I do not like the term populist as it is used in the context of Viktor Orban, because it does not say anything. Populists rely typically on poor people. Orban uses nationalistic vocabulary and rhetoric, he mobilizes hatred against the stranger and ...

Feature

Populism as the Political

An excerpt from Ritchie Savage’s latest book

August 21, 2018 • by Ritchie Savage

In the following, you can read an excerpt from The New School alumni Ritchie Savage’s recent book Populist Discourse in Venezuela and the United States: American Unexceptionalism and Political Identity Formation preceded by a Q&A with the author. *** Q&A with the Author Public Seminar (PS): What made you decide to write a book ...

Feature

The Electoral Success of the Radical Right in Europe

Why are the Radical Right better at “capitalizing” on ‘Populism’ than the Radical Left?

August 7, 2018 • by Valerio Alfonso Bruno and James F. Downes

Contemporary Radical Right parties have tended to outperform Radical Left parties electorally in Europe, particularly in national parliamentary (legislative) elections during the post-economic crisis period. However, it is not clear why this is the case. Given the context of growing dissatisfaction towards the democratic establishment in which contemporary populism developed, ...

The Electoral Success of the Radical Right in Europe

Feature

Who Are We Now?

AMLO, Trump, and American Opportunities

July 27, 2018 • by Rogers M. Smith

On July 1, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly called AMLO, won the presidency of Mexico. What does his election mean for relationships between the U.S. and Mexico? What should it mean? There is much agreement on the first question: the outlook is troubled at best. There is little agreement on ...