POP – Political Observatory on Populism – was a blog that published articles and interviews about populism. It was open to everyone, but it was also strictly against fascism, racism, and sexism.

In 2022, POP became a book of interviews to leading experts on populism, here you can check it out.

Since 2025, POP is no longer active. Until then, it talked about populism in all its forms: as electoral strategy, ideology, style, political show, mediatized logic, outburst of social anger and frustration, blasts of coprolalia, social heuristic to make sense of the world, and more.

I am Luca Manucci, researcher with a PhD in Comparative Politics from the University of Zürich, working on populism, political parties, the media, currently (2026) based at the University of Lisbon – Institute of Social Sciences.

I am the author of a book that investigates the links between populism and collective memory, published by Routledge: “Populism and Collective Memory: Comparing Fascist Legacies in Western Europe”. In 2026, I published “The Fascist Zeitgeist: Authoritarian Legacies and the Iberian Far Right” with Cambruidge University Press.

Unless it is stated otherwise, I am the author of the posts. All the ideas and positions are strictly personal.

Most pictures that illustrate the posts have been taken by me somewhere, at a certain point, but others might come from some dusty corner of the Internet: in case they violate any copyright just let me know and they will be removed.

This blog is based on a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License: you can use any material published here as long as you cite the source and do not use it for commercial purposes.