Populism vs. nativism: 10 indicators to tell the two apart

May 13, 2020September 7, 2020

Populism vs. nativism: 10 indicators to tell the two apart

These two terms (or, better, concepts) are often confused. They are often lumped together under the generic, and generally abused, “populism” label. But nativism and populism are quite distinct phenomena. They have different causes, different ways of developing in contemporary Europe, and different kinds of influence on the democratic societies in which they grow. Clearly, then, they call for different political and policy responses from politicians, policy-makers, and other relevant stakeholders in society. This post is a simple endeavor to point out those differences. If you want to read more about them, please check my previous work on this topic here, here, and here. I am currently continuing my work on nativism within the H2020 PaCE research program. And, in a not so remote future as I hope, there will be more to say and write in book form about Europe’s strongly nativist nations.

Continue reading “Populism vs. nativism: 10 indicators to tell the two apart”

April 26, 2020September 5, 2020

Πώς μπορεί να ηττηθεί ο Ντόναλντ Τραμπ

συντομη απαντηση: ακριβως οπως ηττηθηκε ο λαΪκισμοσ στην ελλαδα

Δημοσιεύθηκε στην Καθημερινή της Κυριακής, 26 Απριλίου 2020. Το κείμενο βασίστηκε σε αυτό το πρόσφατο άρθρο: “The pushback against populism: The rise and fall of Greece’s new illiberalism”.

Απομένουν περίπου 200 ημέρες μέχρι τις αμερικανικές εκλογές της 3^ης Νοεμβρίου και η πλεύση προς αυτές θα γίνει σε αχαρτογράφητα θολά νερά. Ανάμεσα στους αστάθμητους παράγοντες που πρόκειται να καθορίσουν το τελικό αποτέλεσμα θα είναι, ασφαλώς, η εξέλιξη της πανδημίας του κορωνοϊού στην Αμερική και οι επιπτώσεις της στην οικονομία της χώρας. Το δυσκολότερο όμως ερώτημα αυτών των εκλογών είναι άλλο: Με ποιόν τρόπο μπορεί να ηττηθεί ο λαϊκιστής Πρόεδρος της Αμερικής; Continue reading “Πώς μπορεί να ηττηθεί ο Ντόναλντ Τραμπ”

April 12, 2020April 12, 2020

How to beat populism: Valuable lessons from Greece (especially for America)

This is the third in a mini series of posts on how to beat populism. The first post offered a concise theory while the second one validated the theory using Greece’s case of defeating populists as an exemplary case. This third posts is precisely about the lessons Greece may offer to other countries, including the United States, where populism is still in power. All three posts are extracts from my recent essay “The Pushback Against Populism: The Rise and Fall of Greece’s New Illiberalism,” published in the Journal of Democracy 31:2, April 2020.

For other countries where democrats are wrestling with the problem of populism, Greece’s contemporary experience offers four major valuable lessons:

First, modern parliamentary democracies are Janus-faced: One face looks toward a liberal democratic system, the other toward a populist one. In the liberal conception of democracy, societies are divided by multiple cleavages, which must be bridged by respect for the rule of law, institutional norms, deliberative practices, and minority rights. In the populist conception, societies are split along a single line that separates the vast majority of people from a small elite, with these two groups entangled in perpetual conflict. This leads naturally to the conclusion that what matters is satisfying the interests of the majority—even if this should happen to be achieved by illiberal or unconstitutional means. Continue reading “How to beat populism: Valuable lessons from Greece (especially for America)”

April 10, 2020April 11, 2020

How to beat populism: Theory validation

This post is a follow-up to a previous one on the theory of how to beat populism. Here’s the empirical validation of the theoretical points made with reference to the case of Greece. Like the previous post, this one is an extract from my recent essay “The Pushback Against Populism: The Rise and Fall of Greece’s New Illiberalism,” published in the Journal of Democracy 31:2, April 2020. Another post will follow with the lessons other countries may draw from Greece’s rich experience with populism.

We posited in the previous post that unraveling modern populism would require a chain of developments inverting those that brought populists to power in the first place. Following this logic, the line of developments leading to populism’s downfall should begin with a liberal leader who acts within a populist-ruled political system, but in opposition to it. Events in Greece during the period from January 2016 through July 2019 offer perhaps the best illustration that we have of how such a leader’s rise might play out in practice.

Continue reading “How to beat populism: Theory validation”

April 5, 2020May 31, 2020

The politics of pandemic prevention in Spain and Greece

All countries will suffer. But countries with inefficient governments will suffer more than others

This blog post has featured in Libertad Digital (Spain), LIFO (Greece), European Pravda (Ukraine), Bloomberg Views (USA), The TOC (Greece), Nius Diario (Spain), iefimerida (Greece), Ta Nea (Greece), The Globe and Mail (Canada), South EU Summit (Italy), Information (Denmark), Capital (Bulgaria)

When the covid-19 pandemic broke out in Europe, no government had any experience of how to face it and each tried to weather the storm in its own ways. Some governments fared better, some less so. By and large, there are three major factors that have determined, and still do, how governments cope with the virus. These are, first, the resoluteness and efficiency of their leadership; second, the capacity of states and public health systems in particular to deal with such an extraordinary health crisis situation; and, third, the cooperation of national publics in following emergency rules. At a more specific level, as shown by an even cursory comparison of the Spanish and Greek experiences with the pandemic, it seems that a well-integrated and liberal government performs significantly better than one which is disunited and, moreover, diluted with populists. Let’s have a closer look at the two cases.

