The paper begins by examining the nomenclature and definitions of populism, left and right. It argues that labeling changing political realities in Latin America as “left” or “right,” is an inaccurate oversimplification. It defines populism as a political problem with entrenched disregard for democratic institutions, one that leaves a legacy of deteriorated governance and deeply divided societies.

In this paper we use holistic grading to measure the level of populism found in political parties’ discourse during electoral campaigns. The technique is applied to electoral manifestos from 144 parties in 27 countries from Western Europe and the Americas. For about half the sample, we also code speeches by the candidates or party leaders, which indicate the validity of measuring populism on el...

In a context of highly visible and politically influential populist movements, this study considers the online self-representation of the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) in the United States and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands. A multi-methodological approach was adopted to compare the discursive manifestation of key populism concepts: leadership characteristics, adversary definition, a...

When voters fear that politicians may have a right-wing bias or that they may be in‡uenced or corrupted by the rich elite, signals of true left-wing conviction are valuable. As a consequence, even a moderate politician seeking reelection chooses ‘populist’policies— i.e., policies to the left of the median voter— as a way of signaling that he is not from the right. Truly right-wing politicians r...

Ewen Speed and Russell Mannion correctly identify several contours of the challenges for health policy in what it is useful to think of as a post-democratic era. I argue that the problem for public health is not populism per se, but rather the distinctive populism of the right coupled with the failure of the left to develop compelling counternarratives. Further, defences of ‘science’ must be te...

Recent years have witnessed the rise of populism and populist leaders, movements and policies in many pluralist liberal democracies, with Brexit and the election of Trump the two most recent high profile examples of this backlash against established political elites and the institutions that support them. This new populism is underpinned by a post-truth politics which is using social media as a...

In this era of populist insurgency breaking the mold of democratic politics, two movements clashed.They represented opposite sides of the political spectrum, one emancipatory, the other exclusionary. One may be identified as feminism, the other as populism. This essay analyzes both concepts and explores their connection.

This paper extends the political agency approach to an environment in which voting may be divided between informed and instrumental, informed and ‘expressive’ and uninformed due to ‘rational irrationality’. It constructs a model where politicians may be good, bad or populist. Initially the existence of only good and populist politicians is assumed and the incentives for good politicians to pool...