A Political Science Manifesto for the Age of Populism

A Political Science Manifesto for the Age of Populism
Author: David M. Ricci
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-03-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108808093

Populism and authoritarian-populist parties have surged in the 21st century. In the United States, Donald Trump appears to have become the poster president for the surge. David M. Ricci, in this call to arms, thinks Trump is symptomatic of the changes that have caused a crisis among Americans - namely, mass economic and creative destruction: automation, outsourcing, deindustrialization, globalization, privatization, financialization, digitalization, and the rise of temporary jobs - all breeding resentment. Rather than dwelling on symptoms, Ricci focuses on the root of our nation's problems. Thus, creative destruction, aiming at perpetual economic growth, encouraged by neoliberalism, creates the economic inequality that fuels resentment and leads to increased populism. Ricci urges political scientists to highlight this destruction meaningfully and substantively, to use empirical realism to put human beings back into politics. Ricci's sensible argument conveys a sense of political urgency, grappling with real-world problems and working to transform abstract speculations into tangible, useful tools. The result is a passionate book, important not only to political scientists, but to anyone who cares about public life.

Still the Age of Populism?

Still the Age of Populism?
Author: Michael Bernhard
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2024-06-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1040047173

Still the Age of Populism? investigates current conceptions of populism and its relevance across the globe. Using contextualized case studies, cross-national comparisons, and theoretical interventions, this volume addresses key conceptual debates in comparative politics and political sociology. This essential volume brings together scholars from different traditions in political sociology, political science and cultural studies, and comparativists and area experts working on Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, and the US. Chapters in the book employ innovative theoretical approaches to study aspects of populism in global comparative perspective whilst regional case studies, including Brazil, Venezuela, Germany, and the US, are utilised to explore populism in geographically specific contexts. In doing so, the volume addresses the key issues for those seeking to understand contemporary populism. What are the advantages and limits of the category of populism to understand contemporary debates on democratization and processes of democratic erosion? Under what structural, institutional, and cultural conditions does populism emerge? Is populism the nemesis of democracy, its shadow, or a path to move beyond “liberal democracy” towards “real democracy”? What lessons does the history of past populist moment hold for our understanding of contemporary populist governance? Under what conditions have populists in office led to political polarization and democratic erosion? What comes after populism, and how do societies deal with its legacies? Still the Age of Populism? will be of interest to a broad audience of students and scholars of political sociology and comparative politics.

The New Localism

The New Localism
Author: Bruce Katz
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2018-01-09
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0815731655

The New Localism provides a roadmap for change that starts in the communities where most people live and work. In their new book, The New Localism, urban experts Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak reveal where the real power to create change lies and how it can be used to address our most serious social, economic, and environmental challenges. Power is shifting in the world: downward from national governments and states to cities and metropolitan communities; horizontally from the public sector to networks of public, private and civic actors; and globally along circuits of capital, trade, and innovation. This new locus of power—this new localism—is emerging by necessity to solve the grand challenges characteristic of modern societies: economic competitiveness, social inclusion and opportunity; a renewed public life; the challenge of diversity; and the imperative of environmental sustainability. Where rising populism on the right and the left exploits the grievances of those left behind in the global economy, new localism has developed as a mechanism to address them head on. New localism is not a replacement for the vital roles federal governments play; it is the ideal complement to an effective federal government, and, currently, an urgently needed remedy for national dysfunction. In The New Localism, Katz and Nowak tell the stories of the cities that are on the vanguard of problem solving. Pittsburgh is catalyzing inclusive growth by inventing and deploying new industries and technologies. Indianapolis is governing its city and metropolis through a network of public, private and civic leaders. Copenhagen is using publicly owned assets like their waterfront to spur large scale redevelopment and finance infrastructure from land sales. Out of these stories emerge new norms of growth, governance, and finance and a path toward a more prosperous, sustainable, and inclusive society. Katz and Nowak imagine a world in which urban institutions finance the future through smart investments in innovation, infrastructure and children and urban intermediaries take solutions created in one city and adapt and tailor them to other cities with speed and precision. As Katz and Nowak show us in The New Localism, “Power now belongs to the problem solvers.”

Populism: A Very Short Introduction

Populism: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Cas Mudde
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2017-01-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 019023489X

Populism is a central concept in the current media debates about politics and elections. However, like most political buzzwords, the term often floats from one meaning to another, and both social scientists and journalists use it to denote diverse phenomena. What is populism really? Who are the populist leaders? And what is the relationship between populism and democracy? This book answers these questions in a simple and persuasive way, offering a swift guide to populism in theory and practice. Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser present populism as an ideology that divides society into two antagonistic camps, the "pure people" versus the "corrupt elite," and that privileges the general will of the people above all else. They illustrate the practical power of this ideology through a survey of representative populist movements of the modern era: European right-wing parties, left-wing presidents in Latin America, and the Tea Party movement in the United States. The authors delve into the ambivalent personalities of charismatic populist leaders such as Juan Domingo Péron, H. Ross Perot, Jean-Marie le Pen, Silvio Berlusconi, and Hugo Chávez. If the strong male leader embodies the mainstream form of populism, many resolute women, such as Eva Péron, Pauline Hanson, and Sarah Palin, have also succeeded in building a populist status, often by exploiting gendered notions of society. Although populism is ultimately part of democracy, populist movements constitute an increasing challenge to democratic politics. Comparing political trends across different countries, this compelling book debates what the long-term consequences of this challenge could be, as it turns the spotlight on the bewildering effect of populism on today's political and social life.