At the time of this writing (5 April 2020), Spain has close to 130,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus victims and about 12,000 deaths. At the same time, Greece has about 1,700 confirmed cases and 68 deaths. So, the question is: Why these two Mediterranean countries, whose people are equally sun-loving, bar-hopping, and intensely social, and which should have drawn the same lessons from Italy’s preceding experience, have had such different fates during the early phase of the coronavirus crisis? The answer is simple, almost mundane: Different governments!

Continue reading “The politics of pandemic prevention in Spain and Greece”

March 31, 2020April 9, 2020

The case about Hungary

As of today, 31 March 2020, Hungary is no longer a democratic country. This raises at least four major questions in search for answers. Let’s give it a try based on previous research I have produced on this topic (you may follow the links provided).

What did happen in Hungary yesterday?

On Monday, 30 March 2020, the Hungarian parliament voted by a two-thirds supermajority to hand over its legislative powers to prime minister Viktor Orbán allowing him to rule by decree without a set time limit. The pretext was taking emergency measures to address the coronavirus crisis; but the real aim, and final result, was the death of democracy in an EU country. For, at bottom, Hungary’s parliamentary democracy is now officially dead. Continue reading “The case about Hungary”

February 13, 2020February 13, 2020

Populism trivia – 3

There was a time, not long ago, that really important scholars writing about the maladies of contemporary democracy, did not think in terms of populism. For evidence, none of the titles pictured above sitting side by side on my bookshelf even mentions the P-word in their indexes! What a difference from many of today’s authors who proclaim that “populism,” variably defined, is simply the kiss of death to democracy.

February 2, 2020February 3, 2020

Ποιό είναι το μέλλον της ηγεσίας Τσίπρα;

Δημοσιεύτηκε στην Καθημερινή της Κυριακής, 2 Φεβρουαρίου 2020. Μπορείτε να δείτε το περιεχόμενο του άρθρου και σε μορφή photoblog εδώ.

Στις δημοκρατίες, η πολιτική ηγεσία είναι συνάρτηση τεσσάρων κυρίως παραγόντων: της φυσιογνωμίας του ίδιου του ηγέτη, της γενικότερης ιστορικής συγκυρίας μέσα στην οποία δρα, του πολιτικού και θεσμικού πλαισίου της χώρας της οποίας ηγείται, και των προτιμήσεων των ψηφοφόρων. Σε όσες δημοκρατίες διαθέτουν στέρεο θεσμικό πλαίσιο και λειτουργούν σε σχετικά ομαλές ιστορικές συνθήκες, οι ηγέτες δρουν ως εντολοδόχοι που προσπαθούν να ανταποκριθούν στις ανάγκες των πολιτών με τον τρόπο που εκείνοι θεωρούν καλύτερο. Οι δε ψηφοφόροι, ως εντολείς, ψηφίζουν ως ηγέτη εκείνον που θεωρούν ότι προσφέρει το καλύτερο πρόγραμμα για την ικανοποίηση των αναγκών τους. Continue reading “Ποιό είναι το μέλλον της ηγεσίας Τσίπρα;”

January 20, 2020January 25, 2020

The swift extinction of Europe’s ruling nativist parties.

Whether because of the conceptual confusion between populist and nativist parties, (which are often but erroneously lumped together in the ill-defined categories of “far right” or “nationalist populist,”) or whether because of the spectacular lack of knowledge about the country cases out there, most people, including serious journalists, policy makers, and politicians, fail to make sense of the — no so subtle — distinctions among contemporary democracy’s main challengers. Take, for instance, the nativist parties.

First the news: Earlier today, Norway’s Progress Party (party logo pictured above), a long-term junior coalition partner in Norway’s broadly conservative government, quit office. This is small global news, perhaps, but reveals something really big, at least for Europe. For, as of now, January 2020, no nativist party enjoys governmental power in any European country (bar Switzerland). Second, the irritant: Who are now going to cry wolf when no wolf does really exist? Now, the facts:

Fact #1: Before 2000, there were no nativist parties in Europe to have enjoyed governmental responsibilities. Continue reading “The swift extinction of Europe’s ruling nativist parties.”

January 12, 2020April 26, 2020

Bad concepts

This is the third in a series of posts about concepts and the (good and bad) ways in which we use them to conceptualize real-world politics. The first post was about concepts in general and how they work. The second post was about “good” concepts while this third post is about “bad” concepts.

WHEN A CONCEPT IS BAD?

Unlike good concepts, which feature a simple term, unambiguous meaning, and clearly identifiable referents, a concept is said to be bad when (1) it is based on a confusing term, (2) its meaning-to-word is ambiguous, which results in definitional disasters, and (3) its meaning-to-referents is vague, which makes operationalization, and eventually the classification of the units to be analyzed, impossible. Bad concepts lead to a bad understanding of the world.

Several good examples of bad concepts are in Cas Mudde’s new book The Far Right Today (a research area that is close to my own research interests and about which I claim some knowledge myself). The book is full of terms meant to signify a host of “ideologies,” which merge and combine with each other only to produce more confusion. The main definitions (as presented at the book’s end in glossary form) are below. This terminological maze is the result of two major errors: |A| poor conceptualization, which creates definitional disasters, and |B| false synonymies, which derail concept operationalization and frustrate the classification of empirical cases. Let me clarify. Continue reading “Bad concepts”