Populism
Book review | The Populist Radical Right: A Reader, edited by Cas Mudde
With The Populist Radical Right: A Reader, editor Cas Mudde brings together seminal social science scholarship on the radical or extreme right in Western democracies produced between the early 1990s to the present day. With a wealth of information that will be of particular use to scholars and students beginning research in this field, the […]
Resistance will come. But will Trump heed it? Lessons from Arendt and Skowronek
Mere weeks into his presidency, commentators are already having difficulties in characterising Donald Trump’s administration. Daniel Kato says rereading Hannah Arendt and Stephen Skowronek may provide some clues in deciphering the new president’s behaviour. Skowronek’s writings point to an ‘institutional thickening’ that may continue to emerge to check Trump, as it has done with out-of-control presidents in […]
‘But what are you protesting FOR?’ What democracy means to those who protest for it
Drawing on research in four capital cities, Armine Ishkanian explains how activists view democracy. She explains why protesters often reject representative democracy in favour of more direct forms – giving them something in common with the right-wing populist movements that elected Donald Trump and helped lead to the Brexit vote. Large-scale public protest is likely to […]
The post-fact world: six steps you can take to fight back
How did we come to be living in a ‘post-fact’ world? Who or what is responsible for the breakdown in trust in fact-generating institutions? Crucially, what can we do about it? In this edited extract from a lecture delivered at several US universities, Mary Poovey, author of A History of the Modern Fact and of […]
Book review | Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, by J D Vance
In Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, former marine and Yale Law School graduate J.D. Vance offers a personal account of growing up in – and eventually leaving – an impoverished white working-class ‘hillbilly’ community experiencing social and economic crisis. While the book has been praised for offering insights into why […]
What to read in the age of Trump
We need to think about democracy – now more than ever. As Donald Trump becomes the 45th President of the United States, Democratic Audit asked Brian Klaas, Russell Dalton, Cas Mudde and Meg Russell what texts they are turning to in order to understand and learn from the Trump phenomenon. This post is a work in progress […]
They had a dream. Now Trump will scrub the melting pot clean
On 20 January, Donald Trump will become the 45th President of the United States. His victory is a definitive break with the vision of America that has prevailed for the past century: a land open to migrants and capable of assimilating different cultures and ethnicities, says Takis S Pappas. The great melting-pot is about to […]
The Kremlin doesn’t promote autocracy – it simply trolls whomever it dislikes
Russia is often accused of undermining democracy, particularly in former Soviet states. The recent reports of Russian-sponsored hacking in the US have led some to go further and claim it is actively promoting autocracy. But Nelli Babayan argues that Vladimir Putin’s chief aim is to demonstrate Russia’s strength – and probably to undermine US and […]
How neoliberalism prepared the way for Donald Trump, by Zygmunt Bauman
The eminent Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman died on 9 January, less than two weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration. In this piece, he blames neoliberalism for abandoning the principle of equality in pursuit of freedom – and argues that Trump’s victory is the inevitable result of a popular craving for a ‘decisionist’ leader who will overturn the […]
Repression, terrorism and fear: Erdoğan’s Turkey heads for the brink
Turkey is in trouble. The failed coup last July gave President Erdoğan further excuse to crack down on opposition parties, the media and academia. Tahir Abbas, who left the country ten days before the abortive putsch, looks at how a country regarded as the great hope of the Muslim world came to be governed by an […]
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