Populism

Abstract

This chapter presents the state of the art of the scholarship on populism. It offers a concise history of populism and the current scholarship on the topic. It argues that the substantial body of work that now exists has entered the mainstream of the political science discipline. However, this work has too often been fragmented and regionally specific. The chapter then offers an empirical analysis of the development of the scholarship since the 1990s by examining the work on populism in political science journals. We lay out the organization and rationale for the chapters in the Handbook and conclude with some reflections on the future research agenda on populism.

The Global Economics of European Populism: Growth Regimes and Party System Change in Europe (TheGovernment and Opposition/Leonard Schapiro Lecture 2017)

“…All of these features can be observed in some of the parties we discuss in this article, but they are not in themselves the focus of our attention. We argue instead that parties challenging the neoliberal cartel can be considered populist because, like the early populist movements of the late nineteenth century in North America and Europe, they express ‘a powerful sense of opposition to an establishment that remained entrenched and a belief that democratic politics needed to be conducted differently and closer to the people’ (Rovira Kaltwasser et al 2017: 5). In other words, they emerged and grew on the back of a critique of the establishment and a commitment to replace it with a different form of governance based more explicitly on the popular will.…”

The Emerging Phenomenon of Anti-Chinese Populism in Africa: Evidence from Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ghana

“…Although the historical literature on populism is extensive, recent series of populist strategy across the world, leading to some consequential electoral outcomes has reignited scholarly analysis of populism and the underlying explanations. In this respect, populism and its pervasiveness in global politics have been well documented in recent times including detailed discourse analysis handbooks such as The Oxford Handbook of Populism edited by Kaltwasser et al (2017), and the Routledge Handbook of Global Populism edited by de la Torre (2018). Despite the extensive analysis and usage, the connotation of populism has been rigorously contested.…”

The politics of style

“…One well-known present-day political style label is the populist style. Choosing this label links this study to the most debated questions in political science of this moment; the recently observed global rise of populism (e.g., Moffitt, 2016;Norris & Inglehart, 2019), as well as the discussion on the nature of populism (e.g., Gidron & Bonikowski, 2013;Kaltwasser et al, 2017). If this dissertation can analyze political style in terms of populism, it will contribute to two highly debated issues in political science.…”

“…However, as the dimensions also contradict each other, populism never expresses itself in all dimensions at the same time; this would be an internally incoherent political style. Recently, the various existing approaches have been (re)categorized into three mainstream ones: (1) the ideational approach, (2) the political-strategic approach, and 3the socio-cultural approach (Kaltwasser et al, 2017). This categorization does not pose the question of which approach fits populism best; all approaches contribute to our insight into populism in their own manner, which is a more fruitful perspective.…”

“…In this discussion, style is sometimes equated with rhetoric, sometimes with discourse, language, performance, or with solution style (e.g., Canovan, 2002;Hawkins, 2009;Kazin, 1995;Koenis, 2014;Moffitt & Tormey, 2014). Some scholars mainly use political style in opposition to political ideas (e.g., Taggart, 2004), and others assemble all approaches to style under the umbrella term discourse (Gidron & Bonikowski, 2013;Kaltwasser, Taggart, Ochoa Espejo, & Ostiguy, 2017). However, performance differs from language, and different discourse approaches highlight different aspects of populism.…”