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This open access book analyses the convergence between ‘post-truth'political culture and the politics of populism. The premise is that there is an intrinsic link between post-truth discourse (referring to mis/disinformation, ‘alternative facts', ‘fake news', conspiracy theories and the general distrust of expert knowledge and official sources of information) and the central narrative of populism, which opposes the ‘common sense'wisdom of ordinary honest people to the ‘expert knowledge'of duplicitous technocratic elites. The book investigates the current post-truth phenomenon as a distinct feature of contemporary political life, and the specific ways in which it intersects with the resurgence of populism. While there has been a considerable literature on both post-truth and populism, they are largely treated as separate phenomena, and very little research has been conducted on their actual connection. The original contribution of this book to an emerging field of study is to develop a strong, coherent and empirically informed theoretical framework for understanding the specific paradigm of post-truth populism. The authors propose this paradigm as a way of interpreting different contemporary political phenomena, such as conspiracy theories, political destabilisation, and debates around immigration, the role of journalists and the media, climate change, gender and sexuality, Islam, and minority rights, as well as a way of understanding the threats and challenges this poses to the liberal democratic model and way of life.

This book provides a series of specific predictions about the distinct impact of populist ideas.In this sequel to the first volume, the ideational approach to populism is extended, providing a robust theoretical framework for understanding populism's consequences and for identifying policies that mitigate its most negative effects. It reaffirms that ideas matter, arguing that an ideational definition of populism leads to more accurate, and sometimes surprising predictions about the impact of populism at multiple levels of analysis. The chapters of this edited volume explore the effect of populist ideas in each of four areas: consequences for state-level institutions, voters, and international relations; and mitigation. The ideational approach encourages us instead to invest in more systematic engagement with populists and pay better attention to our communication skills.It will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, international relations, social psychology, and political communication.

This book presents a collection of studies related to populism in contemporary political discourse. Following growing scholarly interest in the topic, this volume offers a wide panorama on the discursive construction of populism across the political spectrum worldwide. International experts from different backgrounds provide a comprehensive analysis of populist communication in present-day politics. Each chapter in the book constitutes a case study from a different country, altogether offering a global perspective on the construction of populism in political discourse. In particular, the book presents studies from fourteen different countries across the globe: Belgium, France, Spain, the United States of America, Portugal, Montenegro, Italy, Ghana, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Japan, Russia, Poland, and Israel. Here, readers can (1) get acquainted with discourse on populism in the media; (2) have access to ample descriptions of populist communication strategies across frontiers; (3)explore populist discourse by contemporary societies'well-known political leaders from different countries; and (4) examine the intertwining of populism, policymaking, and religion. Rooted in different frameworks, the various chapters offer a comprehensive understanding of the complex phenomenon of populism. The volume also enables the reader to globally grasp similarities and differences in the way populist discourse is built from West to East. International and interdisciplinary approaches form the cornerstone of this volume that will appeal to scholars from diverse academic backgrounds.

This insightful text rigorously examines and accounts for contemporary developments – and crucially a reversal of “democraticness” – in democratic polities and related political processes comparing 38 democracies across the world. The focus is on contemporary developments and recent volatile levels of democraticness.Democracies in Peril? introduces theoretical backgrounds of what makes democracy tick and scrutinises empirical trends and development in “democraticness” in an accessible manner. It explores what “democracy” as a political regime implies and how the liberal democratic model developed, as well as examining the present state of affairs in democracies, the challenges democracies encounter and the perils of democracy as a legitimate system of governance in the 21st century. The book provides a “systemic” approach to adjudicate the effects of this assumed reversal in democratisation in terms of popular preferences, party behaviour, institutional architecture and policy performance. The effects of public policy formation and the role of the state on actual democratic performance are also analysed.Finally, case studies on the Covid pandemic and the development of social welfare demonstrate the complex relationship between government capacities – under pressure – and the quality of democracy, approaching the question: How do 38 democratic states cope with societal problems, populist tendencies and a fast-changing world without degrading their institutional quality and legitimacy?This text will be of key interest to students, scholars, journalists and interested readers of comparative politics, democratisation, public administration, political economy, constitutional law and the social sciences in general.

