In this article, Panos Panayotu* introduces the concept of transnational left-wing populism and explains why it is a necessary answer to Donald Trump’s victory. Following Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, he provides a brief overview about the advantages of a populist movement which goes beyond national boundaries and that provides an alternative approach to globalization.
Prof. Rovira Kaltwasser
POP came back to Latin America for an interview with Prof. Rovira Kaltwasser, associate professor of political science at Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile. He is the co-editor, with Cas Mudde, of Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge University Press, 2012) as well as the co-editor, with Juan Pablo Luna, of The Resilience of the Latin American Right (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). His new book Populism: A Very Short Introduction, written together with Cas Mudde, will be published by Oxford University Press in February 2017.
The interview is very dense and full of insights about populism in Latin America and beyond, opportunity structures, political actors and parties, similarities with Europe, and peculiarities of the Chilean case. Enjoy the reading. Continue reading
I am not afraid of words.
If necessary, tomorrow I would proclaim myself the prince of the reactionaries. Continue reading
Prof. Bergmann
POP interviewed Eiríkur Bergmann, Professor of Politics at Bifrost University in Iceland and Visiting Professor at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. He is also Director of the Centre for European Studies in Iceland, and he wrote Nordic Nationalism and Right-Wing Populist Politics: Imperial Relationships and National Sentiments (London: Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming in 2017). This (phone) interview came in the aftermath of the recent turbulent elections in Iceland, and Prof. Bergmann argues that although the Pirate Party did not win the elections, the status quo has been broken. Moreover, the key to understand the diffusion of populist discourses in the Icelandic political debate relies on the country’s nationalist and post-colonialist history. Continue reading
Paul Taggart
Paul Taggart is Professor of Politics and Director of the Sussex European Institute. He has published a number of books including Populism (McGraw-Hill, 2000) and is currently working on populism and the politics of Euroscepticism. In this interview, he explains why mainstream political parties in the UK should not be labelled as populist, and that the crisis of the only truly populist party in the UK, UKIP, should not come as a surprise.
Dr. André Haller analyses the ideological evolution of Alternative for Germany (AfD) and its communicative strategy, the role played by the so called ‘refugees crisis’, and the possibility for right-wing populism to finally thrive in Germany, immune to right-wing populist Pied Pipers since the aftermath of World War II.
In this interview, Samuele Mazzolini discusses the similarities and differences between Latin American left-wing populism (especially in Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia) and European left-wing populism ( in particular about Syriza, Corbyn and Podemos).
Mazzolini is a PhD candidate in Ideology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Essex. His theoretical research focuses on the notions of populism and hegemony in Laclau, while empirically he works on the experiences of the Italian Communist Party and the Ecuadorian Citizens’ Revolution. He previously worked for the Ecuadorian government and was until little ago a regular columnist of the State-owned daily newspaper El Telégrafo. He is a blogger for the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. Continue reading
2015 seemed like the perfect year for populist actors. All over the world more or less populist discourses were spread among the public opinion. In 2016 the diffusion of populism reached new and unexpected peaks. What changed in the diffusion and perception of populism? Essentially, there are three lessons we can learn. Continue reading
You the people are the giant that awoke, I your humble soldier will only do what you say. I am at your orders to continue clearing the way to the greater Fatherland. Because you are not going to reelect Chávez really, you are going to reelect yourselves; the people will reelect the people. Chávez is nothing but an instrument of the people.
Hugo Chávez
Kirk Hawkins
POP interviews prof. Kirk Hawkins. He is the coordinator of Team Populism, a cross-regional scholarly network that studies the causes of populism. He published Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective (2010, Cambridge University Press). He is currently editing a volume that presents Team Populism’s latest work.
In this interview prof. Hawkins analyses the Venezuelan case from a ‘populist perspective’, answering questions about the links between Maduro and Chavez, their populist discourses, and the future of Venezuelan democracy. Continue reading
POP 