Populism

Title......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
2016 – the populism ‘explosion’......Page 9
Populism panic......Page 14
2 What is populism? (and why does it seem so difficult to define?)......Page 18
The Russian Narodniks......Page 21
The farmers’ parties of the United States of America......Page 23
Latin American caudillismo......Page 25
‘The people’ versus ‘the elites’......Page 27
Never let a good crisis go to waste......Page 30
Redemptive versus humdrum politics......Page 33
Take me to your leader......Page 35
Incivility as a weapon of politics......Page 39
Problems with populism – ahistorical and descriptive?......Page 42
Indifferent to beliefs and values?......Page 45
An alibi for the performance of elites?......Page 47
3 Why now? Explaining the populist insurgency......Page 51
Populism and economic grievance......Page 53
Populism and cultural grievance......Page 59
Economic versus cultural grievance......Page 66
The populism puzzle......Page 68
Populism and ‘democratic grievance’......Page 69
Decadence and the decline of the political class......Page 72
The rise of the citizen consumer......Page 76
Populism and the threat to democracy......Page 83
Pluralism versus monism......Page 84
Redemption versus problem-solving......Page 88
Modernity versus feudalism......Page 90
Populism and democratic renewal......Page 93
Politics as the struggle for ‘hegemony’......Page 95
From stability to crisis......Page 97
Democracy after populism......Page 99
A tale of two populisms......Page 102
5 Is populism a variety of ‘post-truth politics’?......Page 113
The truth about post-truth......Page 115
Are post-modernism and relativism to blame?......Page 117
Is expert knowledge dead?......Page 120
Has the Internet made it more difficult to separate fact from fiction?......Page 123
Truth, lies and politics: what’s new?......Page 126
Manipulating data, images and the historical record: a sordid past......Page 130
‘Post-truth’ or unfashionable views?......Page 133
6 Conclusion – what is to be done about populism?......Page 139
Invoking ‘the people’ is not populist......Page 142
Populism is not a variety of far-right politics......Page 146
Populism is not an ideology......Page 149
Populism is not anti-democratic......Page 153
Populism does not threaten pluralism......Page 155
Populism is not the cause of the crisis......Page 159
What is to be done about populism?......Page 162
Acknowledgements......Page 168
Further reading......Page 170
Copyright......Page 172