Charismatic Movements Last week’s focus on democratic backsliding incorporated many different themes from polarization to personalist leaders. This week’s focus narrows its scope to discuss charismatic leaders and their movements. The emergence of a charismatic leader often brings about democratic erosion. However, many of us struggle to understand why people so easily fall under the... Continue Reading →
Personalism in Politics Timothy Frye in his recent book, Weak Strongman, describes Russia as a personalist autocracy. He distinguishes it from other forms of autocracy such as military dictatorships or single party states. Moreover, he emphasizes how different autocracies behave differently from one another. It can be a bit cliché to say institutions matter, but they... Continue Reading →
Christophe Jaffrelot joins the podcast to explain the phenomenon of Hindu Nationalism and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He is a professor of Indian politics and sociology and among the foremost scholars of Indian democracy. His latest book is called Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy. The police is even... Continue Reading →
Jan-Werner Müller joins the podcast to discuss his new book Democracy Rules. He is a professor of social sciences at Princeton University and the author of the well-known book What is Populism? It really matters how you set up conflict and how you talk about the issue and above all how you talk about your adversary.... Continue Reading →
Kurt Weyland explains how the rise of communism and fascism made possible the proliferation of conservative authoritarianism during the interwar period. He is the author of Assault on Democracy: Communism, Fascism, and Authoritarianism During the Interwar Years. This is the 47th episode of the Democracy Paradox podcast. In the 19th century Europe had thought that... Continue Reading →
Epistemic values determine the types of knowledge societies embrace. The shift from traditional to cosmopolitan epistemic values has important implications for democracy. The Social Value of the Intellectual The trial of Socrates captures the imagination of intellectuals, because it reflects their greatest fear. The natural identity of an intellectual relies on a radical sense of... Continue Reading →
Chris Bickerton defines the concept of technopopulism. He is the author, alongside Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, of Technopopulism: The New Logic of Democratic Politics. That tension between the politics of the whole and the politics of the part, that tension between the politics of generality and the politics of particularity, is really at the heart of... Continue Reading →
A populist logic is necessary to understand the populist mindset. Justin Kempf reflects on Ernesto Laclau's classic On Populist Reason to construct a sense of logic within a largely illogical political mindset. What is Populism? Populism implies widespread support. It indicates popular public policies. So it may come as a surprise populists do not always win... Continue Reading →
In her most recent book, philosopher Chantal Mouffe imagines the potential for a leftist populism.Her book For a Left Populism strives to align her ideas of radical democracy through the vehicle of populism. Justin Kempf reflects on the nature of populism in the piece below. What is Populism? The irony of populism is it... Continue Reading →
Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have explored the evolution of the Republican Party in American politics for two decades. Their new book Let them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality explains the strange alliance between the affluent and working class white Americans into an ideology they describe as plutocratic populism.... Continue Reading →
