Pub Date : 2023-09-04DOI: 10.1163/25888072-bja10050
Jellen Olivares-Jirsell, Anders Hellström
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an impetus for action for governments and citizens, but these actions can be challenging to understand. As a riposte, we use The Populist Divide as a framework for understanding the patchwork of populist responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our approach brings nuance to how crises are framed dependent on the trust levels between actors, thus presenting populist relationships as determined by selective trust allocation and not necessarily one of fixed ideological paradigms. Additionally, we introduce activities as the response to a measure, whether accepting or even protesting, but ultimately consenting to the legitimate powers of the leaders imposing these measures. On the other hand, counterstrategies emerging as challenges to the legitimacy of the leaders themselves.
{"title":"Activities and Counterstrategies; Populism during the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Jellen Olivares-Jirsell, Anders Hellström","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10050","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The COVID-19 pandemic has created an impetus for action for governments and citizens, but these actions can be challenging to understand. As a riposte, we use The Populist Divide as a framework for understanding the patchwork of populist responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our approach brings nuance to how crises are framed dependent on the trust levels between actors, thus presenting populist relationships as determined by selective trust allocation and not necessarily one of fixed ideological paradigms. Additionally, we introduce activities as the response to a measure, whether accepting or even protesting, but ultimately consenting to the legitimate powers of the leaders imposing these measures. On the other hand, counterstrategies emerging as challenges to the legitimacy of the leaders themselves.","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46927724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-29DOI: 10.1163/25888072-bja10051
Jamie R. Noulty
{"title":"American Zealots: Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism, written by Arie Perliger","authors":"Jamie R. Noulty","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10051","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44973095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-29DOI: 10.1163/25888072-bja10053
Jamie R. Noulty
{"title":"Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War against the United States, written by Sara Kamali","authors":"Jamie R. Noulty","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10053","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41542165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-29DOI: 10.1163/25888072-bja10052
Jamie R. Noulty
{"title":"Empire of Resentment: Populism’s Toxic Embrace of Nationalism, written by Lawrence Rosenthal","authors":"Jamie R. Noulty","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10052","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49079336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-18DOI: 10.1163/25888072-bja10057
M. Bitschnau
Understood not only as a challenge to democracy but as a crisis, populism has received widespread attention in both media and academic circles for the better part of the past decade. Yet the outbreak of COVID-19 and its escalation into a pandemic eclipsed the fear of rising populism within weeks: With lockdowns imposed and civil liberties suspended, it lost its menacing character and became a mere background nuisance. This, I argue in this article, is the consequence of a discursive constellation in which there is only room for one dominant crisis – a meta-crisis as I call it – at a time. Populism filled this meta-crisis role for a long while, but the COVID-19 shock redirected society’s attention to a more pervasive and immediate threat. While this does not spell the end of populism, it still marks a notable shift in the relative importance we attribute to it.
{"title":"The Virus as Remedy: COVID-19 and the End of the Populist Meta-Crisis","authors":"M. Bitschnau","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10057","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Understood not only as a challenge to democracy but as a crisis, populism has received widespread attention in both media and academic circles for the better part of the past decade. Yet the outbreak of COVID-19 and its escalation into a pandemic eclipsed the fear of rising populism within weeks: With lockdowns imposed and civil liberties suspended, it lost its menacing character and became a mere background nuisance. This, I argue in this article, is the consequence of a discursive constellation in which there is only room for one dominant crisis – a meta-crisis as I call it – at a time. Populism filled this meta-crisis role for a long while, but the COVID-19 shock redirected society’s attention to a more pervasive and immediate threat. While this does not spell the end of populism, it still marks a notable shift in the relative importance we attribute to it.","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44672334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-14DOI: 10.1163/25888072-bja10048
Lorenzo Viviani
By differentiating the dynamics of leader democracy from those of populist leadership, this paper provides a political-sociological theoretical framework that can identify the ideal-types of the personalisation of leadership in advanced democracies. In the first part, the article develops the main features of leader democracy from the perspective of democratic elitism, highlighting how process does not entail a partyless democracy. The second part focuses on the disintermediation process in populist leadership, which is presented as a particular form of plebiscitary politics. The proposed theoretical framework diverges from the stream of the literature on populism, which tends to equate populist leadership with charismatic leadership. Furthermore, the article points out the substantial differences between the personalisation of the populist and charismatic leadership styles by comparing the key issues of populism and charisma in the processes of personalisation thus proposing an interpretative framework to resolve the contradictions among the dominant interpretative frameworks.
