PO 691Y

The Rise of Populism

We live in a world where populist leaders, movements and parties have shaken up the liberal-democratic traditions that inform Western political systems. Populism is often associated with right wing politicians in the form of Trump in the US or Putin and Erdogan in Russia and Turkey. However, it also shows itself on the left, with politicians such as Sanders in the US. Populists may also support leftist ideologies symbolized in social justice movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter. Or, on the other side of the spectrum, populist movements may espouse extreme ideologies of white nationalism and nativism that feed into extreme anti-immigrant movements. One commonality, even amongst this diverse spectrum of ideologies, is that they all claim to represent the real interests of ‘the people’. Additionally, they all seem to agree that, for one reason or another, the current liberal democratic institutions have failed them. The rise of these ideas, ideologies, political parties and movements around the globe will be the focus of this course. The major questions addressed in this course are: What is populism? How does it relate to the crisis of democracy? Is there an actual crisis? What are the consequences of a populist explosion on liberal democratic systems as we know them? The seminar will analyze these issues from a comparative perspective using examples from different parts of the world.