There is a tendency in public debate to downplay the significance of populism by attributing its rise to the inadequacies of those who vote for populist leaders and parties. But this way of thinking prevents us from seeing that the rise of populism may be linked to problems and shortcomings in the way our democracies work. In this important book, Armin Schäfer and Michael Zürn argue that the rise of authoritarian populism is rooted in two developments that are specifically political in character: first, the unequal responsiveness of parliaments towards less privileged citizens; and second, the growing political role of non-majoritarian institutions, like central banks and international institutions, that remove decisions from public debate and entrust them to experts. Contemporary democracy is increasingly perceived as lacking openness and representativeness. More and more citizens come to feel that politics is made by a closed political class oblivious to the concerns of ordinary people, and those who share this view are more likely to vote for authoritarian populists. Although contemporary populists keep rubbing salt into the wound of liberal democracy, their responses fail to solve the problems of democratic politics. On the contrary, wherever authoritarian-populist parties have come to power, they have damaged democracy rather than expanding it or reducing existing inequalities.

This book examines the new anti-establishment parties electorally succeeding at the expense of their established counterparts and argues that party organization matters for their electoral success.It explores a relationship between these parties'electoral success and their party organization. Using a framework to explain the role of organizational features such as local party branches, party membership, and party elites in this process, it reveals how they help parties to be more stable, cohesive, and legitimate; a state that facilitates better conditions for electoral success. It also shows that control over party organization is achieved partially by the existence of a corporate network associated with party leaders'businesses.This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of party politics and political parties, anti-establishment politics, and Eastern European politics.

This book, by noted German sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer, analyses capitalist development in Western Europe, with a focus on Germany, since the 1990s and its consequences for open society and liberal democracy. Following Heitmeyer's long-term interest in extremism, this book highlights two main threads of discussion: the causes and distribution of authoritarian tendencies, and the processes and steps of escalation of these tendencies through right-wing alliances. It critically views capitalism and capitalist governance in times of crises against problems of political representation and the devaluation of certain groups. It looks at a broad spectrum of attitudes in the population on the bases of a representative longitudinal study called ‘group-focused enmity'. Using the model of a ‘concentric escalation continuum', this book also analyses the steps of differentiation and dynamization of the right-wing spectrum in the process of development of successful right-wing alliances. Heitmeyer meticulously studies how violent processes escalate and increases as a danger for the open society and liberal democracy, especially in times of crisis and unsecured future. The book has important gleanings for anyone seeking to understand and address extremism and political alienation in societies today.

This book explores the mechanisms and elements of populism to develop new theoretical and methodological approaches. Much as populism has been researched, it remains a contested notion without coherent definition and methodology and shaped by dimensions such as ideology, communication style, discourse, mobilization, and organization. It has simultaneously mobilized emotions, produced symbols, affected subjectivity and gender relations, and can manifest itself in different ways and appear in hybrid forms, such as in the cases of Silvio Berlusconi, Hugo Chávez, and Donald Trump. International expert contributors explore how such a variety of phenomena can be explained and analyzed, expanding the scope of populism research by proposing a multidimensional and complex understanding of populism. They argue for a greater epistemological differentiation and propose a methodology that integrates different fields of politics. This complex approach makes it possible to analyze populism as a multifaceted phenomenon and to understand how populisms affect politics and society. Aimed at postgraduates and researchers in populism as well as scholars in political science and sociology, media, communication, cultural, gender, and global studies, the volume also contributes to a better understanding of manifestations of right-wing and authoritarian populism in the twenty-first century.

This open access book by Nils Karlson explores the strategies used by left- and right-wing populists to make populism intelligible, recognizable, and contestable. It presents a synthesized explanatory model for how populists promote autocratization through the deliberate polarization of society. It traces the ideational roots of the core populist ideas and shows that these ideas form a collectivistic identity politics. Karlson argues that to fight back requires the revival of liberalism itself by defending and developing the liberal institutions, the liberal spirit, liberal narratives, and liberal statecraft. The book also presents and discusses an extensive list of counterstrategies against populism. Written within the tradition of political theory and institutional economics, this book uses a wide variety of sources, including results and analyses from social psychology, ethics, law, and history.