Are U.S. policy planners adequately prepared to deal with a potential future burst of populist turbulence in Europe or South America? Steve C. Ropp looks at this understudied phenomenon and offers some suggestions to strategic planners for mitigating its effects on the global democratic core of representative democracies.
The Oxford Handbook of Populism presents the state of the art of research on populism from the perspective of Political Science. The book features work from the leading experts in the field, and synthesizes the main strands of research in four compact sections: concepts, issues, regions, and normative debates. Due to its breath, The Oxford Handbook of Populism is an invaluable resource for those interested in the study of populism, but also forexperts in each of the topics discussed, who will benefit from accounts of current discussions and research gaps, as well as a map of new directions in the study of populism.
Populism has received very little attention from military planners. This is understandable. As a political phenomenon, it is viewed as somewhat removed from security concerns and hence as more legitimately within the purview of those members of the U.S. policy community who deal with political issues. Furthermore, as a dynamic, unstable, and ephemeral phenomenon within seemingly stable representative democracies, it is hard to "see" and hence to study. This makes trend extrapolation regarding the growth of populist movements much more difficult than for other future security challenges such as terrorism or unconventional war. In this monograph, Dr. Steve C. Ropp questions whether the enormous potential strategic consequences of a future burst of populist turbulence in Europe or South America suggest that it be more carefully studied. As Dr. Ropp indicates in his analysis, such bursts of turbulence have dramatically altered the U.S. security environment in the past, present new...
Populist nationalism fuses beliefs that citizens are being exploited by a privileged elite with claims that the national culture and interests are under threat from enemies within or without. Ideologically fluid, populist nationalists decry “out-of-touch” institutions such as political parties and the mainstream press while extolling the virtues of the “people.” They claim that only populists can truly represent the nation and solve its problems, and often call for unorthodox solutions that appeal to the common people. The recent spread of populist nationalism throughout the world has triggered a growing interest in the subject, led mainly by journalists. The Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump in the US have provoked a flurry of media coverage in Europe and the Americas, along with parliamentary debates. Some social scientists have sought to explain the resurgence of nationalism and the spread of populism in recent decades, but important questions remain and most of the scholarship has not adequately addressed the fusion of nationalism and populism. It fails to examine the combination of populism and nationalism comparatively, especially the contrast between the more progressive and leftist versions such as those in Latin America, and the more traditional conservative varieties that are gaining strength in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This interdisciplinary collection by experts on Europe and the Americas fills this void. The volume examines various experiences with populist nationalism, and offers theoretical tools to assess its future. Some chapters are in-depth country case studies and others take a broader perspective, but all open the door for meaningful comparison.
Contributors to this volume take the long view of populism in Latin America—placing current movements into the context of the past. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa have brought the subject of Latin American populism once again to the fore of scholarly and policy debate in the region. Latin American Populism in the Twenty-first Century explains the emergence of today’s radical populism and places it in historical context, identifying continuities as well as differences from both the classical populism of the 1930s and 1940s and the neo-populism of the 1990s. Leading Latin American, U.S., and European authors explore the institutional and socioeconomic contexts that give rise to populism and show how disputes over its meaning are closely intertwined with debates over the meaning of democracy. By analyzing the discourse and policies of populist leaders and reviewing their impact in particular countries, these contributors provide a deeper understanding of populism’s democratizing promise as well as the authoritarian tendencies that threaten the foundation of liberal democracy.
What is the impact of populism on the EU? How did the EU institutions and civil society react to the recent rise of populist parties? To answer such relevant questions and understand populism in terms of ideas, political outcomes, and social dynamics, academia needs to engage with institutional actors, civil society organizations, and policy makers. By bringing together academics, members of European institutions and agencies, and leaders of civil society organizations, this edited volume bridges the gap between research and practice. It explores how populism impacted on European institutions and civil society and investigates their reactions and strategies to overcome the challenges posed by populists. This collection is organized into three main sections, i.e., general European governance; European Parliament and Commission; European organized civil society. Overall, the volume unveils how the populist threat was perceived within the EU institutions and NGOs and discusses the strategies they devised to react and how these were implemented in institutional and public communication.
An original account of contemporary US-Latin American relations, this book utilises neo-Gramscian and historical materialist approaches to build a novel conceptual framework for analysing US hegemony, extending critical theory in new and exciting directions. It disaggregates US power into distinct forms (structural, coercive, institutional and ideological) to convincingly argue that the United States is remaking its hegemony in the Western hemisphere. The first decade of the new century saw the ascendancy of leftist and centre-left forces in Latin America. The emergence and consolidation of the ‘New Latin Left’ signalled a profound challenge to the long-standing hegemony of the United States in the region. This book details the ways in which US foreign policy responded: defining hegemony as a dialectical relationship patterned by multiple and overlapping forms of power, it situates US policy in the context of the Post-Washington Consensus. Making considerable use of confidential diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks, it examines the interplay of different facets of US hegemony, which are inextricably bound up in the neoliberalisation of the region’s political economy. This book brings clarity to what remains an open and contested process of hegemonic reconstitution, and promises to be of interest to scholars working in a number of overlapping subject areas, including International Relations (IR), US foreign policy and Latin American studies.
"This work argues that at populism's core is a rejection of pluralism. Populists will always claim that they and they alone represent the people and their true interests. Müller also shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, populists can govern on the basis of their claim to exclusive moral representation of the people: if populists have enough power, they will end up creating an authoritarian state that excludes all those not considered part of the proper 'people.' The book proposes a number of concrete strategies for how liberal democrats should best deal with populists and, in particular, how to counter their claims to speak exclusively for 'the silent majority' or 'the real people'"--Provided by the publisher.