Populism
We don’t know how democracies die
Since the election of Donald Trump, many have expressed their concern that the United States could slip into an authoritarian backslide. Emily Holland and Hadas Aron react to this claim, most notably asserted in Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s new book, ‘How Democracies Die’, noting that the decline of one of the most stable, long-lasting democracies in the world can only be compared to the decline of other lasting, consolidated democracies, of which there are none.
Why the media helps make Hungarian elections so predictable
Hungary will hold parliamentary elections on 8 April, with polls suggesting Fidesz, led by incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is in a strong position to hold on to power. Andrea Fumarola argues that a sharp decline in press freedom over the last decade has helped Orbán to consolidate his political position, but that the dominance of Fidesz has come at some cost to the quality of Hungarian democracy.
Shaping the electoral success of populism: the effects of attributing blame on populist vote choice
Populist messages simplify highly complex political issues by pointing the finger at culpable elites. Michael Hameleers (University of Amsterdam) examines how exposure to media messages that blame corrupt national and European leaders for the problems citizens face affects people’s preferences and so contributes to the success of populist parties.
Far right politics in Germany: from fascism to populism?
The rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was one of the major stories of the 2017 German elections. As Tomáš Nociar and Jan Philipp Thomeczek write, there has been a tendency among some commentators to draw parallels between the AfD and extremist or fascist parties from Germany’s past. They argue that this is both unhelpful and inaccurate, and that the AfD has far more in common with other ‘populist’ parties who have had success in recent European elections.
Book review | Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class, by the Working Class
Inspired by the collection The Good Immigrant, Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class by the Working Class brings together 22 stories reflecting on working-class lives and experiences in the UK today. Edited by Nathan Connolly, this volume offers tales of sadness, struggle, resilience and resistance, all told with warmth and love, that show how class inequality is both personal and […]
Brian Klaas: ‘The incentives for a Trump 2.0 will be exactly the same as the incentives for Trump’
In his first year in power, argues Brian Klaas (LSE), Donald Trump has deployed the tactics of despots and begun to corrode the institutions of US democracy. What happens next? Democratic Audit editor Ros Taylor talks to him about his new book, The Despot’s Apprentice. Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell celebrate […]
Austria’s new interior minister is a man to watch – and not for the right reasons
Herbert Kickl, Austria’s new interior minister, is a man with a worrying hinterland. Although a member of the democratically-elected FPÖ, he engages with a hard right coterie – notably the Identitarian movement. Fabio Wolkenstein (University of Aarhus) warns that while power may temper some of Kickl’s extremist tendencies, it is questionable whether he should be in […]
Book review | The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style and Representation
In The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style and Representation, Benjamin Moffitt approaches populism as a political style that is mediated through symbols, disseminated through the mass media and performed through verbal and non-verbal modes of communication. While suggesting Moffitt’s work is more an extension of the discourse school than a radical break from it, Ben Margulies welcomes this […]
Do centre-right parties win back votes from the far right by talking about immigration?
With the rise of far-right parties in Europe during the 2000s, some centre-right parties spotted an opportunity to win back votes by pivoting towards immigration. James F Downes (Chinese University of Hong Kong) and Matthew Loveless (European University Institute) find that they were more successful if they were out of government at the time. Incumbent centre-right parties, […]
Was Democracy for Realists too pessimistic and US-centric? A call for contributions
When Democracy for Realists was published in 2016, it challenged decades of work by political scientists – arguing that voters make largely unconscious and un-thought through choices based on social and group identities. Hanna Wass, Antje Schwennicke, Pedro Magalhães and Mark Franklin plan to respond with an edited volume that will take a less US-centric […]
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