Populism and Elitism

Populism and Elitism
Author: Jeffrey Bell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1992-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Political analyst and strategist Jeff Bell redefines American politics in this thoughtful and eminently readable book. According to Bell, labels such as liberal vs. conservative, left vs. right, socialist vs. capitalist, even Republican vs. Democrat do not explain much anymore. Instead, the dominant philosophies are populist (rule by the public) and elitist (rule by a select few).

Populism in Europe and the Americas

Populism in Europe and the Americas
Author: Cas Mudde
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2012-05-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107023858

The first cross-regional study to show that populism can have both positive and negative effects on democracy.

Populism

Populism
Author: Michael Burleigh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 104
Release: 2021-12-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1787386171

Drawing on his Engelsberg Lectures, Michael Burleigh explores the new global era of national populism. He first probes the nature of mass anger in the West: how might popular discontent be artificially incited and sustained by elite figures claiming to speak for the common people? He then compares empire's difficult aftermaths in Britain and Russia: how does History foster a sense of exceptionality, and how is it exploited by populists, as we've seen again with 2020's 'statue wars'? And finally, he turns to China, where the ruling Communist Party depends on a nationalised version of History for popular support. Covid-19 has created problems for several populist leaders, whose image has suffered amidst the public's new-found respect for expertise and disappointment over their shouty handling of the pandemic. Yet despite Donald Trump's defeat, with extended economic depression looming, Burleigh fears that new post-populists may yet arise.

Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence

Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence
Author: Jonathan Manthorpe
Publisher: Cormorant Books
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2020-08-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1770865837

“This global affairs veteran has carved out a solid, mature path, including for ‘flawed democracies’ like the U.S. We’d all be wise to follow.” — Vancouver Sun From the author of the Globe and Mail bestseller, Claws of the Panda, comes a book quite literally for our times. Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence is a thoughtful account of how we can save democracies from the despots and populists who provide easy answers to complicated situations, dumbing political discourse down to sandbox antics. Manthorpe argues that democracy is more resilient than it appears, and is capable of overcoming the attacks from within and without that have sapped its vigour since the end of the Cold War. He begins with a description of the events of 1989, one of the seminal years in modern history. This saw the end of the Cold War, and the apparent conclusive victory of democracy and its civic values. But the view of these changes as a triumph of democracy — as summed up in Francis Fukuyama’s essay "The End of History" — was short-lived. Russia, shorn of its Soviet empire, and the Chinese Communist Party, re-examining its survival after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, began devising ways to counter-attack the West’s triumphalism and these met with considerable success. Internal pressures and contradictions — wealth disparity being chief among them — threaten the survival of many democratic systems. Abandoned industrial workers turn to the repeated platitudes designed to appeal to those left behind without actually offering them the ways and means to catch up. Immigrants, refugees, and the reformist fixations of isolated liberal elites have provided ammunition for would-be despots. Adding to the pressures building on the political norms of our democracies, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic and social stand-still for which no country is prepared.

The Populist Temptation

The Populist Temptation
Author: Barry J. Eichengreen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2018
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0190866284

"Populism, a political movement with anti-elite, authoritarian and nativist tendencies, typically spearheaded by a charismatic leader, is an old phenomenon but also a very new and disturbing one at that. The Populist Temptation is an effort to understand the wellsprings of populist movements and why the threat they pose to mainstream political parties and pluralistic democracy has been more successfully contained in some cases than others"--

The Populist Century

The Populist Century
Author: Pierre Rosanvallon
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2021-11-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1509546308

Populism is an expression of anger; its appeal stems from being presented as the solution to disorder in our times. The vision of democracy, society, and the economy it offers is coherent and attractive. At a time when the words and slogans of the left have lost much of their power to inspire, Pierre Rosanvallon takes populism for what it is: the rising ideology of the twenty-first century. In The Populist Century he develops a rigorous theoretical account of populism, distinguishing five key features that make up populist political culture; he retraces its history in modern democracies from the mid-nineteenth century to the present; and he offers a well-reasoned critique of populism, outlining a robust democratic alternative. This wide-ranging and insightful account of the theory and practice of populism will be of great interest to students and scholars in politics and the social sciences and to anyone concerned with the key political questions of our time.