{"title":"What If Leader Was (Not) One of Us? Towards a Theory of Populist Leadership and Personalization of Politics","authors":"Lorenzo Viviani","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10048","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000By differentiating the dynamics of leader democracy from those of populist leadership, this paper provides a political-sociological theoretical framework that can identify the ideal-types of the personalisation of leadership in advanced democracies. In the first part, the article develops the main features of leader democracy from the perspective of democratic elitism, highlighting how process does not entail a partyless democracy. The second part focuses on the disintermediation process in populist leadership, which is presented as a particular form of plebiscitary politics. The proposed theoretical framework diverges from the stream of the literature on populism, which tends to equate populist leadership with charismatic leadership. Furthermore, the article points out the substantial differences between the personalisation of the populist and charismatic leadership styles by comparing the key issues of populism and charisma in the processes of personalisation thus proposing an interpretative framework to resolve the contradictions among the dominant interpretative frameworks.","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45548459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-05DOI: 10.1163/25888072-bja10049
M. Gruber, G. Isetti, Linda Ghirardello, Maximilian Walder
This article provides an analysis of the COVID-19 discourse within six European populist parties from Spain, Germany, and France, with the aim of shedding light on the diverse interpretations and presentations of the pandemic by these parties. While most studies focus on right-wing or far-right populism, this study looks at both right and left ideologies paired with populism. By applying the discourse-historical approach of critical discourse studies, we highlight similarities and differences across the right-left political spectrum, as well as variations within and between different countries. The study contributes thus to the existing literature on populism and extends our understanding of the relationship between populist parties and the pandemic beyond right-wing populist parties only. Results, consistent with previous research, show that the host ideology decisively shapes parties’ discourses about COVID-19 and the need to consider alternative perspectives in populism research.
{"title":"Populism in Times of a Pandemic","authors":"M. Gruber, G. Isetti, Linda Ghirardello, Maximilian Walder","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10049","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article provides an analysis of the COVID-19 discourse within six European populist parties from Spain, Germany, and France, with the aim of shedding light on the diverse interpretations and presentations of the pandemic by these parties. While most studies focus on right-wing or far-right populism, this study looks at both right and left ideologies paired with populism. By applying the discourse-historical approach of critical discourse studies, we highlight similarities and differences across the right-left political spectrum, as well as variations within and between different countries. The study contributes thus to the existing literature on populism and extends our understanding of the relationship between populist parties and the pandemic beyond right-wing populist parties only. Results, consistent with previous research, show that the host ideology decisively shapes parties’ discourses about COVID-19 and the need to consider alternative perspectives in populism research.","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42162727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-05DOI: 10.1163/25888072-bja10047
Benjamin Arditi
{"title":"Routledge Handbook of Global Populism, edited by Carlos de la Torre","authors":"Benjamin Arditi","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10047","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42861386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-14DOI: 10.1163/25888072-bja10044
Giuseppe Ballacci, Robert Goodman
The difficulty of defining populism is well-known. As populism lacks a fully articulated ideological foundation, it tends to assume different shapes according to context. Due to this ideological inarticulation, some scholars have rejected the so-called ideational approach to populism. They instead propose its conceptualization as a political style or discourse. This paper advances an alternative approach. We reject the opposition between stylistic and ideational approaches to populism and develop the idea that the form and the content of populism are intrinsically related. We argue that the forms populism adopts cannot be understood in merely strategic or stylistic terms: they presuppose and entail specific ideological contents. Only by tracing the relationship between populist form and content can we make sense of populism as a distinctive phenomenon and explain its ambiguous relationship with liberal democracy.
{"title":"Populism as Form and Content","authors":"Giuseppe Ballacci, Robert Goodman","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10044","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The difficulty of defining populism is well-known. As populism lacks a fully articulated ideological foundation, it tends to assume different shapes according to context. Due to this ideological inarticulation, some scholars have rejected the so-called ideational approach to populism. They instead propose its conceptualization as a political style or discourse. This paper advances an alternative approach. We reject the opposition between stylistic and ideational approaches to populism and develop the idea that the form and the content of populism are intrinsically related. We argue that the forms populism adopts cannot be understood in merely strategic or stylistic terms: they presuppose and entail specific ideological contents. Only by tracing the relationship between populist form and content can we make sense of populism as a distinctive phenomenon and explain its ambiguous relationship with liberal democracy.","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43224785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}