I, the People

February 5, 2022March 11, 2022

I, the People

When I was still a full-time academic, I wrote an article titled “Populists in Power,” which was published in the Journal of Democracy in April 2019. At around the same time, my book entitled Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis also came out by Oxford UP. In both works, I painstakingly analyzed in comparative perspective the most important cases of populist parties/leaders that have enjoyed power in their respective countries. Those countries are, in order of chronological appearance of the populist forces, Argentina, Italy, Venezuela, Hungary, Greece, and the United States. Based on that academic analysis, and aided by a fantastic cartoonist, I decided to condense everything in a very short comic story, combining fictional and real characters. As you will notice (but also see References below), most of the dialogues are direct quotations from speeches or other public utterances by well-known populist leaders. If you enjoyed this blog, you may also want to browse through this slide show.

February 5, 2022February 6, 2022

What happens when populism wins power?

Many people think that, when in power, populism is a “corrective” to democracy. This view is theoretically naive at best and empirically fictitious at worst. Just look at the most important real-life cases of ruling populism and you have a most clear answer to this blog’s title question: When populists win power, liberal democracies turn into illiberal ones; some even turn into real autocracies. Here below are six cartoons depicting, in chronological and historical order, the important cases of populist rule in Argentina, Italy, Venezuela, Hungary, Greece, and the United States under Donald Trump. All six cases have been analyzed and explained in separate chapters in my book Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis (OUP, 2019). As of the cartoons below, these are part of a little comic story I wrote in collaboration with cartoonist Alecos Papadatos, which you can find—and probably enjoy—here and, as a slide show, here.

July 30, 2020August 5, 2020

What path is Trump’s U.S. on?

In early 2019, I worked on a comparative analysis about what happens when a populist leader/party wins state office. It was published in the Journal of Democracy and can also be found here. Perhaps the major finding in that piece was the following:

“Once populists become established in power, what are the paths that a nation might take? The available cases suggest that there are three: 1) Populism might entrench itself and become systemic, inducing weakly liberal parties to shift in a populist direction; 2) populism might turn into outright autocracy; or 3) liberal forces might defeat populism at the polls and return to power” (p74).

The whole logic was condensed simply in the following graph: Continue reading “What path is Trump’s U.S. on?”

December 3, 2019December 3, 2019

Pete Buttigieg

A BID FOR POLITICAL SANITY

The first time I heard about Pete Buttigieg was when he submitted his candidacy for the 2020 US presidential race in April 2019. Who was this guy?

Continue reading “Pete Buttigieg”

November 23, 2019September 4, 2020

The lands of populism

In the hype surrounding the global interest in populism, have you ever thought of, or wondered about, where exactly in the postwar liberal world have populists won office and been able to keep it for good periods of time?

The mapping above puts the lands of populism on display. In top and medium rows are the countries in which populist parties have won at least two (most often consecutive) elections. Bottom row includes the three most recent cases of populist rule.

Save the cases of Poland and Mexico, all other cases are examined in historical depth, compared and analyzed systematically in Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis. Do have a look!